Keeping me humble.

I'm usually pretty good at things I like to do.  I'm craftsy, sort of artistic, intelligent, blah, blah, blah.  So pretty much anything I set my mind to doing, I can do.  Particularly if it's something I LIKE doing.

I like archery.  A lot.  I like the people I shoot with, I like the culture of archery, I like the moments when I do a perfect release and the arrow hits the target with a healthy thump.  I like my wooden longbow and my custom arrows (with green, purple and white feathers, which are my heraldic colors) and my awesome purple leather quiver with the hummingbirds tooled on it.  I love my cool little Robin Hood hat Verena made for our archery team.

But I totally SUCK as an archer.  Seriously.  I have the world's worst aim. 

I always was lousy at things that require gross motor activity.  The fine stuff, sure; if I had been inclined that way, I bet I coulda been a neurosurgeon.  I used to make calligraphed documents and petitpoint pillows for dollhouses.  I still do really detailed illuminated manuscripts.  Fine motor skillz, I haz them.

But gym class?  Night. Mare.  I have a brain, and I have a body, and never the twain shall meet.  Good thing my bones don't break easily, cuz when you look up "klutz" in the dictionary, it has my picture.  Big feet, long bones, and eternal weight issues do not make for grace and poise.  Trying to coordinate all of them in any kind of sport is problematical.  The only things I was ever good at was swimming and horseback riding–two sports where something else was carrying the weight.  I didn't keep them up, unfortunately.

And now I have been peer-pressured into standing once a week with a 6-foot longbow and hurling pointy sticks at a teeny round target a mile or more from where I'm standing.  Okay, the target is actually 40 centimeters across, and it's more like 20 yards distant, but when you're standing on the line and aiming at the thing, it looks like a pinprick.  My hands and arms are encased in leather because when that string twangs, it can hurt if it comes in contact with any part of you, and feathers can cut.  It's unbelievable, but I have the scar to prove it.  My longbow is a dinky 28#, which has something to do with the amount of force that it provides when the string is drawn back and released.  One of the archers who is teaching me shoots a 110# longbow, which I can't even budge the string on.

We all, whether we shoot a longbow, a recurve, or an Asian horse bow, look down on the weenies who shoot compound bows.  Sights?  We use our eyes, as God intended!  Triggers?  Nope.  Fingers, dude. Fingers. Okay, we do wear gloves, cuz we're not stupid, but any weakling can get a lot of power out of a fiberglass bow with all kinds of pulleys and stuff.  I'd like to see one of them pick up Dougal's 110# longbow and try and shoot it.

But my point – and I do have one – is that for the first time I'm attempting to achieve competency in a sport.  I'm tracking scores and monitoring progress and even competing in a small way.  I'm doing it because it's fun, and it fits in with my Society for Creative Anachronism addiction, and because my friends all like it, and because I have wonderful people helping me learn what not to do.  But I'm doing it.  And I'm not good at it.

So maybe I should keep doing it.  Because I'm not good at it.  It's too easy to only do things that one is good at, and that's something I've done for a long time.  I like learning new things, but I always have this internal critic going "is this something you can do?" even before I try.  I don't know if I'll ever get to be good at archery.  I may never progress beyond my dinky little bow (which I won in a raffle and is awesome beyond belief) or get to be one of the ones picked first for a team.  I may never win a competition or save the Midrealm's War Points at Pennsic.  But that's okay.  I'm having fun.