This past Sunday, I had the dubious pleasure of whiling what promised to be a lovely spring day. ..away indoors waiting to shoot two arrows and scratch out one page of words.
It happens that I passed my test by hitting the second of my two shots, but the test itself made me realize that one key aspect of archery, for me, is that there is absolutely no room for faking, cheating, schmoozing, or similar unpleasant (yet potentially convenient) nonsense.　This thought arrived on the heels of two demonstrations by high ranked folks. These demonstrations didn’t go quite smoothly, and it was simultaneously humbling, reassuring, and disappointing to see teachers missing the target . On one hand, it proves kyudo is a lifetime of improvement sort of thing, because even though they missed more than half or their shots, they looked stable, focused, and intentional as they did. On the other hand, even if I do this forty more years, each arrow is still independent, and if those teachers weren’t hitting, then its doubtful I will either.
