Day 106, 180609

About two months ago I started an archery course, as part of task #68. Signing up with South Leeds Archers for a six-week beginners course, the first of the year, I thought I'd consider the task completed when I'd finished the course, not just after the first lesson.

Eight weeks later, archery is over, done and dusted, and all that jazz. What have I learned from it?

1. How to string a recurve bow.

This is harder than it looks, partially because it's counterintuitive. Fitting the limbs to the body is also counterintuitive, because they go on the wrong way 'round. When New World continent-conquering heroes had run out of bullets, they picked up the bows of their fallen enemies, and promptly took their own eyes out because they didn't understand the technicalities of recurve bows, and I can see why. But, get your head around the whole "you're doing it backwards" thing, and it's fine.

2. Consistency is everything.

Seriously, for three weeks it was all about "get your arrows in a good grouping without thinking about the golds". Then we moved onto using sights, which changed the grip and position, and that really threw me for a week. But, they're right. Concentrate on getting the arrows in the same spot, every time, then we can work on moving where that spot is. Changing your position on the bow, even a tiny bit, can make a huge difference to where the arrow will strike. I spent a week not realising that I should be touching the bow string into my nose and under my chin, not just under my chin; having two reference points is a huge help.

3. This is a survival skill.

Someone put a picture of a squirrel up on a target one week. It freaked me out a little. Reminders that really, this is a method of killing something did make me take a step back, because I'm not mad on the whole taking life away thing (I get guilt killing greenfly on my roses, which probably makes me some sort of big girly wuss). There is a huge element of skill involved in this, and it's skill I like to have, but the fundamental reasons for having the skill in the first place is something I have to think about.

4. Archers are nice people.

Generally, yes, people who carry weapons are quite nice to other people who carry weapons. The South Leeds Archers are fun people to be around, although social skills aren't necessarily a high priority. Not unlike geeks, really.

5. Arrows hurt.

Dropping the arrow off the guide rail onto your hand makes you go "ow". Doing it twice in quick succession gives you something that looks like fang marks and bruises that'll last a week on the back of your hand just above the thumb. Forgetting to put a bracer on your arm and then not holding the bow quite right means you'll get a bruice on your forearm that stings a bit. Not wearing finger tabs means your fingerprints will be worn off by the end of the session and you'll spend the next week wondering why the skin on your fingers is flaking off. Thankfully, nobody shot me, so injury was restricted to those things.

6. What all those bristly bits on pro bows are.

Stablisers. They're there to add weight to the bow, to make it move less when you're holding it. Of course, you have a fine balancing act between the amount of weight you need to provide inertia, and the amount you can hold without giving way. I added a stabliser and my grouping became much tighter; they are useful things to have.

7. How these things are scored.

It can be nuts complicated. It can also be very simple. Decide early on which way you'd like it to be.

8. Yellow = gold.

No matter how many times you call it yellow, and no matter how much it looks like a primary colour, someone will always correct you and call the centre circles the gold.

9. I enjoy the sense of peace.

You have to concentrate when shooting. Really concentrate. I would have enjoyed it more, I think, if there weren't two kids on the course constantly talking (or arguing with their Dads about how much money they'd get for hitting the target). However, in the brief moments where they were keeping quiet I could feel my concentration narrowing to a fine focal point, just in front of the arrow tip or on the other side of the sight, and there was an almost zenlike quality to those moments which I enjoyed. Concentrating at that level for any amount of time was very therapeutic and I really appreciated those moments when they came. Invariably, those moments came on shots where I hit the gold. It felt right.

So, that's that. I enjoyed doing it, and it's a skill I appreciated learning, but I think I'm done with archery for the time being. I'll be glad to get my Friday evenings back, and not have to keep an eye on the weather (out of a six week course, two of those weeks were rained off and one cut short) quite so much. I may go back to it, and if I get the chance to shoot I'll certainly keep my eye in, but for the time being I'm done.

Unfortunately, I'm putting task 3 on hiatus. I'm not keeping up with my photo-a-day thing, and so I might have to change it to "take 365 photos that represent a year's worth of shots over the course of the experiment". We'll see; I might pick it up again where I left off, but the "consecutive days" element will probably fall by the wayside.

Currently running habitual tasks: #3 (94/365, stalling), #13, #26, #37 (2/<34), #60 (11/50), #68, #66 (61/250), #87, #88, #100 (3/>3)
Currently running exploratory tasks: #38 (1/18), #17 (1/54+), #57 (1/9+)
Currently running growing tasks: #41, #52
Completed: 9
Remaining: 92