Classifying the Archery Performance with Conditional Effects on Angular and Linear Shooting Techniques

Abstract

The archery sports skills are commonly assessed from the physical, psychological, biomechanical and perceptual aspects. Apparently, archers also encounter outdoor obstacles that potentially affect their performances. However, little is described on the different conditions encountered during the shooting in relation to archery techniques and its performances. The study aims to investigate archer’s shooting performances under outdoor conditional stresses, considering two shooting skills: Angular Shooting Technique (AST) and Linear Shooting Technique (LST). Outdoor experimental setups involving a university-level male archer performing 36 shots (6 ends of 6 arrows) each for the 70 m distance target using AST and LST techniques, under nine different conditions: morning, noon, night, hot, rain, calm, windy, cloudy and extreme 6-arrow-shot in 2 minutes were included. Recorded scores on Archery Score Pro software were used to determine the archery performances. The shooting techniques classification were based on the recorded arrow scores using Random Tree algorithm in the Waikato Environment for Knowledge Analysis (WEKA) tool. Classification analyses showed 83.3% distinguishable by shooting conditions; accurately classified by 97.9% on the extreme conditions, 98.1% for first three end shots and last three ends shots. Findings showed that AST outperforms the LST under different outdoor conditions.