I didn't want a guru or a kung fu master or a spiritual director. I didn't want to become a sorcerer or learn the zen of archery or meditate or align my chakras or uncover mast incarnations. . . I was after something else entirely, but it wasn't in the Yellow Pages or anywhere else that I could discover.
The superior man has nothing to compete for. But if he must compete, he does it in an archery match, wherein he ascends to his position, bowing in deference. Descending, he drinks the ritual cup.
Immerse yourself in the outdoor experience. It will cleanse your soul and make your a better person.
The main thing about archery is a battle with yourself. You can ruin it all. Once you have learned the technique, the point is to recreate the perfect technique over and over and over.
You have to relax when you're shooting an arrow. You can't be tense. And that just helps, in your day-to-day life.
The success of an archery shot may bring food to the hunter's starving family, or may constitute a horrible murder. But these outcomes are irrelevant to the assessment of that shot as a hunter-archery shot, as an attempt to hit prey without running excessive risk of failure.
There is no excellence in archery without great labour.
Nothing clears a troubled mind better than shooting a bow.
No person learned the art of archery from me, who did not in the end make me his target.
If you need more than 10 rounds to hunt, and some argue they hunt with that many rounds, you shouldn't be hunting. If you can't get the deer in 3 shots, you shouldn't be hunting. You are an embarrassment.
If you understand real practice, then archery or other activities can be zen. If you don't understand how to practice archery in its true sense, then even though you practice very hard, what you acquire is just technique. It won't help you through and through. Perhaps you can hit the mark without trying, but without a bow and arrow you cannot do anything. If you understand the point of practice, then even without a bow and arrow the archery will help you. How you get that kind of power or ability is only through right practice.
Archery is something that I took up later and didn't know I had a natural aptitude for.
The No. 1 rule in duck hunting is to go where the ducks are.
I took my archery lessons. It was really fun to learn something new.
Boredom is that awful state of inaction when the very medicine - that is, activity - which could solve it, is seen as odious.
Those who are skilled in archery bend their bow only when they are preparing to use it; when they do not require it, they allow it to remain unbent, for otherwise it would remain unserviceable when the time for using it arrived. So it is with man. If he were to devote himself unceasingly to a dull round of business, without breaking the monotony by cheerful amusements, he would fall imperceptibly into idiocy, or be struck by paralysis
And one more thing. About my name — Artemis — you were right. In London, it is generally a female name, after the Greek goddess of archery. But every now and then a male comes along with such a talent for hunting that he earns the right to use the name. I am that male. Artemis the hunter. I hunted you.
Flower of this purple dye, Hit with Cupid's archery, Sink in apple of his eye.
In an archery contest, when the stakes are earthenware tiles a contestant shoots with skill. When the stakes are belt buckles he becomes hesitant, and if the stakes are pure gold he becomes nervous and confused. There is no difference as to his skil.
If the thrill of hunting were in the hunt, or even in the marksmanship, a camera would do just as well.
