Centering

Last Saturday my husband Alan and I had an appointment to attend a surprise activity I'd set up for us. The activity was an hour of target shooting at a local archery range. Alan was pleasantly surprised. I used to shoot informally many years ago, usually out in fields and occasionally at targets while at camp. Alan had shot with a bow years ago too, but usually had to make-do with someone's right-handed bow, and so he never became very good at archery either. I thought it would be fun for both of us to go to a range together, and since it had a well-stocked pro shop and the bow rental was included in the price, I assumed they'd have left-handed bows available.

Alan knew I had done a fair amount of shooting here and there. "This is something you'll be better at than me," he said.

"I'm not sure," I answered. "It's been a really long time since I shot."

We were ushered to a shooting line in a basement range. There were about eighteen lanes, all full, mostly with teenagers. Alan was given a left-handed bow with about a 25-pound draw. Mine was the same strength. After brief instructions, we began shooting groups of three arrows at targets placed 10 yards downrange.

I've always been an instinctive shooter; my aim was mostly a trial-and-error process since I had never received formal instruction in something so basic as how to aim properly. I held the bow at what I felt was the proper height for the target distance and kept both eyes open and fixed on the target. I drew back with two fingers, one on either side of the arrow nock, and loosed when I felt my aim was right.

I hit my target about as often as I didn't. It was true in the past, and it was true this afternoon.

After several groups, Alan tried offering me pointers. His arrows were finding a spot on the target more often than mine were. Mine tended to go high, occasionally low, and sometimes got within the circle. Alan was shooting a little more consistently.

"Pull back with three fingers, " he said. "Put your fingers just below the arrow. That's what I'm doing."

"I don't do that" I countered. "I've never shot that way. It's not comfortable for me."

I kept shooting my same old way, and getting the same results for the next two rounds. Finally I questioned why I wasn't open to trying something different. Maybe it would be better. Alan was certainly doing better than I was, and he had shot less often than I had. I changed my draw. I asked him how he was aiming.

He showed me how he was looking down the arrow shaft with his left eye, down past the tip, held on the bow in his right hand. When he was lined up, he released the arrow. "I have a good amount of side-to-side control, but not a lot of vertical control." His groupings were not especially tight, and they tended to land on the right half of the target circle, but he was getting closer to the center more regularly.

I tried his method. I looked down the shaft when I drew back and lined the arrow tip up with the center of the target. I tried always to pull back to an anchor point to keep my draw distance the same. Consistency was important. Almost immediately, I saw an improvement in how often I hit the target within the circle. He and I began to be more competitive. After many rounds, I noticed that I was hitting the upper left quadrant more frequently, and tried to adjust my point-of-aim accordingly. I got closer to the center. My groups became tighter.

By the end of an hour, both of us were pleasantly surprised by how well we'd done. We agreed that we would come back. I was happy that Alan had done so well by virtue of having a left-handed bow to use, and that I'd done so much better by virtue of taking some pointers from him.

We took the targets home. They're lying on the dining room table. I've briefly thought of tallying up the scores, but the higher score doesn't seem to matter enough to determine whose it is. Sometimes when we help other people to improve it is reflected back to us, so that we are improved also, and that seemed like an end result and the real success of the hour spent together at the range.