In Feb 2011 Jehad Shamis invited me kindly to take part in his archery classes, meet his students and share some knowledge. Here is a short video:
Arrow and Bow: The Revival of Turkish Archery from Mansoor Suleman on Vimeo.
With powerpoint presentations I first gave a bit of theoretical and historical insight. The topics were mainly the different disciplines and equipment of the Turkish/Ottoman archery style. And of course afterwards we practiced all together.
Jehad is teaching and promoting archery and thumbring archery in the London area and beyond. He is not tied to one training location but rather flexible and teaching also in schools for example. But I am absolutely thrilled by the number of students he is teaching and their skills. I visited 4 groups on 2 days and was astonished how many students he has. He has more students than any of the thumbring archery groups in Turkey! Besides he dedicates all his time to this, he is a full time archery instructor. And he does all this silently, patiently and stays down to earth.
If anybody in England wants to join his groups or just wants to have a chat about archery and thumbring archery in particular, here are the contact details:
Jehad Shamis
''Archery for all - Keeping you on target''
Phone number: 07915934732