On Smurfs

Why it matters how we talk about targets, for ourselves and others

The other day I heard a newer archer bemoan a 5 they hit, saying it was an awful shot. It was not: for them, I knew a 5 was a sign of progress. I've had a belief that as we learn to shoot, it's not a matter of turning misses into bullseyes, but misses into 1's, 1's into 2's, 2's into 3's, and so on, the idea being to shift thinking to the progress that leads to perfection. I've said this to almost every new archer I've met, and I said it to this one again. I wondered why the message didn't get through all the time though.

That night, as I was practicing alone, I looked at my target: "Damnit, Smurf!" I said, rolling my eyes at the one arrow in the 5 ring. And it hit me: I'm likely the problem. Yes, it's true that the 5 is a bad shot for me, but maybe passing out loud judgement on it forces archers around me to think of themselves comparatively. Maybe they don't think "Hey, Chris hits 5s too," but rather "Chris thinks 5s are bad, and I shoot 5s: I'm bad."

I'm now working on how I articulate what I see on the target. Instead of sighing about the 5, I say "It's to the left…that one went high…I don't think I really hit anchor on that one." I'm hoping that maybe it will help the archers around me see their targets that way, to maybe not groan about the low score but maybe see the group they had that they didn't notice, to notice where the arrow went rather than getting caught up in the score.

The upshot of changing how I act about a shot is that it's becoming habit: at States this weekend, I had two shots drop way way low, which is incredibly odd for me. But, I noticed my reaction was "Huh…what felt different that time? Oh, that's what happened." The 4 didn't even register, and I think that helped me bounce back into the gold.

Every bullseyes we hit is built on hundreds of misses, and I hope every archery remembers that and speaks that truth. Especially me.