More moon + gratuitous foliage + return to Gotham Archery + MORE WHALES!

Waning moon in Midwood

Unfortunately it was a very busy week and I was never able to arrange to be somewhere where I could see it near the horizon, which is where the unusual size caused by the closeness of the moon was the most evident, but still pretty, yes?

Nice foliage in Midwood right now.

On Thursday night, TQ and I made our first return to Gotham Archery since my mastectomy. He did great. I felt as weak as a kitten, did improve for a while but by the end of the hour things fell apart. Fun to get back there, though, and I do want to get back to doing this more, I was having fun with it last year!

And for the final topic: The New York Media Boat has now had 3 days in a row of watching whales right off Manhattan. Click here for more photos. Amazing! 

Archery Break 3: Mockingjay Day at Gotham Archery

More photos on Flickr - click here to view.

Third visit to Gotham Archery, this time for the Mockingjay promo day, which was of interest to me since I work for the publisher of the Hunger Games trilogy and we all get pretty excited when the movies come out.

Gotham Archery has been getting fantastic Yelp reviews, and when Lionsgate, the movie company, went looking for an NYC archery range to host a Mockingjay promotional event, they picked the guys at Gotham. Ken, one of the owners and the instructor of my intro class, had mentioned this when he was talking to Iris (Sebago clubmate who got me started into this with her Facebook posts about taking up archery) and me after my class a couple of weeks ago - I'd been toying with the idea of going but was still a little up in the air, but when Iris  said, "Anybody want to go?", I said "Me me me". This time I couldn't resist taking a camera!

TQ, Iris, another paddling friend and I all went and had a very good time. I was a little disappointed nobody dressed up (pictures of people in costumes would've been fun) but everybody was having a good time, there were prizes for everyone (a pin or a poster plus a shot at a gift bag) - and at the end, the guy from Lionsgate fell in love with Iris and set up a whole photoshoot with her!

I think I'll stick with the quieter weeknights for my practice sessions now, but this was a lot of fun.

Archery Break 2

Well, I really enjoyed the presentation at the North Brooklyn Boat Club tonight, and I actually got some pretty good pictures of this most urban of the urban kayak clubs. Here's my first sight of the place as I was crossing the Pulaski Bridge over Newtown Creek - pretty cool, yeah?:

It ended up not being a terribly late evening and I did think about going ahead and doing a writeup tonight, but there were a couple of things I needed to take care of first and I didn't get going early enough - I do need to get a reasonable amount of sleep tonight and I suspect my report of tonight's fun is going to be one of those posts that ends up taking a lot longer than it should (for starters it's going to be picture-heavy and photos take time to upload). I'll circle back to that in a day or two!

However, I'd also been wanting to jot down some notes from my Monday night return to Gotham Archery; I went back for a practice session so that I wouldn't forget what I'd learned the week before, and ended up getting a lot of good suggestions that I want to keep in mind for my NEXT practice session (yes, there will be another one, I'm still not a great shot but I'm still enjoying it). I'd mentioned that I was going on Facebook and said something about updating my profile shot with the new target if it showed any improvement; earlier today a friend asked if I'd done that and I went ahead and posted it and also did a quick writeup with those things I wanted to remember.

Figured I'd post it here too. 

Unfortunately I'm not sure it shows progress as much as just sheer dogged patience in the face of my own mediocrity.

But then that's how I got to be a good kayaker, so I'm not particularly frustrated. 

Although I'd only paid for practice time, the instructors were stopping by my lane occasionally to check out what I was doing and give me hints.

Things I should remember for next practice:

-Stand up tall.
-Hold the bow vertically while loading (this is out of consideration to your neighbor, the lanes are very close together).
-Turn my head completely to look at the target (I got into this thing of looking at it out of the corner of my eye - I also noticed I was tending to rotate my torso towards the target instead of keeping my shoulders perpendicular to the line - good grief, if there's one thing I should be in control of it's torso rotation).
-Don't rush. Draw, settle (one, two, three), shoot.
-Fingers open on the bowstring, don't pinch the end of the arrow between the index and middle fingers. It's nocked on the string, it will stay. Pinching it just disturbs the flight.
-The drawing hand should come straight back to touch the face.
-Further to the drawing - Work on draw consistency - one of the instructors noticed that my hand landed on a slightly different spot each time (probably overdrawn as that was what I was doing in the intro class). Index fingernail to right corner of mouth. Why is this so hard?  
-Release. I was just opening my fingers but there should be a little more energy to it - the hand sort of flies back. I don't understand why this makes a difference but it did.
-And nobody told me this, but CONCENTRATE. I had this thing going on where I would get one good shot, and then the next shot would be close to that one, and so would the next one, and then the next one would just be whacky and I would realize that I hadn't thought through the steps. I really have to do this little mental checklist thing to get it to work and whackiness happens when I don't. So then I would slow myself down and think the next shot through and it would be better.

