Archery = (Adjust + Record + Refine) Repeat

I ended up adding tiny little dots of flourescent and white paint to my arrow's fletchings yesterday. It's because even the best archers at times have arrows that miss the target completely and travel to places unintended. Sometimes, during practice, my coach will even bring out the metal detector when an arrow has flown so wayward that it becomes very hard to find.

Many archers get flourescent fletchings on their arrows so that they can be easier to find but because I went for red and black fletchings instead of flourescent ones, I thought putting dots of paint on them would help when they do fly wayward. I made the tiniest of dots becasue too much paint of course would affect the weight of the arrows, affecting the way they fly.

I've been recording these sorts of adjustments to my arrows in my little notebook. (A moleskine decorated with a white gel pen and then sprayed with a fixative.)

Small notebooks are also in every archer's gear bag ... to record all sorts of things ... like what number their site was on when they shot from a certain distance. What the wind was like. How many pounds their limbs weighed ... and on and on and on ... to account for every little variable that might provide insight on how their arrows performed during a shoot.

This is a site. It attaches on the bow. When you don't use a site, you shoot what is called a "bare bow" where rather than using the site to record where to aim, you use landmarks to adjust your aim. I started out as a bare bow shooter and so using this site is a new thing for me. What I'm learning about archery is that it's a never-ending process where you adjust, record, refine ... and then start all over again and again.

You never really arrive. You just continue ... as long as you stay committed.