There are many archery disciplines practiced in the UK today. The most common is Target, but there are also Field, Flight, Clout, Roving Marks and Popinjay (Papingo). In other words there is something to suit everyone. The bows that are used most commonly are Recurve, Compound and Longbow.
 
Target
This is the only form of archery shot at the Olympics and consists of shooting a fixed number of arrows at targets at specific distances.
 
Target archery is the most common form of archery, and consists of many different rounds, both metric (shot in metres and 10 zone scoring) and Imperial (shot in yards and 5 zone scoring). The variation of rounds cater for Gents, Ladies and Juniors.
 
Field
This is not actually shot in a field, but in woods with very uneven ground. It generally entails shooting at various distances, standing at awkward angles and in possibly rather poor light.
 
Flight
Flight archery is dedicated to shooting an arrow as far as it can possibly go. Shooting a high tech Compound bow the distance can be just short of 1,000 yards. However, for the traditional longbow the distance is generally about 300 yards.
 
Clout
Clout archery is similar to Target except that the arrows are aimed at a circular target area marked out around a central flag at a longer range (180 yards for men and 140 yards for women).
 
Roving Marks
Roving Marks is similar to Clout in that a post or flag is used as the target, or mark. Once the archer has shot to the mark they will then shoot from that mark to the next. Distances between marks vary.
 
Popinjay
Popinjay is shot with ‘blunts’ (arrows with rubber caps for safety) as the archer has to shoot from the bottom of a mast that can be as tall as 90 feet. On this mast are wooden birds that have to be knocked off to score points.