Not sure why, but they'd decided at the beginning of my session that I wasn't going to be on the clock this time, and I worked on it for over two hours, which was the point at which my arms were near falling off. I kept at it until I finally got a nice tight grouping with all five of my arrows in the center of the target and close together, then decided to stop on a good note.

Next practice session will tell whether that was just luck, or whether things are sinking in.

A Visit to Gotham Archery

Note before you launch in - Wow, this got very in-depth, I got extremely analytical about Ken's teaching style. I think I got some extra fun out of the class because I was comparing Gotham Archery owner Ken's teaching style (which I thought was very good) to what I've been taught over the years about teaching people how to kayak. Fun picking up the parallels, of which there were plenty, and I guess I just couldn't resist rummaging through every single comparison here. 

I thought about calling this post "And Now For Something Completely Different", since it features something I've never done in NYC before, but the topic HAS come up on this blog once before. Remember Tallinn? 

Even then it wasn't something new and different - more something old and different. Way way way way way back in the mists of the past (otherwise known as the summer between my senior year in high school and my freshman year in college), I spent the summer as a counselor at Camp Niwana, a very nice Camp Fire Girls camp near Port Orchard, Washington. They had an archery range that the counselors were allowed to use on our free time, and I did, and although I never got to be a particularly good shot I did enjoy it.

Fast forward to Estonia - Capt. Kat (the friend from my schooner days who put together the Estonian adventure) and I were walking around Talinn on my first night there when we passed this archery range. The city prides itself on its medieval character and this was just set up as a thing tourists could do to get in the spirit of things. I hadn't touched a bow since Camp Niwana but I was sort of looking at the targets as we passed & Kat noticed and said "You want to do that, don't you. Why not?" Well, my only reason not to had been because I didn't want to make her stand around waiting for me and since she clearly didn't mind, I did, and guess what? I still wasn't a particularly good shot, but I still enjoyed it.

Fast forward again to slightly earlier this fall, when out of the blue one day Iris, one of my paddling friends, posted on Facebook that she was going to an archery lesson. Somehow the thought of doing that here in NYC had never so much as crossed my mind (although I did notice the archery range at Floyd Bennett Field, that looked set up for people with their own stuff), but I told her that I'd actually love to come sometime. Monday, she asked me if I wanted to go. First week of the month is close week which means long work days, but that was still on the first business day of the month and I can't start running my stuff until the second day, so I jumped at the chance. There was a little back and forth with another paddler who was going to come about the time, but in the end I signed up for an 8:00 class at Gotham Archery and ended up having a very good time.

The range is in an area of warehouses not too far from Atlantic Center - right on my way home, nice. I got there a good bit early; they ask you to be 15 minutes early for the class, I added a 15 minute cushion for getting lost and then didn't get lost, so got there shortly after 7:30. Paid up, signed the waiver, and then sat down on a bench to watch the 3 people who were practicing. Two of them were sleek young blonds wearing flattering yoga-type exercise garb. The other was an older guy who much to my relief was wearing Office Casual - khakis and an Oxford shirt. Actually my relief wasn't THAT great, but it happened that I hadn't expected to go a-shooting that night when I left for work, I didn't quite have time to go home for a change of clothes so I also happened to be wearing Office Casual khakis and an Oxford shirt. I wasn't all that worried about it, figured I couldn't possibly be the first person to come to an unplanned post-work archery session and my office clothes are pretty functional (I have some suits in my closet but I haven't worn them in years and I couldn't now if I wanted to - they are slated for donation), but at the same time I had a feeling the place was going to be hipster central and I was going to feel like a bit of a dweeb. So it was sort of nice to see Office Casual Guy shooting. The other thing I noticed after watching for a while was that one of the sleek blonds was quite good, while the other one was clearly learning, and nobody seemed too concerned about that, either. Also nice.

This turned out to reflect one of the house rules, which our instructor, Ken (also one of the owners) ran through once the other folks in my class arrived. No coming to the range drunk or high, no running, follow all instructions given by staff (including a certain set of commands that keep practice running safely by making sure that everyone is in the same phase of the exercises, which means no chance of one person shooting while someone else is in a bad location), no dry-firing bows (if there's no arrow in the bow, all of that energy goes back into the bow, which can actually shatter), and a few other items. The last rule was one that Ken said they'd originally just given for kids' classes, but then he and his partner in the business realized it was a good rule for everyone -- "Don't be a jerk". The gentlemen who are running Gotham Archery want everyone who comes there to have as good time as they can (obviously this isn't going to be everyone's thing, but there's a difference between just finding that you don't enjoy an activity and being actively made to feel small while finding that out); apparently a lot of archery ranges can feel very cliquish to a newcomer, so "Don't be a jerk" cuts down on that. I think they also get a lot of friends and couples coming together, and sometimes people can get into teasing mode without realizing that maybe the other person is actually feeling awkward doing this thing for the first time -- getting that "Don't be a jerk" hint probably does a lot to make a person think before they razz.

