Newsletter - National Field Archery Society

Continued from page 12
‘You’re shooting badly because you’re obsessed
with your old bow, that’s all. Let it go and chill
out. It doesn’t matter how well you do with this
one, you’re supposed to do this for fun, remember?’
Traipsing back onto the course seemed like a
wasted afternoon to Louise, but maybe Hannah
had a point. Back when she’d first been learning
to shoot under her father’s watchful guidance,
she would have been ecstatic to get her arrows
more than a foot away from her, let alone in the
inner kill zone.
She’d got into archery because her parents
were fanatics, but the bug bit her too and she
had loved it. Archery had been fun back then. It
had been new, exciting, a challenge to do well
and show off her new skills to everyone who had
ever said a bad word to Louise at school.
As she steadily got better and better, the
challenge became improving her scores, winning
third place or better.
‘I lost it!’ Realisation dawned on her half way
around the course - and it was a feeling she didn’t
think she would ever forget.
‘Lost what, love?’ Alan asked. He was already at
the red peg, one hand poised to pull an arrow
from his quiver... until he saw the look on his
daughter’s face. He let the arrow drop back in
and moved away from the peg without saying a
word.
Taking a shot when she knew that everyone was
watching her wasn’t about to get in her way this
time. That strand of hair falling in her face was
pushed swiftly behind an ear.
The slight breeze seemed to drop and all
around her there was silence. In a world completely
of her own, Louise wedged her heel
tightly to the wooden peg, stared at the target,
shifted position for the perfect line.
She raised the bow, the leather grip warm
against her skin, felt the vibration of the string
as she pushed an arrow into place. The tension in
her jaw started to mount as she drew back and
she let out a soft sigh to loosen up. Line up.
Relax into the shot. Focus on the target. Loose!
The flight of the arrow was spot on and the
reassuring thud as it hit home was perfect. If
that wasn’t a twenty she wouldn’t care less.
She’d nailed that shot, the feeling of it.
‘Who’s next then?’ Louise smirked confidently.
Hannah’s scores at the end of the day were
still a good twenty or so points ahead of Louise,
but strangely she found that she really wasn’t
bothered.
‘You were right, Hannah.’ Louise took down her
bow and looked at it as though she’d never seen
anything more beautiful or amazing. ‘I’ve really
enjoyed it today.’
‘Thought you were going fishing?’
‘Fishing?’ She pulled a face. ‘Sitting in one place
all day with an empty keep net? I found out
something important today.’
Hannah smiled. ‘You found out that you were so
worked up about hitting the target exactly
where you wanted that you forgot about why we
do this?’
‘Pretty much,’ Louise confirmed. ‘I lost the fun
of the sport. I forgot to enjoy it just for the
sheer hell of it.’
She took off her wellies and put back on her
regular shoes, scraped mud off her jacket and
shook rain water out of her hair. ‘And I really do
enjoy it!’
‘Too right,’ Hannah replied. ‘After all, we’d be
mad to come out in weather like this otherwise!’
Moira Hodgkinson
14