On Turning Back: Mountains, Frostbite, Archery, and Change

The thin, tinny alarm of my wrist watch sounded blaring in the dark, silent winter morning. I popped my head out from my sleeping bag, and in the 3am darkness could see the shape of the mountains high over me, seeming to shift and fade in the coming snow.

I hadn't slept at all. The night before, hiking in to make my camp, I'd fallen through the ice, soaking myself through. Miles and hours from the trailhead, my only option was to try to make it through the night, shivering in soaked clothes, my boots jammed under my armpits, trying to keep them from freezing as the temperature dipped into the negatives.

As morning came, I had a choice: continue on to climb the mountain, or turn back and head home. All signs pointed to turning back, but I decided to persist. I'd be damned if I'd come all this way, shivered so long through the night, to fail now.

Through a white out storm and plummeting temperatures, I climbed. As I went, my hands and toes burned, eventually becoming numb and useless. At the top I fought with my goggles; it was so cold, one of my eyes froze shut. But I summited. The peak was beautiful, dreadful: bursts of wind pushed me over, threw me to the ground; I couldn’t see my hand in front of my face. This was a place I wasn’t supposed to be, but I was there damn it. It was the first time I ever truly experienced awe, felt it crash over me.

Hours later, I fell exhausted back into my sleeping back in the lean-to, and I finally pulled off my ice encrusted gloves and boots. My fingers and toes were waxy, hard. As time went on they began to change colors, to shades of purple. This wasn’t good. Days later they would peel back like necrotic flowers; the pain mixed with numbness, and eventually turned to an eternal dullness.

I think about that day a lot, that choice. At first I thought of it as a victory: I'd persevered, I'd pushed beyond my limits. I’d seen and met the wrath of nature. But, I mostly think of that day as I struggle to use my mostly numb fingers on a daily basis. I think of it as I step out of bed each morning, the cold floor sending a flash of ache through my feet. While I carry the pride of that climb with me in my memory, I also carry it in my frayed, broken nerves.

I’d climbed the mountain, at almost any cost, and that cost was many mountains after. I’ve tried mountaineering since, but I’ve had to admit it’s often too dangerous to do with fingers that barely work in 30 degree weather now, let alone deep negative temperatures. Several times I’ve found myself stranded in the cold, trying to put on a jacket, trying to light a stove, and my fingers being too frozen and stiff to move.

I think of that mountain a lot, that persistence to climb it, and now see that my greatest strength is also my greatest weakness. It can make me achieve things I didn't think possible, but often I steals from the future to find fleeting success. Frostbite took mountaineering from me, made ice climbing a suffer fest; shoulder dislocations and blown finger pulleys made rock climbing a cycle of injury; IT bands worn from ultra marathons regularly ache, reminding me of all the times I pushed it just one step more for 50 miles. I’ve done so many things I’m proud of, but I also carry the weight of it too.

I'm thinking of that mountain again as I take stock of where I am as an archer. I'm back in that sleeping bag again, laying weak at the crossroads. My yips, something I managed to barely control for almost a year, are back in full force. For those not familiar, yips are a fascinating and devastating neurological phenomena, where basically at some point in a well honed sequence of movements something goes awry, and a specific movement triggers an uncontrollable flinch or tic. It happens under precise circumstances, mostly to athletes who do controlled, routine movements, and to musicians.

I can honestly barely shoot right now, but have kept pushing to fix it as we lead into Nationals and States. The interesting thing with the yips is you can trick them, can change up how you shoot enough to make them go away, but they find their way back. Throughout the season I’d made lots of changes, but each time I found myself yipping again within a week or so, and now I know I’ve run out of time this season. I worked with coaches, I researched, I followed programs, but here I am. This same thing happened to me last year, and I persisted: I shot reasonably well, but I did it by taking half measures. I’d written elaborate game plans, ways to adjust my shot as they came back during a tournament. I’d shoot reasonably well, but I’d never take a single shot the way I wanted to, and after I’d have to spend months undoing the habits I’d learned to get by. That’s caught up with me now, and I’m shooting far worse than I normally do. I was talking about this with a teammate the other day, having an open emotional spiral on the practice line. “I don’t get it, dude,” I said, knocking my head against my limb. “I have overcome literally everything. Mountains, cliffs, waves, fear, alcoholism, PTSD. Got in the ring and got the hell beat out of me with all of it, toughed it out, and won. So why the actual hell can I not shoot a target.” He thought for a moment. “Well, you beat every problem before by fighting it, out working it. And maybe you’ve met the first problem you can’t do that with. Maybe that won't work here. You’ve always out worked your problems. So maybe the new challenge is to do something you’ve never done before.”

The truth tore through me, ripped through my heart and ego. I clenched my fists, and felt the ghost of sensation press against my numb fingers. He was right.

So, after a lot of thought, I've decided to drop out for the season competitively. I did a few smaller tournaments, and it confirmed my head isn't in a place where I can shoot, learn, and grow while being in a tournament. I know it will be again one day, but I know that time isn't now.

A few friends, well meaning and kind friends, have urged me to keep pushing. They say, rightfully, that I should look at tournaments like practice, with no expectation, that I can't get better at tournaments until I shoot more of them; they’re right, but I know I can’t turn off the habit that way. I know me. And I want to have the big game in mind–not just one peak, but every mountain, and all the sights and moments between them. If my shoulder was hurt, and I knew shooting would make it worse, I’d stop to give myself more years to shoot. Why should it be any different with my mind?

Archery is a game we play against ourselves, a game where we confront our ego and self and square off against it. Archery is a game of self control. One of the hardest things to learn is not how to shoot, but how to stop a shot; how, in those millisecond moments leading up to the break, to be aware enough to come down from the shot, to ignore our habits to remain in control. Not surprisingly, I’m terrible at doing this too. If I’m persisting and pushing in this sport purely out of habit, am I really in control at all?

Maybe it’s time to come down from the shot.

To breathe, to settle, to adjust, to refocus. And to return again to the start.