Beginnings

Hi, I'm Madeline. I'm a twenty something wife and mother of 2 kids. I have always enjoyed watching recurve archery and after taking one class in college, I am taking the plunge and starting it again.

The internet is saturated with food blogs, lifestyle blogs, fitness blogs and interior design blogs and although I peruse those daily, I find very little available for the beginning archer apart from youtube videos. I am in contact with my local archery club and have picked the recurve coaches' brains about where to start, equipment, actual coaching and they keep telling me that they think they are overwhelming me. Not the case! I am absorbing all the information easily and want to document my experience going from beginning archer to hopefully a competitive recurve archer. Why recurve specifically? Because that's what I enjoy. Hence the blog. Why the blog name? Because I am a lefty and left eye dominant, that's why ;) I love writing and have finally found a niche of interest to me that isn't supersaturated with information already.

I shoot a 30# Samick Sage recurve bow. You can see it here.

I am still trying to find a finger tab and arm guard. I have cheap arrows from Gander Mountain until I can afford nicer ones and have a reason to shoot them. My target is cheap bullseye target from Walmart. I can shoot in my backyard with the target against a hill for safety. I can shoot as far as 40m away at my target. But naturally I will start much closer until I can back up little by little.

I have taken 1 shot with my bow-laugh all you want-and got royally slapped by the string. This means my form sucked. I need to fix my form, build upper body strength and shoot and shoot and shoot to get better. Until I have all my equipment to safely shoot, I am researching technique and learning from the pros and other amateur archer blogs, via the internet, in both compound and recurve archery.

Archery is a lot more than just standing and shooting.You need not only the mental discipline to train but correct body mechanics so you don't get hurt shooting. You don't have to be super athletic although you don't want to be so big you have a hard time getting the bow near you. I do workout a lot-running throughout the week and biking, total body training with free weights, body weight moves and yoga and pilates and p90x. I would love to do triathlons too. It's the daily discipline of exercising and the actual accomplishment of finishing the goal that makes me mentally strong. I also tend to eat in a 90:10 clean, whole foods to not so clean food. I know in order to perform at my best, I have to eat the very best food I can. I also try to eat 90% plant based diet simply because my body tells me it likes it. And I don't feel sick even if I have a little bit more than I really needed. Strong body + strong mind = happy Madeline :)

Lots to learn-let's get shooting!