Boy time flies when you’re having fun. True to the spirit of the blog, I’ve taken up a new hobby. Hence my complete lack of posting for the last month. Oh, in case you haven’t figured it out from the heading, and let’s admit it, who would, that hobby is Archery. Toxophily, according to the many dictionary sites (didn’t we used to say, according to Websters, or the Oxford English Dictionary? Wonder where they went?) is the art or sport of Archery.
When we made our tree change over two years ago, we told our young boys that in our vast acres of open space we’d have, they could take up archery. Well we strung them out a little, but the upcoming 13th birthday and commencement of high school of our oldest boy made me think it was about time we made good on our promise. We’ve also been trying to find ways to get our kids out from in front of the video screens, enjoying more of the fresh air we moved out here for. Plus I see it as a great opportunity to get some more faster/sons time. Little did I know at that time what I was letting myself in for.
So I’ve spent the last 4 weeks madly researching everything I can on archery, been to a couple of local clubs to try it out, and now have bows arriving by mail order. One for each of the boys, and one for me. As it seems to be with all hobbies these days though, nothing’s ever straight forward. It’s not just a matter of buwing a bow and some arrows and shooting them at stuff. There’s all sorts of customisations to the individual archer that need to be done. Then it’s better if you make your own equipments, do your own maintenance, take up an exercise programme to improve your strength and fitness, and invest in miriad accessories, implements and doodads to help/assist/correct the issues that need to be resolved to shoot an arrow consistent, correctly and without doing injury to yourself.
It also seems it’s an exacting sport where you have to train yourself to do the exact same thing every single time, but the ways to achieve that are as numerous and individual as the stars in the sky. While everyone generally agrees on the principals, the practices are different for just about every person it seems, and finding the “right” way to do something can be very confusing. Heaven help you if you go onto a forum and ask “What beginner bow should I buy?”. You will either be flabbergasted by the thousand different answers you get, or completely bemused by the number of people telling you that you have to go to a club for a 6 months before you should even be asking the question.
Well, never one to follow the system, I’ve jumped in head first and got us all kitted out with enough gear to go from novice to pro (well as much as I could slip past the wife anyway 
). Suffice to say, I’m still in the throws of sorting through the masses of information and misinformation to get the archery steam engine powered up here. Like all good things, experience will be the best teacher I suspect, so until I get some, it’ll be a bit hard to put in my 2 cents worth about my “correct” method of doing things.
Stay tuned as I too start to share my wealth of newfound knowledge on the wonderful world of Toxophily.
Russell.