back when i was first younger and i wanted to get my first bow, I wanted to get a really nice compound i had seen in the local archery shop.  Man i went in there every other day and looked at that bow, waiting for the day grandpa was gonna bring it home for me. Now when the time came and my grandfather came package in hand i can honestly say i was more than a little disappointed to see not the fast compound bow i wanted, but his old bear recurve bow.

Now i loved my grandpa to death, and I’m sure he must have noticed my disappointment because he said to me, I know you wanted that bow, hanging at toms but when you can show me you are gonna stay with it and shoot, we’ll see.  You need to learn to shoot the right way he told me, back when he was shooting there were no sights or cams or compound bows, just recurves and longbows.  So everyday i went out and shot my recurve, no sight, just a couple of mismatch carbon arrows and a shooting glove.

Christmas rolled around and i remember being more than a little anxious at whether grandpa thought i was ready to shoot the compound bow yet.  All the presents came thru, but no bow.  What i did get was a dozen new carbon arrows all my own.  I was so excited I went downstairs and shot all thru christmas vacation.  By the time I finally got the bow, i had become so attached to the recurve I was unsure what i was really going to do. 

Then i saw it brand new, shining, with a pin sight and an actual arrow rest, and a release!  Grandpa gave me the bow and let me shoot but the very first thing i noticed was how easy it was to aim!  Now that i was older grandpa explained to me how shooting instinctively had made it easier for me to hold steady because i was hitting x’s looking at nothing, and now i had something to look at, things just came easy.

I still have my old recurve even though i haven’t shot it since but I have never shot as good with any bow as i did with that bow. Maybe one of these days I’ll get into the instinctive shooting like my grandpa started me in, I just don’t know if i could hack it anymore. I just know the challenge my grandpa gave me when i first started is what gave me the push i needed, to get where i am today.