These days my archery practice is limited to going out into the
backyard and using a target less than 30 feet away.
To get some of the flavor of mounted archery, try hopping back and
forth (big hops!) continuously, and release while you're relatively
quiet at the top of a hop. Or ride a bike while shooting. The
former will give you some of the idea of continual accelerations, the
latter the experience of having to balance and steer and shoot.
Foot archery is to mounted archery as government jobs are to
startups. The former are all about avoiding exceptions to the
routine; the latter about obtaining results in the face of continual
chaos.[0]
Carabiners were originally invented because cavalry dealing with
carbines wanted fasteners that could both be quickly operated single-
handed and would predictably hold under unpredictable motion. It
wasn't until later that mountain climbers realized they had very
similar, if less stringent, requirements. (the mountain itself
doesn't move)
It is enough to be ahead, 'a little ahead' meaning a knee ahead at
least, on either side. While a normal player would prefer to take
an off-side shot while riding off the other guy, anybody 4 goals or
more can take a near-side shot with almost the same ease.
It is easy to say "anybody 4 goals or more", but rather more
difficult to find them. India has but 19, about 5% of handicapped
players[1] and roughly 0% of the total population. This is a
professional handicap, and even then I am willing to bet that however
nicely they make the near-side play they would have had a more
powerful or more precise play had they been allowed the off-side.[2]
"A knee ahead", however, is precisely what is desired at the moment
of contact. Not more, not less. Dressage riders try to ride exactly
to letters; show jumpers and cross-country riders exactly to jumps.
Neither letters nor jumps, however, are applying their own
accelerations in an effort to mess you up so that at the moment of
engagement they have their own damn knee ahead.[3]
-Dave
[0] "yes," said the computer scientist, "but where do you think the
chaos came from?"
[1] http://www.indianpolo.com/players/players.asp
[2] this is a simple exercise in biomechanics: sit in a chair, feet
on the floor. turn to face 90 degrees to the right, so your shoulders
are perpendicular to your feet. Now look at the floor and make a
forehand swing. Then repeat, but facing left with a backhand. I
believe everyone will find one of these motions less awkward than the
other.
[3] Friedrich Wilhelm Freiherr von Seydlitz is known both for
brilliant cavalry victories and for anticipating Mario games by
riding between the sails of windmills. Given that a cavalryman, in
melee, is trying to ride unpredictably enough so that his point
arrives at a better position than his opponents, I'd claim windmills
had far too much inertia to have been truly interesting.
