What will 3 weeks away from archery because of work and school do to me? Make me feel (not quite) like it’s the first time I ever picked up a bow and arrow. Out of 3 arrows, 2 will hit the target while the other one will embarrassingly hit the backboard.
Tonight’s challenge of winning the 50/50 pot involved shooting at the individual playing cards tacked up around paper targets. The aim was to hit 2 playing cards to use for playing poker, Texas hold ’em style. And whoever made the best hand with the 5 community cards gets the pot. You’d think it would be easy.
We started at 18m (the furthest away from the wall) and that proved too much of a challenge for most everyone. So we closed in to the 15m mark and after a few rounds, more than half of us still haven’t hit any cards. I found myself hitting targets, even the occasional bullseye but for the life of me, I couldn’t zone in on any cards. It’s like somehow your eye and your hand doesn’t communicate when you slap a smaller target right next to a bigger target.
So closer we move up to the 12m mark. And then the 10m (which is the nearest) and if THAT wasn’t happening, then lastly, we’d walk up to the backboard and just stab our arrows through any 2 cards so that we can participate. I was one of those pitiful ones tonight. Ack.
I didn’t even care about winning the pot, I just wanted to be able to hit 2 cards (from as far away as possible). Definitely harder than it looks but lots of (frustrating because I’m so competitive with myself). Fun.
Great news. My bi-weekly archery meet-up will most likely turn into a weekly one. Awesome.
Photo and police line-up posing courtesy of Rina.
And some pictures taken from fellow archers:
And no word of a lie, I found out there actually are the archer’s 10 commandments, written by Song dynasty (420-479AD) author Chen Yuanliang in “The Guided Tour Through the Forest of Facts“:
The classical method says: “Set up your shot in your mind, then carry it out with your hands.” So if your mental control goes, your shot has no basis for hitting the target.
01. Thou shalt not let your mind wander.
02. Thou shalt not be distracted by worries.
03. Thou shalt not arrive in a rush.
04. Thou shalt not be drunk.
05. Thou shalt not be hungry.
06. Thou shalt not shoot after overeating.
07. Thou shalt not be angry.
08. Thou shalt not shoot when you don’t want to.
09. Thou shalt not be so engrossed in shooting that you don’t want to stop.
10. Thou shalt not compete aggressively.
How many commandments did I break tonight unknowingly? Yeah, I count five. Gadzooks, could explain my “May as well have shot blind-folded” shots tonight. I shall take this under advisement for next time.
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