JFTDWS
+++ Out of Cheese Error +++
As many folk on here will be aware, in recent months I've been eschewing normal horse sports in favour of waving around sharpened sticks and firing them from the horses at speed into targets / nearby areas of long grass / unsuspecting locals... I posted about Skye's initial foray into this madness back in April. This post is partly a catch up from there, but mostly just about the really silly fun stuff we were playing at yesterday...
Since April, I've been taking Skye down monthly to shoot stuff and be indoctrinated in this madness by the local coach (who's a total legend, btw, not least because he puts up with me). This had been going fairly well - we were learning about taking shots to the front and behind, and about Hungarian style shooting (slower, shooting lots of arrows from impossible angles / distances...) and other aspects of this madness as an actual sport. This culminated in a grading out in the field the other week, which went fairly well - I shot some stuff, I didn't miss an awful lot, I acquired a decent enough score. All fine. I'll come back to Skye later.
This month, I took Fergus down to play at training as Mr Legendary (lunatic) Coach had decided we could play at the really silly stuff this time... Firstly, we were attempting Jarmaki*, or shooting in a really contorted and awkward fashion at the ground beneath / behind your horse. Allegedly this is historically a
ruthless and callous methods of murdering mountain lions which happen to be attacking your horse at that moment. Mr L(l)C has doubt over the veracity of that theory, but I'll leave that debate to the experts... Alternatively, this is a creative and amusing (/awkward) way of inflicting maximum damage on an armoured knight during a horseback battle...
Since neither of the coaches present wanted to don a mountain lion costume / suit of armour and kneel on the ground to be shot at, we were actually shooting at a target on the ground. Clearly their commitment to their sport is clearly lacking
Feel free to imagine a lion / knight / poor unfortunate coach in place of the target...
I think this was meant to be the culmination of yesterday's antics, but we had a few minutes left, and Mr L(l)C decided to live up to his middle name... Suddenly there was a bloody jump in the arena and I was thinking "oh heck I've got the wrong horse". Anyone who remembers my posts about jumping Fergs will be aware that he's not the most comfortable (or confident) jumper. He sees dead strides. I just see death. However, I wasn't going to outdone by my training fellow, or admit weakness in front of Mr L(l)C...
Inevitable consequence:
I focus on target. I shoot. I hit target. Fergs decides we need another stride. I decide to stop for a hug. I managed not to flop on the floor in front of deeply amused spectators. I am, however, mortified that Mr L(l)C witnessed this particular display of my immense (in)competence...
Future efforts were... marginally less unsuccessful. I mean, virtually every effort involved a scoring shot, but equally, came with a decent side order of fear of imminent death
This is the end of the "fun" part of this post. If you're just here for a laugh, you can skip the following paragraph. I feel like it's important, at this point to balance the fact that Mr L(l)C is not always middle named "lunatic". Before we digressed into this level of madness, we actually did a tonne of serious learning stuff. He made my brain actually die at one point and the only other person who's achieved that is Gerd Heuschmann (and he's coming at you with his multiple degrees and a lifetime's study of the history of equitation - you kind of expect it from him, less so from the maniac who wants to gallop around shooting at things). Firstly we were working on an issue with Skye where we've had some unexpected tension creeping into her shooting, but oddly not from the shooting itself. We played around slowly to work out what was bothering her. Mr L(l)C's alternative middle name is "observant". Mr L(o)C spotted that her tension is related to me being a bit wonky and worked out that this is in conflict with her previous training. He's a smart little maniac, for sure. We spent a little time working on my wonkiness (I'd like to blame this on the fact I injured my ankle a while back, but it's just excuses, really). By the end, Skye wasn't reacting at all to what I was doing. If I can remember what was said, and apply it without him, the consensus is we'll be OK, which is a massive relief for the paranoid idiot.
We also spent a load of time with Fergs working on aspects of how I'm shooting / riding / balancing / etc, in the hope of improving both my archery, and also how I'm working with Skye (who is more sensitive and less established in life). This last section isn't meant to be exciting, but I wanted to include it because I think it's important to balance the silly / fun side of stuff with the actual training, the technicalities and the horsemanship you sometimes come across in alternative sports. I could just post the entertaining stuff, but I feel like that would be doing the sport (and Mr L(l/o)C) a disservice. That doesn't mean anyone has to read it, or care about it any way though!
