Arch-Angel

Everyday at work, people shoot arrows. Some arrows fly over me, some across me, but the nasty ones are those that are shot at me. I’m not senior enough to shoot substantial arrows at others, so I decided to take the Navy’s call to Be Someone at least.

When we were in Bintan a few days ago, I decided to go for an archery session. I asked my wife to do it with me because it’s not fun shooting things alone. Probably feeling like shooting someone too, she decided to come and shoot some arrows.

The earliest archeological evidence of the bow comes from Germany, dated 9000-8000 BC. In the classical ages, the bow and arrow became a weapon of choice for the Indians (steady lah brudders), Persians, Japanese (hai!!), Koreans and Chinese. They whipped large numbers of their enemies with the bow and arrow, especially if the enemies were huddled together (think of the movie 300. And Troy.) The medieval Arabs used the bow and arrow in their wars, and the Muslim army used them a lot in their subsequent battles.

Practicing archery did me a lot of good, with the 20 arrows I had. To start with, the bow was quite heavy – it took quite an effort to keep it straight up during the shooting phase. Then, after you place the arrow in position, you have to pull the arrow back – that, my friendly reader, is a bloody pain. The tension is quite great, as you have to pull the back of the arrow all the way to your cheek. Then you have to quickly aim and quickly release the arrow unless you want to wait and let your arms quiver and shake, and release the arrow into the bowels of Bintan.

To continue on why archery did me a lot of good – it develops the muscles (pronounced as muskells, please, thanks), and makes you concentrate on the target. There is some skill involved in adjusting the sight and making sure that the sight, the bow, your arm, and the muskells in them are in perfect harmony. Then only when you shoot, you can strike somewhere near the second outer circle near the inner target circle.

I enjoyed it more than bowling though – sometime bowling can be a drag, carrying the balls and rolling them and all that (by the way – hasn’t anyone realized that the infrastructure for bowling is absurdly huge? – the purpose-built hall, the special flooring, the machines to pick the pins and reload them and release the balls, the computer screen that are connected to the sensors that show how many pins have fallen, and the list of complexities go on… all for a simple concept of making a ball hit some targets! Ludicrous!)

Try archery - it could be the sport that is your calling...