HOW I BECAME AN AMBIDEXTROUS ARCHER

 

 

 

 

Hello! I am Roberto Gonzalez, traveler, competitor, coach and researcher of

the Sport of Archery in all its disciplines.

 

 

My sporting career within Archery includes the competitive practice of all types of bows and traditions (the 4 main disciplines), which is not very common since in general archers choose a shooting style and stick to it all. In life, they sometimes get to know and try 1 or 2 precision static styles (for example recurve, 3D or barebow) but even this is not very common, much less to change from a static style to a dynamic one, or from a western tradition to an oriental etc.

 

 

As the founder of the "Horseback Archery Mexico" archery school, in this blog I will tell my story of how I got to know and started this sport, being at that time a completely unknown tradition and sport in my country.

 

 

 

Year 2003 of my sports career

 

 

Always looking to learn more and take on new challenges, having always been involved in precision archery and Olympic professional archery, I tried the modern style with barebows and takedown recurves. At that time it was not yet so common to shoot both styles.

Not wanting to mix up my right-handed, Olympic-style Mediterranean technique (I was just coming from the process for the 2000 Sydney Olympics and still competed at the World Universiade in South Korea that year) I started shooting recurve bows left-handed.

In addition to my right-handed Olympic bow competitions, I remember shooting in 2003 some 3D fields in Mexico City with my left-handed recurve bow, a very nice, strong 42# bow, very accurate, using the same weight as i was using with my Spigarelli olympic right handed.

In my experience, I can say that the idea of "dominant eye" is just a myth and that the sport of Archery SHOULD be ambidextrous, as it greatly improves the balance and stability of the archer's overall body, as well as prevents injuries on the spine from heavy or constant loads on one side only.
 

The picture is me with my AF 36# equestrian bow that I can now shoot comfortably from both sides, using an ambidextrous hip quiver I designed, which allows arrow loading from both sides and works for that specific technique and bow: Ambidextrous precision Archery and Horseback Archery.

 

To learn more about this exciting sport, I share content in Spanish for Latin America on my academy and pro-shop page:

 

 

https://horsebackarcherymexico.com

 

https://www.youtube.com/@horsebackarcherymexico

 

https://www.facebook.com/horsebackarcherymexico

 

 

Roberto González,

 

Founder Horseback Archery Mexico