Hello All,
Well, another quarter has come and gone! We’re on spring break now, and spring itself is just around the corner. We’re all excited and feeling the growing energy in the world around us.
This quarter was full of rain and clouds, snow and sun, and lessons for us all. I found that it was a difficult time for myself, but I was pleased to discover that when learning about something I was really passionate about, I was able to come out of my internal solitude, and could wake up to the world. This was an amazing lesson in how to bring myself out of a funk, and also a good way to find out what I am actually interested in, rather than what I think I should be interested in.
This quarter I particularly enjoyed making pine needle and cedar bark baskets with the help of guest staff member Angie Jordan; building a stone and clay oven on the banks of a river in which we cooked two steaks, a trout, amaranth crackers and some root vegetables; and learning how to make a arrows with Australian archer, Peter. I guess I like making physical things that I can see and take with me. While I enjoyed learning about animal forms, bird language and human tracking this winter, I’ve found that I’ve had a lot more energy when I’m creating something with my hands. I think this may be a reflection of the crafty aspect of winter that many traditional cultures living in temperate zones took part in.
Arrow making was a blast, particularly so because I could put the arrow to use immediately after making it in class! We were each given a dowel, shown how to oil the shaft and cut a nock in one end (against the grain!); cut feathers; attach the fletching with sinew dipped in hide glue and wrapped around the shaft; taper the end and glue on a target practice point. Once this was done, Peter explained to us the idea of intuitive archery. The concept is against the practice of sighting down the arrow with the bow held vertically up and down (as archery is often depicted in media). Peter used the example of basketball to explain it to us. When we shoot a ball into a basket, we don’t hold the ball up near our heads and sight in a line from the ball to the basket. Instead, we focus on the basket itself, and shoot the ball. I’ve thought of the idea of learning to get a basketball in a hoop before, and in my very short and modest basketball “career” at a small private high school in southern New Hampshire, I learned that each time I threw the ball up and it missed, my mind collected the information that the amount of force and direction and trajectory I had just used was not the combination needed to get the ball in the basket. This theory kept me from getting discouraged when I missed the hoop over and over again, because I could see that even though I didn’t get the ball in the right place, I was learning how to, by process of elimination.
Intuitive archery is very similar. It is possible to hold the bow vertically and sight down the shaft and calculate the amount the arrow point needs to be raised over the target depending on how far one is from the target in the line of sight, just as it is possible with basketball. But when you are playing basketball, the time, calculation, and position the ball needs to be held in to sight down it to the hoop, is highly impractical, just as it is when hunting. What is much more valuable is having the body know automatically how to get the ball or arrow to the target in the smoothest and quickest manner. Thus, intuitive archery involves focusing on the target, bringing the bow up smoothly from it’s place at your side, coming to a slightly angled position in front of you, and letting the arrow fly without further adjustments or sightings. Though it may feel less structured and programmed than the other method, it allows the body to learn what works, and maybe more importantly, what doesn’t. It focuses the archer’s energy on the place where you want the arrow to go, rather than dividing the focus between the arrow and the target. This allows the archer to shoot from many different positions, as it does away with the necessity of having the bow straight up and down.
After class I practiced using this method and was highly pleased to hit the foam deer target many times in the place one would want to hit a deer! For a measure of my enthusiasm over archery in general, my boyfriend just gave me a belated valentines present of six beautiful handmade practice arrows!
It’s been a winter full of lessons and discoveries for many of us, and I’m grateful for all the creatures and processes that have made them possible. I’m also glad to have a break, some time to reassess how I want to spend my last quarter at WAS, and time to determine what I want to get out of the spring curriculum!
So long for now!
–Dana
NatureSkills.com's Wilderness Survival Skills Blog
