It’s been a week and a half since the end of Lilies War. The blisters have now healed and I’ve had a chance to give thought to my first Lilies shooting only period equipment. By period equipment, I mean bows that do not have a cut in shelf (shooting off the hand), do not have a metal knock point, and do not contain any fiberglass.  For the entire war I shot my 70″ tri-lam longbow with horn nocks.  The bow has hickory belly and back with an ipe core. It was made by Joshua at Bowskin Archery.

As I said in a previous post, I have switched to shooting only period equipment. Shooting period equipment has been both a humbling experience and exhilarating. Shooting less forgiving equipment leads to lower scores, in general. If concentration wanes just a bit, it is quite easy to throw arrows way off line and/or whack your bracer with the string. Overall, I believe that I improved as the week progressed. One way to track improvement involves shooting “standardized” competitions. For the Kingdom of Calontir this involves an IKAC (Inter-Kingdom Archery Competition). IKACs involve shooting two static rounds and two 30-second speed rounds at 20, 30, and 40 yards.  Compared to my Period Longbow score just a few weeks ago at Horse & Falcon, I improved by 30%. I’m hoping to continue improvement.  To do so, I need more practice at 30 and 40 yards.  Unfortunately, I was the only person to shoot the Lilies War IKAC with a period handbow. 🙁

Highlights?  I made the semi-finals in the Ladies of the Rose Tournament.  In this tournament, former Queen’s of Kingdoms choose a champion to shoot for them. I got beaten by Cian Rhys Gravenor and Thomas ap Dewi, the eventual winner of the competition.  I also finished first in a Period division of one shoot after a shoot-off with Alessandra de Piro.

All-in-all, I was satisfied with my performance, but recognize that I need to continue to practice and improve.