Once the code of conduct was laid down, Ken took the six of us into the 2nd range (they have 2, one for novices, one for advanced - this is part of trying to make this a comfortable experience for everyone, novices don't get discouraged comparing themselves to experts while the experts don't get distracted by arrows bouncing off the backboards and such) and introduced us all to the proper form. This was actually pretty interesting because although we had an archery instructor at Camp Niwana, either they were only teaching the kids, or I wasn't paying proper attention, or maybe it was just a really really long time ago and I'd just clean forgotten it all (quite possible, sigh). Funny thing was, I don't think anybody else in my class had done any archery at all, but I think I was the slowest student. My first challenge was to let go of the way I thought I was supposed to do it in favor of doing it the way Ken was actually telling us to do it (we see that in kayaking classes - sometimes the person who's done a lot of paddling without training is the hardest to teach because they have more to unlearn). He did a good job on that, I really liked his instruction style, I could actually see a lot of similarities between how he approached the class and how a paddling class is run, ideally (I do ok but I never feel like my classes are nearly as clean as some of the instructors I really admire). He was  clear, he gave us some simple physical markers to use to keep our shots consistent (like a basic setup involving first spreading out your arms into a T and then moving on from there that I found myself going back to when I felt like I was losing track of things during practice, plus there was a really key thing about hand placement that was one of the things I don't remember ever learning and had to FORCE myself to do - simple enough motion but had to really think about it to get it). He was very patient and encouraging, did a great job on combining positive comments with corrections, and one other thing I noticed that I really liked was that he was very respectful about touching; generally when he was correcting a student it was easier for him to physically move them into the correct posture, but he basically asked permission of the class to do so before he started (he specifically mentioned religious reasons but some people just aren't comfortable being touched and I liked that he respected that). He also had a good sense of humor and there was a lot of laughter.

Once we'd done some exercises without any gear in our hands, it was time to pick bows and begin actually trying some target practice. We could choose a compound bow or a recurved; I went for the recurved because that's what we had at Camp Niwana (although we didn't have sights - that was another big thing to adjust to) and hopefully that's part of why my target looks so totally random - but again, there was the business of thinking I was doing it the way Ken had told us to when I really wasn't. Fortunately Ken stuck with us, taking turns giving each of us pointers and by the end of the basic target practice I was feeling like I was getting it somewhat.

And then the end of the class was TONS of fun - Ken had a couple of games and challenges for us. Reminded me very much of how my Ocean Currents class went from everyone concentrating on crossing the eddy line Just So, doing fine but sort of wrapped up in stylistic minutiae, to everybody just cutting loose and playing when I introduced some Nerf footballs to the scene. I'd been so wrapped up thinking about everything I was supposed to be doing and trying to figure out what I'd done wrong when one of my shots went particularly astray - when Ken added a game to the picture, I relaxed and got to having fun again.

I didn't win a shirt, and I'm still not a particularly good shot, but I enjoyed it again - and now I feel like if I can just get back for some practice before too long, there's a chance I might actually get to be a somewhat better shot. Think this will be a fun project to pursue now that it's dark by the time I leave work. More to come, I hope!

Care to try it yourself? Visit the Gotham Archery website at www.got-archery.com. Oh, and if you are a Hunger Games fan? You might want to go on November 15th, when they're running a Mockingjay promo with prizes from Lionsgate. More games, should be fun!

Baltic Adventure Part 2: First night in Tallinn

I finally got into Tallinn somewhere around 9. A stop at the baggage claim showed quickly that my big bag hadn't made it, but I'd been warned that that was possible, and the gentlemen who were working at the baggage claim were able to determine that the bag had indeed gotten held up in Paris, but was going to be on either the last flight in that evening or the first one in the morning. We weren't moving our things onto the boat until the following morning, so that was all right, and I headed out to the transportation area & found a hotel van that took me to the Hotel Metropol. I didn't get a picture but I saw masts just before we got to the hotel - yay! Capt. Kat & F. were waiting in the lobby; I checked in & dropped my bag in the room & then when Kat suggested a walk and maybe a bite to eat, I enthusiastically agreed. We were staying in (and departing from) a section of Tallinn called "Old Town", which dates back to medieval times and was where the city's traders and merchants lived and did business.

