Countdown to Vegas – Day 1

10 February, 2018


I suppose I should stop calling this a countdown, but hey. Vegas kicked off today. The earliest line calls were at 7am, but luckily I managed to avoid that draw and shot my first set of 30 arrows at 12noon, in the big rodeo hall. They’re all big rodeo halls.

And it went OK. I loved the moment of silence immediately before the first scoring end. The whole hall seemed still. I didn’t feel  seriously nervous, but during the first shot in anger, after two practice ends, I froze up. Aaagh. Eventually, eventually, I got through the clicker and got the bolt on the face. The first couple of ends were testy, after that it settled down a bit and I started to be a bit more aggressive with the expansion, and things started to group a lot tighter. Not bad.

Ignore that bad four. Practice arrow.

I also realise there was a small problem with my nocks, a couple of them have drifted around a little. You may be reading this thinking, wow, what sort of n00b idiot doesn’t check his nocks before he shoots a tournament? You’d be asking an entirely reasonable question. I decided to shoot the single face rather than the three spot, like 90% of my recurve flight.  Perhaps one day, the three spot. Not now.

I really like the way Vegas dances entirely to its own tune in terms of tournament rules. The ‘bottom’ line – the archers with their faces on the lower half off the boss – always start. Then at the halfway mark there’s a switch from bottom to top – after fifteen arrows, you take the face off and replace it on the top or bottom respectively, pushing the washered nails in to the burlap with your bare and increasingly raw thumb. (Oh, apparently you’re supposed use the metal part of your tab. Why did no-one tell me that?) Ow. Some people change the faces between the practice ends and the scoring ends too. Some people.

Everyone has to do this jump.  Even the pros. It’s a quintessential gesture of American sport.  You’re all in this. You’re all part of it. The first end after that a handful of people invariably shoot the wrong face, so the judges have to make a sweep of the top faces to remove the rogue arrows. Duhhh. (Yeah, I almost did that).

My target mates have been here before, and everyone is super helpful. You sense how good everyone is feeling about this event. It’s a big weekend off to do something you like doing, and then you can lark around in Las Vegas afterwards, the greatest playground for adults in this world.  I finish on 240 out of 300, putting me comfortably in mid-table mediocrity in the flights category. Plenty of space to improve though. Two days to go.

Two people got married today, at the Mathews booth in the trade fair. In Mathews shirts. With a bucket of arrows as a bouquet. That was kinda weird.

My next line call is at 9am tomorrow. I’ll let you know how it goes.

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