A Little History, Part 6: The Great Pumpkin Shoot

Occasionally, we would have the opportunity to have special archery competitions. Sometimes we would shoot at balloons, sometimes playing cards, and sometimes Elisa or I would put up a dollar bill and shoot at it. On October 26, 2005, the last archery class before Halloween, we had a special treat. We had the chance to shoot at pumpkins. A few archers per pumpkin, we had the chance to puncture the orange fruit with our arrows. And who was the first in our group? That's right. I had the first successful shot.

After a while, we decided to see how much damage we could do to the pumpkin, and to that end we decided to leave our successful hits in the pumpkin, only collecting our missed arrows and trying again. Needless to say, we did quite a bit of damage. And had a damn good time doing it.

A Little History, Part 5: Moving the Range

After a summer in Washington and away from archery, I came back to San Diego in the fall of 2005 for my senior year at UCSD. While I was away, they had moved us off of our out-of-the-way, marked, protected range, and onto a new space that was unmarked and open to a cross breeze. I found out later that they had paved the old range and turned it into a parking lot, but for the moment all I knew was that we had been moved to a new setting. It was unfortunate, but we still had a range. Elisa and I were still around, and maybe one other person from the spring quarter, but everyone else had given it up. Archery attrition at UCSD had begun, and the quarter began the way spring had ended: Wednesday afternoons shooting at hay bales and targets.

One quick story from the quarter (that doesn't rate its own post). I found one of my favorite trinkets in a hay bale on the range. After we had finished an end of arrows, we walked up to the hay bales to collect them. One of my arrows didn't want to come out, however. After finally pulling it out, I noticed that the arrow was jammed up inside an old arrowhead that had broken off in the hay bale. I pulled the head off of the shaft, and put it in my pocket, thinking that it would be a cool little souvenir to have. I promptly forgot about it until that night. Playing poker with some friends, I was about even when I noticed something odd was in my pocket. Remembering the arrowhead, I pulled it out and started using it as a card protector, making sure that my cards were not accidentally mucked if I wasn't paying attention. The very next hand, I nearly busted a pretty good poker player when I ended up with four 10s. I still like to have the arrowhead with me when I am playing poker, although now I just leave it in my pocket unless and until I find an opportune moment to pull it out and tell the story.

A Little History, Part 4: The Great Shift

I have been extremely right handed my entire life. Writing that I do with my left hand is just about impossible to read. Seeing me try to throw with my left hand is an exercise in biting one's tongue to keep from breaking down into hysterical laughter. The only left thing about me when I walked onto the range that first day was my politics.

The assistant coach came up and checked us for eye dominance. When she got to me, she decided that I was ambidextrous eye-wise, and said that I could shoot from either side. Being so completely right handed, I naturally decided to shoot right handed, meaning that I hold the bow in my left hand, stand with my left foot towards the target, my quiver on my right hip away from the target, and I draw the bow with my right hand. For a few weeks I started shooting this way, and was doing decently in the class. I was not the best archer in our group, but I was hovering in the top 5 or 10 for sure.

After a few weeks, the main coach, former US Olympic team coach Lloyd Brown, came to the range. After a few minutes of watching me shoot, Lloyd basically asked me "What the hell are you doing shooting right handed?" Lloyd had noticed that I was aiming all wrong, and my arrows were not flying as they normally would. He readministered the eye dominance test to me, and told me that I was left eye dominant. Handing me a left handed bow and finger tab, he had me switch my quiver to me left hip, and got me set up standing left foot forward, holding the bow in my right hand, and drawing with my left. I immediately dropped to the bottom of the class, as everyone else had a few weeks of getting used to the form, while I was starting at about square 1.1 (as opposed to starting completely over at square 1).

It is a good thing Lloyd switched me, though. Of the about 25 people in that class, I believe that only 2 of us are still shooting today, or were even shooting when the next class started in the fall of 2005. Only Elisa and I were left standing, and there is no way that I would still be shooting if I had been left right handed, as the frustration would have mounted and I would not have been able to develop as an archer.

A Little History, Part 3: The Return of the Archer

At the end of winter quarter in 2005 at UC-San Diego, my roommate brought the Spring 2005 Rec catalog. After flipping through the list, George exclaimed "Cool! Archery!" or some words to that effect. As I thought about it, the idea really started to grow on me, and I decided to sign up. George never actually signed up for the class, but on a Wednesday early in that spring quarter, I drove out behind the hospital on the back end of east campus, parked my car, and walked up the hill to the range. There were about 20 or 25 people standing around, waiting for an instructor to come up. This was where I met my friend Elisa (picture), and, for the first time, started to appreciate what archery was really all about.

The range was marked at 10 yard intervals from a line of hay bales up to 50 or 70 yards (as I never got beyond 20 or 30 at that range, I don't exactly recall how far back it actually went). There was a hill on the left side of the range (when facing the hay bales) that blocked the wind, and another one topped with a fence behind the hay bales protecting anyone on the other side from a wayward arrow. If anything disastrous should happen, the hospital was just across the road on the other side of that hill. To the right was a dirt road where we parked our cars, and then across the canyon to graduate student housing. Behind us was I-5 and west campus. There was a trailer that held all the equipment (bows, arrows, quivers, arm guards, finger tabs, targets, etc.), and a few tables where jackets were dumped and the equipment laid out.

That first day, we were shooting from I believe 10 yards, with no targets, and just doing our best to put arrows into the hay bales. As ultra beginners, not clear on the proper form, we couldn't always do it, but it certainly was fun.

A Little History, Part 2: Interim Interest

After camp, archery sat at the back of my mind for the better part of a decade. Beyond Robin Hood movies (and other movies that included a character using a bow), my next real exposure to archery came in the summer of 2004. The Olympic Games in Athens were underway, and I was in a motel room in Flagstaff, Arizona, my base of operations for a weeklong road trip across the Colorado Plateau. Flipping channels after a long day of driving, I came across the archery competition. I watched for a while, not really understanding many of the nuances or key points that I have since learned, but I very much enjoyed watching it as the sport returned to my consciousness.

A Little History, Part 1: First Exposure

My first exposure to the sport of archery (outside of movies and television) was at camp when I was in middle school. Up on the hill above the lake and the baseball diamond, there was a rough little range with hay bales holding targets. At the bottom of the range there was a small structure that housed the equipment and provided a little shade. The equipment was kept in a cabinet, that also had the distinction of being one of the places that always had a wasps' nest.

At camp, the rules of archery were two:

Don't shoot anyone.

Don't piss off the wasps.