Hi all of you who would ever read this post. Originally the game Rome Total War renewed my interrest in the ancient armies and the Rhodian slingers unit brought me to the idea of having a try a month ago. After a few days of training and trying i finally stopped to be an imminent threat to myself and my neighborhood. Then I slowly managed to get from, say 50-80 m distances to my personal record with stones around 170m and average throws 150-160m. My wife and relatives look a bit strangely at me but they are somehow settling down. Just behind my house I have got a humble slinging range  bordering with a park so if I heard the stone hit branches or ripping leaves I know the minimum achieved distance. But people somehow go through it so I´ll have to adjust my azimuth to the fields without knowing the range  Anyway, concrete bullets are great !! Here are some vids:
 
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pcVJemPd2x8
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZNvObGx3VEM&feature=relmfu
 
My favourite style is figure 8 which I started with and now I am mixing it with a kind of sidearm.
I have alredy added my pin to the members map. Looking forward to some neighbors

Hallo Zamorskym, welcome to the forum!
Greetings,
Mauro.

Hello and welcome.  I've got to ask, how did you throw the flaming one?

To Bill Skinner : It´s just 5cm fuse duct taped to a stone and lit from a candle that is not visible on the video as I wanted to shot the high trajectory with the camera. And I threw it as any usual stone - figure 8. And if stopped properly (playing in HD), there is a nice flame spiral wnen the stone was just leaving the craddle. It shows how fast the rotation is. (I guess hundreds per minute depending on the stone).
To Dan : Thanx. It came to my mind when I was thinking about pyrotechnics

Sounds like you're getting some good distance  
If the fishing weight was glande shaped then you probably got way over 200 metres !
 
liked the fuse shot too.  
 
Isn't yurek somewhere in the czech republic ?
 
If hes close to you would be well worth hooking up - most of us could learn something about distance slinging from yurek  

Hello, Zamorskym;
    Welcome.  You're getting some very respectable distances.

I'm 57 and one thing I know for sure.  The older you get the more important warming up prior to slinging or any other exercise is.  Once you reach a certain age it's essential.

So, after a while and some persuading myself I decided to braid. Before it I had been a bit afraid that it´s too difficult. It´is sooo easy like having to sling a hundred of nice pebbles. I decided for jute and three bridind following the Dan Bollinger´s guide. It turned out to be a bit shorter (just 50cm folded) than i had expected but it doesn´t matter as I have already caught the idea. Before this one I had 4 slings three of which ruptured their pouches because of the too thin leather used.  Here´s the picture. The lowest sling is the last accident (85 cm folded), the middle one is my favorised "hard laborer" (only the green plastic bead, that helped me to increase the distance more than twice, sometimes cracks when hit with a large stone or hard surface) and the upper one is my " masterpiece".  
 
Now my standart range is somewhere around 170-180m but with heavier stones than before. I have already reached 200m twice.
 
So cu next time