It's been a while since I wrote here. Many things have changed since the last post. Yes, I'm still running, though not lately due to an injury. (more on that later). No, the biggest change in my life is archery. Specifically, horseback archery. Let me 'splain. No, let me sum up.
I have an exboyfriend to thank for the beginnings of interest in archery overall. We were in a outdoor store one day, and I'm not sure what prompted him, but he suggested that we learn archery together. In this area, saying "archery" typically makes most assume the mental image of compound bows and men in lots of cammo. That was my inital impression as well, so not surprisingly, I was a bit hesitant. But I said, hey why not? Let's learn something new. So we blundered our way into buying an extremely basic compound bow, a few aluminum arrows, a release and a target. The salesman tried to be helpful, but we left there not knowing much at all about how to shoot. So in our naive enthusiasm, we started plinking about in the backyard with the bow. A few lost arrows and a complete lack of success while my boyfriend was hitting everything almost caused me to give it up. We stopped in to the tiny little local archery shop to ask a few questions one day, and things changed. Turned out, all I needed was a few pointers - essentially a lesson - which the kind gentleman at the shop gave me, a suggestion at a time as he watched me fumble through a few rounds. By the time we left, I was shooting better than my boyfriend, and my interest was renewed.
The next six months, my mild interest continued, disrupted by several business trips and the problem of owning one bow to share with two people. While on a business trip, I started exploring the world of archery on the internet, gleaning what information I could. I found myself much more attracted to the traditional bows - the recurves and the longbows - than any of the modern contraptions of the compound bow. It seemed there was a whole world of archery out there - beautifully polished wood bows, arrows with brilliantly colored feathers, numerous terms I had never heard. I began to read more avidly, browsing through many different types of archery, including target, hunting, Olympic, and 3D. At this point, the target shooting was the primary thing I saw myself interested in. Until one day, I stumbled upon horseback archery.
Let me give you a bit of background, so this will make sense. I have ridden horses, or been involved with them in some form, since I was 7 years old. Honestly, it's amazing I stayed with it, considering that one of the first times I rode was also the first time I broke a bone! But that didn't slow me down at all, and I spent most of my childhood riding horses, cleaning (or cleaning up after!) horses, cleaning tack, or especially, learning as much as possible about horses through my county's 4-H club. Our 4-H club was full of other girls like me, and our main focus was horses. I learned about all their diseases, anatomy of the bones and muscles, different breeds, types of tack. To say that I liked horses is a bit of an understatement. But like most things that consume you in childhood, this one faded a bit with time and the distractions of boyfriends and college and jobs after college. However, the desire never left; it was simply overshadowed by the travel and responsibilities of my new job, and before that, of a challenging major in college.
So when I discovered that, one, there was such as sport as horseback archery, and two, that it was currently being practiced and taught in the US, I was instantly excited and determined to try it out. A bit more research revealed that there was a training facility not too far away from me, over near San Antionio, Texas. Google Maps said it was 8 hours drive away, and I started figuring out if I could do a trip over there to give this crazy new sport a try. Little did I realize that this was the beginning of a new and exciting sport that I have the honor to be involved with as it is developing.
Next post - My Trip to Texas and the first try at Horseback Archery
