Archery
A while back Cleetus, Mrs. T and I went to the archery range in the park SF. It was tons of fun, and really made me appreciate the skills of people who could actually hunt or fight with bows. We could barely hit the target from 30 feet away!
A guy next to us took pity and helped us out. He had been on the Philippine Olympic archery team and had taught archery at a university. He gave us some good tips. He and his son were shooting from fairly close and with no target. He said that the first thing to learn is to be consistent and to cluster your shots. Only then do you worry about accuracy and aiming the arrows at a particular target. I found this to be very true, as it was extremely hard to just be consistent.
The people to one side of us, with the snazzy high-tech bows, were shooting from the edge of the range. The arrows left their bows like missiles and made a buzzing sound as they passed by. When we arrived, we didn't realize that people were shooting from that far back (they really were ridiculously far away) and walked right in front of them. Luckily, they realized that we were clueless and didn't shoot us.
The guy on the other side of us was using a normal bow, but still shooting from very far away. He was actually shooting up into the air, and using the arc of the arrows to hit the target. After trying our hand at archery, that guy was much more impressive than the high-tech guys, even though they were further back.
It was kind of scary having people on either side of us shooting such powerful bows. We were very careful to stay in the center of our lane. I imagine it to be like a gun range, but with everyone a different distance up each lane. Not really a fun place to hang out. Eventually we moved to a different target, one where there were normal people next to us.
A guy next to us took pity and helped us out. He had been on the Philippine Olympic archery team and had taught archery at a university. He gave us some good tips. He and his son were shooting from fairly close and with no target. He said that the first thing to learn is to be consistent and to cluster your shots. Only then do you worry about accuracy and aiming the arrows at a particular target. I found this to be very true, as it was extremely hard to just be consistent.
The people to one side of us, with the snazzy high-tech bows, were shooting from the edge of the range. The arrows left their bows like missiles and made a buzzing sound as they passed by. When we arrived, we didn't realize that people were shooting from that far back (they really were ridiculously far away) and walked right in front of them. Luckily, they realized that we were clueless and didn't shoot us.
The guy on the other side of us was using a normal bow, but still shooting from very far away. He was actually shooting up into the air, and using the arc of the arrows to hit the target. After trying our hand at archery, that guy was much more impressive than the high-tech guys, even though they were further back.
It was kind of scary having people on either side of us shooting such powerful bows. We were very careful to stay in the center of our lane. I imagine it to be like a gun range, but with everyone a different distance up each lane. Not really a fun place to hang out. Eventually we moved to a different target, one where there were normal people next to us.
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