Archery

Once we began doing other kinds of activities besides playing organized sports I learned to really enjoy PE.  My favorite thing of all was learning Archery! 

I had never shot a bow and arrow before.  Sometimes when I was little dad would take us target practicing with him, but he shot rifles and shotguns.  They were noisy!  Dad would help me hold his big gun, place it's butt against my shoulder, and slowly squeeze my finger and the trigger until BANG!  The riffle went off, the barrel jumped, the butt jammed into my shoulder, and my ears rang.  OWWWW!  That hurt!  But I always wanted to try again when it was my turn.

Shooting a bow and arrow was a totally different experience, and I loved it!  The first day of class our teacher helped us choose arrows that were the right length for our arms, then she fitted us out with finger tabs and arm guards and our bow.  I couldn't figure out why we needed arm guards, but I learned.

She taught us how to draw a line in the dirt, pointing at the target 20 yards in front of us.  "Stand next to this line," she told us, "With your left shoulder facing the target."

OK.  That was kind of weird.  I though we should have our bodies facing the target, but I did what she told me to do.

"Hold your bow in your left hand, lay it flat perpendicular to your body, then place your arrow on top of the bow," she continued. 

"Knock your arrow," she said, but it took us awhile to figure out how to get the string between the plastic knock, "then turn your bow, hold it straight up and down in front of you, put your two first fingers around the arrow, and pull back."

Sounds easy, doesn't it?  Only, how in the heck do you get your arrow to stay next to the string and not point off somewhere to the left? And how do you hold it anyway, without making a fist around the knock and the string?  And how far back do you pull? 

We learned quickly how to master all of these steps, and also how to anchor our thumb under our chin, hold the arrow steady, aim at the target, and release.

The first time I let go I found out why we needed an arm guard.  I was  supposed to rotate my elbow away from the string, but more often than not it was still there when the string snapped past, creating a lovely blue, black, and purple bruise on the fore part of my arm.  I kind of liked showing off my bruise, though.  It was like bragging about the wages of war or something.

By the end of the first day of Archery I had mastered my stance, my draw, anchoring, and releasing, even remembering to stand still until the arrow hit the target, letting the bow tip backwards towards my head.  I thought I was pretty good, although I was only hitting the outside edge of the target.  This was better than a lot of the other girls, though.

By the end of the week I was hitting the target every time, and getting pretty close to the bulls eye sometimes.  By the end of the second week I hit inside the bulls eye circle five out of six shots, and thought I was darn good.  Once I got six bulls eyesin a row, and I was hooked.

Archery didn't last very long, but my love for it did.  I talked mom and dad into buying me my own bow and arrows, and I spent every chance I got target practicing.  It was so much fun.  I set up a target in a meadow up at the cabin and shot and shot and shot.  I found an archery course out at Usury Pass Mountain, on the desert not far from our home, and went there every Saturday morning that I could.  I even helped teach archery at girl's camp the following summer, and for the first time enjoyed going to camp.  I loved archery.  At last I had found a sport I could master, and do well.  If only they had taught it in elementary school, I would have had a totally different attitude towards PE.