 Today's tourist industry (which looks to be doing well, which is great) reflects on this medieval heritage - there are lots of restaurants where costumed wait staffs will serve you venison or wild boar, there are apparently a lot of people who dress up in medieval garb just to add atmosphere, and then there's the archery school we ran into not 5 minutes from the hotel.

As I'd mentioned in the "Photos for Friends" post, I spent the summer after I graduated from high school working as a camp counselor at Camp Niwana, a Camp Fire Girls camp near the town of Port Orchard in Washington State. It was a good old fashioned camp - we didn't do any tie dye or macrame or any of those really 70's things that I remember from camp, but we had campfires and sang songs and paddled canoes and swam in the lake, there was riding at a nearby stable, and there was an archery range there, and on a day when I had a break from the kids, I would frequently go do a little recreational target shooting. I never got to be brilliant, but I got to the point where I mostly hit the target, and I enjoyed it - so when I saw the range all set up here, I couldn't help eyeing it. I wasn't going to ask to stop, just 'cause it seemed SO silly and I didn't want to make my friends wait through it...but Kat caught me looking at 'em and said "Do you want to try?" and two minutes later I was having a very cool leather forearm guard laced onto my right arm .

They had a small wardrobe of medieval accoutrements to get you into the spirit of things - I started to say "I don't need to wear a costume" but just as I was saying that one of the young women who was running the stand was deftly tossing a surcoat over my head...well, I'm a tourist, why not? :D I did pass on the plumy hat, but...ta daa! 

 

Reintroduction to the bow - it all looked like the same basic setup as the ones I remember using at camp, but again, that was a very long time ago and I listened carefully to her instruction.  

And, here I am drawing a bow for the first time since the summer of nineteen eighty-mumble...

And swish, here I am missing completely. 

Next 3 also missed completely but then I got 2 at least in the edge of the board on which the target was mounted, and then the last 4 I managed to get in the target. The women who were running it said that was actually quite good for a first-timer - I did at that point mention the summer at Camp Niwana but I said that that was a long, long time ago. I had a really good time trying it again and I thanked them and told them so. 

 

Then we headed on into the Old Town proper - here's Captain Kat saying "Welcome to Tallinn!"

And here are a couple of shots I took while Kat worked out how to get back to the restaurant she and the others had gone to earlier and liked. 

Neat old town, Old Town; if there's one regret that I have about the trip it's that we didn't have much time to explore this and the other parts of Tallinn - this was really all the looking around I did. Kat & the others had gotten to climb one of the church towers earlier in the day; there was a maritime museum that sounded interesting, and an architecture museum right next to the Old City marina, where we went to get our boat the next day, and I think I could have happily spent an entire day just wandering around in this area.

Did I mention that this had to have been around ten o'clock at night? F. got tired and decided to head back to the hotel;  I was starting to look at other restaurant menus but Kat was pretty sure that the one they'd liked was right around the bend (although there were many bends of many degrees so she wasn't positive) - 

but then of course we came around the right bend and there was Aed, the restaurant we'd been looking for - I wasn't wildly hungry (one nice thing about international flights is that it seems that on those, they haven't decided that food is an unnecessary frill) so I had a delicious cold mint-cucumber soup and (because a co-worker of mine who's from eastern Europe had said that that part of the world has wonderful smoked fish), a smoked fish appetizer with salmon, lamprey and herring, all absolutely delicious. There was a duck dish that the waiter said was his favorite, and Kat said the desserts were wonderful - if we'd had time to make another trip into the Old Town I might have agitated for another meal there, but we didn't - so if anyone who reads this has been to this restaurant and had the duck, please don't tell me how delicious it was!!!! 

I know, I know, I've showed it twice...but it was such a pretty dinner, I can't resist. Promise that's it for this dinner's appearances here. There will be more fish - my co-worker was right about that and I think I ate more fish in a week than I usually eat in a month!

Back out into the smiling summer evening - this is close to midnight. I'd looked up the length of day in the area and I knew it was going to be long - but this was still startling. Beautiful, too, though. In fact I think this was when I started needing to remind myself that these long summer days are payed for with some equally long winter nights in order to not start thinking "Wow, it would be nice to live someplace with days this long".

I could tell it would take some getting used to, though - fortunately, the hotel room, although very nice (nothing fancy but very pleasant, with lots of clean blonde wood), was not a room with a view - it actually looked out onto an air shaft or something and beyond that was outfitted with blackout curtains. Between that, and the good dinner, and the good wine, and the long day of travelling, I had an excellent night's sleep.

Next up: Day 2 - we meet the Wesilind!