*Variant spellings exist. This is the one that looks least odd to me, and seems to have most hits on google. I'm aware it's spelt differently in the bible. There are probably multiple technically questionable aspects of this post - I am under no illusion that I don't know what I'm talking about here. Forgive me, I'm an idiot, I'm doing my best
Since April, I've been taking Skye down monthly to shoot stuff and be indoctrinated in this madness by the local coach (who's a total legend, btw, not least because he puts up with me). This had been going fairly well - we were learning about taking shots to the front and behind, and about Hungarian style shooting (slower, shooting lots of arrows from impossible angles / distances...) and other aspects of this madness as an actual sport. This culminated in a grading out in the field the other week, which went fairly well - I shot some stuff, I didn't miss an awful lot, I acquired a decent enough score. All fine. I'll come back to Skye later.
This month, I took Fergus down to play at training as Mr Legendary (lunatic) Coach had decided we could play at the really silly stuff this time... Firstly, we were attempting Jarmaki*, or shooting in a really contorted and awkward fashion at the ground beneath / behind your horse. Allegedly this is historically a
ruthless and callous methods of murdering mountain lions which happen to be attacking your horse at that moment. Mr L(l)C has doubt over the veracity of that theory, but I'll leave that debate to the experts... Alternatively, this is a creative and amusing (/awkward) way of inflicting maximum damage on an armoured knight during a horseback battle...
Since neither of the coaches present wanted to don a mountain lion costume / suit of armour and kneel on the ground to be shot at, we were actually shooting at a target on the ground. Clearly their commitment to their sport is clearly lacking
Feel free to imagine a lion / knight / poor unfortunate coach in place of the target...
I think this was meant to be the culmination of yesterday's antics, but we had a few minutes left, and Mr L(l)C decided to live up to his middle name... Suddenly there was a bloody jump in the arena and I was thinking "oh heck I've got the wrong horse". Anyone who remembers my posts about jumping Fergs will be aware that he's not the most comfortable (or confident) jumper. He sees dead strides. I just see death. However, I wasn't going to outdone by my training fellow, or admit weakness in front of Mr L(l)C...
Inevitable consequence:
I focus on target. I shoot. I hit target. Fergs decides we need another stride. I decide to stop for a hug. I managed not to flop on the floor in front of deeply amused spectators. I am, however, mortified that Mr L(l)C witnessed this particular display of my immense (in)competence...
Future efforts were... marginally less unsuccessful. I mean, virtually every effort involved a scoring shot, but equally, came with a decent side order of fear of imminent death
This is the end of the "fun" part of this post. If you're just here for a laugh, you can skip the following paragraph. I feel like it's important, at this point to balance the fact that Mr L(l)C is not always middle named "lunatic". Before we digressed into this level of madness, we actually did a tonne of serious learning stuff. He made my brain actually die at one point and the only other person who's achieved that is Gerd Heuschmann (and he's coming at you with his multiple degrees and a lifetime's study of the history of equitation - you kind of expect it from him, less so from the maniac who wants to gallop around shooting at things). Firstly we were working on an issue with Skye where we've had some unexpected tension creeping into her shooting, but oddly not from the shooting itself. We played around slowly to work out what was bothering her. Mr L(l)C's alternative middle name is "observant". Mr L(o)C spotted that her tension is related to me being a bit wonky and worked out that this is in conflict with her previous training. He's a smart little maniac, for sure. We spent a little time working on my wonkiness (I'd like to blame this on the fact I injured my ankle a while back, but it's just excuses, really). By the end, Skye wasn't reacting at all to what I was doing. If I can remember what was said, and apply it without him, the consensus is we'll be OK, which is a massive relief for the paranoid idiot.
We also spent a load of time with Fergs working on aspects of how I'm shooting / riding / balancing / etc, in the hope of improving both my archery, and also how I'm working with Skye (who is more sensitive and less established in life). This last section isn't meant to be exciting, but I wanted to include it because I think it's important to balance the silly / fun side of stuff with the actual training, the technicalities and the horsemanship you sometimes come across in alternative sports. I could just post the entertaining stuff, but I feel like that would be doing the sport (and Mr L(l/o)C) a disservice. That doesn't mean anyone has to read it, or care about it any way though!
*Variant spellings exist. This is the one that looks least odd to me, and seems to have most hits on google. I'm aware it's spelt differently in the bible. There are probably multiple technically questionable aspects of this post - I am under no illusion that I don't know what I'm talking about here. Forgive me, I'm an idiot, I'm doing my best
