I'm slinging since february, and I'm completly hooked.

But now, I want to take it farther, in the spirit of the "get a coach" topic... So I'm trying to create the first french sport club dedicated to the sling.

I will explain how I'm thinking of doing it and ask you all for some help and both general and practical advices, within the limitations of my little project ^^
Believe me, I'm sorry for the long and boring speech written in such an awful english... but I need your help

First, a question to Jaegoor : I understood you are training slingers, is it as an official sport or is it reenactment ?
Then, to everyone : I know there is slinging clubs and regulation in the Balearic Island, but i don't understand spanish well enough anymore... so I may state false facts... don't be shy, correct me

What do I want to do ?

Well, to create a sport club... with rules to apply.
Of course, I could have kept it simple and translate the Balearic system.
But I want to promote slinging and so I don't want to use and impose only one style but try to explore the several ways to launch a little piece of something with a bit of string while keeping the basic standard.

So, I'm searching ways to adapt this system. Since I'm looking for a sport, accuracy is the more challenging part to achieve, and so the more intersting. Power will eventually follow ^^

Let me check if I understood the rules :
- You have to use a natural fiber sling, balearic style
- You use stones around 250gr (sorry, can't understand the imperial system ). Well, this point seem to be false, I've seen tennis ball in the pictures...
- Your sling have to make at least 3 turns behind your back
- You sling at complicated distance (30*65cm, 45*65cm, 15*65cm... come on, use 10, 20 or 30 meters !) (I believe I read somewhere in the forum distances like one step is 95 cm and the further is 60 steps... but where ???)

Since I can't picture myself saying the authorities in charge of approving my sport project that I want to send rocks flying, I will use tennis ball or juggling ball, Jaegoor's Rusty ball style. That should be enough to keep them from calling the army and making heavily restricting laws... No, France is not the "human rights and liberty country" anymore (if it was ever, but that's politics and not slinging...)  
Tennis ball are made to make us chase after them when confronted with a solid balearic target (or other trees and barn sides) so another change : the use of a nice ball catcher, that may be taken apart and quite light. Something like this one but maybe with a tight net or fabric big pouch to keep the balls inside. The metal circle may be changed into something like this, also with a pouch added.

So we have a structure heavily based on the time-proved balearic system, but much lighter, "open" and safer looking. Since it's a sport, we may need a graduating system... How about shooting at a tv ?

My questions

Because, yes, I have questions to ask...

- Is there any abvious flaw in my approach ?
- There is slinging club in Spain... that's good. When I talked about this "creating a sport club" with the "sport person" of my city, he told me to look for an "Olympic registration number", to ease the administrative hassle. Do you ever heard about something like this ?
- To create a club or an association, I need to be 3. Parthenogenesis is out, I'm a guy :p So far, I contacted :
* my city's blowgun association, but they are only 3years old, and their president is helping me with all kind of advice on legal work, so I  would feel bad to steal their members (but corruption is on the way, i offered a sling to the president )
* one reenactment group, Celtic period. They seem really interested ^^
* I will contact another reenactment group, a Roman one, a LARP group where sling is an accepted weapon
Do you have any idea of other kind of people who may be interested ? Bowmen ?

That's all (for now), thanks for support and any help and advice you can provide ! ^^

250g in my opinion is wayyyyy to heavy. I would go with something 100 grams to start. I don't like the three revolutions thing either. Many styles have no revolutions and are quick to excecute, like figure eight, Greek overhand and apache.

Get the competitors to dress in nice light uniforms; tee shirts and short. Also throw balls of any kind. Tennis balls are a bit light but safe. Lacrosse balls are reasonable and still quite inexpensive and the French name should be a bonus. Uniforms and balls give the impression of a nice sport not some dangerous activity that needs to be controlled.

Let us know how you get on. The usual problem with establishing slinging as a sport is lack of interest. I wonder if you'll find enough people to establish a competition?

Why dictate sling length and style? The aim is to hit the target from a given distance, so let each person do that as best as he can.

Knaight wrote on Oct 9^th, 2011 at 3:30am:


Of course any style that doesn't work won't be used; at least not for long. That's the good thing about competition, it makes you honest.

Aussie wrote on Oct 9^th, 2011 at 4:21am:

At the same time, there has to be a way to crack down on people sending stuff behind them or to the sides, for safety purposes. And you would be surprised at the stuff people will stubbornly stick with.

250 g are not too difficult.

In Spain one shoots stones with a weight of from 200 to 250 gr.

In Germany we shoot from 150 to 250 g


I myself also shoot 250-g-stones

One sees them better in the flight.

I would renounce Paracord. One can take this material. However, it has many negative qualities.

Also I would not permit any kind slingens. I hold many so-called styles simply for injurious and also crazy.

I like the idea of a standardized system for distance,projectile weight and target size.All other restrictions,to me,seem silly.I have been slinging for the better part of three decades,and the thought of hitting a small target like a milk jug gives me a headache.Something more in the Balaeric size seems realistic(How big is it,1 meter?). Why limit the materials used,maybe have two classes,traditional and open.Traditional would be non-synthetic with a set sling length,and open can be anything.

 Let me know when we have all decided on something.Paleoarts came up with a system,it somehow gave me a headache.Can we not,being the worldwide authority on slinging,come up with the standard?Let's start a topic,make it a poll if needed,and see it through to the end(standardization for competition).

Brett

P.S.   For the purists,it would be OK to have World Standards and Balaeric Standards.At any slinging event worldwide you could have three classes,Balaeric,World and Open.