Ornoth

Homeless on the Range

2026-03-30T03:44:23Z

Another kyūdō update, because (outside of cycling, which has its own blog) archery seems to be the most eventful facet of life, at least until I pound out a long-overdue summary of the past three-plus years of meditation practice…

There’s three highlights that I’d like to share (or at least record for my own future recollections, which you can listen in on, if you want).

While our archery group usually practices at extremely short distance (2 meters) at our indoor dojo, two weeks ago we held our first regular practice of the year at the long-distance outdoor range run by the Austin Archery Club (AAC).

With Austin Kyūdō at the AAC Range

Unfortunately, it was also our last practice there, because the city has unilaterally terminated the archery club’s lease to that land and evicted them. In the short term, that’s a big kick in the teeth for us at Austin Kyūdō. I’m hopeful it’ll be a temporary setback, since both organizations are actively trying to find alternative spaces to use, but we don’t know whether, how, or when that might work out.

The timing of the closure was odd for me, because I was just about to pay for my own personal membership to AAC. I happen to live very close to the range, and a membership would’ve allowed me to go practice distance shooting pretty much all day any day. So the shutdown saves me the $100 membership fee, plus the cash I was going to spend getting my own kyūdō-specific target to use. But of course I would’ve been happy to spend that money, if only they had been able to stay open.

On Saturday 3/14 a handful of us gathered at the range for that final long-distance practice. It was the first time I’ve shot at the standard 28-meter distance since last September’s trip to a kyūdō seminar in South Carolina, and my first chance to test myself after correcting my technique following two long years of struggling with bad form.

To my complete delight, I shot surprisingly well. I lofted five sets of two arrows, and in four of those sets, my second shot hit the target (a 36 cm circle). I don’t think I’d ever scored more than one hit (in total) in any session, so four hits and a 40% success rate was deeply encouraging, especially considering the state of my poor, abused arrow fletchings. After being so bad for so long, finally having things click felt incredibly good.

That was reinforced by a side conversation I had with our club’s manager, who told me she thought I was the equivalent of a 2nd-Dan kyudoka. I’m current unranked – and vociferously disinterested in kyudo’s hierarchy of ranks and formal testing – but it’s still useful to know how others assess my proficiency. And knowing that I would likely pass the written test and skill demonstrations for 1st- and 2nd-Dan is another very encouraging vote of confidence.

Although to be honest, the tests for those first two ranks are pretty cursory. The written questions are rudimentary and you’re not expected to hit the target at all until the exam for 3rd-Dan. And it’s good to know that given a little more practice, I could probably put in a creditable showing in the 3rd-Dan test… if I cared about such things at all.

So I’m happy to have had another very encouraging session, even if long-distance practice is now out of the question for the time being.

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大成功

2026-01-04T21:04:23Z

Time for a brief update on my kyūdō practice.

You may recall that after 2½ years of painful struggle and utter failure in this martial art of Japanese archery, I attended a seminar in South Carolina in hopes that our sensei would be able to correct my constant misfiring, which I wrote about at length here.

That was four months ago. So how has it gone?

Holding the tally board following Austin Kyūdō's 108 Arrows Shoot 2026.

Pretty well. Putting sensei’s feedback into practice has helped immensely. While I’m still far from perfect, I’d say I’m able to shoot nearly as reliably as anyone around me, which is an amazing degree of improvement.

Which brings me around to yesterday’s practice session: our annual ceremony of shooting 108 arrows to begin a new year.

Ironically, the meaning behind the ceremony is Buddhist in nature, as a way to recommit to overcoming the 108 Defilements. In her email to the group, our club leader phrased it as “letting go of tension, frustration, mistakes, grudges, and anything else we carry from the past year.” I think those words perfectly encapsulate my attitude toward my shooting in 2025.

So this was a very intentional opportunity to make a break with the struggles of the past, and begin a new year with a clean slate.

In previous years, my terrible form and lack of confidence made this ceremony uncomfortable for me, and I contributed very little to the group effort. But with newfound confidence in my shooting, this year I was eager to push myself and publicly demonstrate my progress. Plus this would be exactly the kind of shooting-focused practice I need.

One way I prepared was working out with my bow while the group was on hiatus over the holidays. I specifically wanted to develop the strength to hold a full draw for longer, and the endurance to do so repeatedly. To that effect, I did daily workouts, building up to three sets of three draws with my 12 kg bow, holding each one for 24 seconds before release.

On the day of the ceremony a dozen of us showed up, so math suggested each person should aim for about 9 or 10 shots. Whatever! I was the first archer to the firing line, shot the club’s first arrow of the year, and spent the most time at the line.

And at the end of the session, I tallied 36 shots, well more than anyone else, and tying (intentionally not surpassing) the current record for most shots during the annual ceremony.

Not all of them were perfect, of course. About a third of the way in, three of my shots ricocheted off the target, but I realized what I was doing wrong and corrected my form from that point forward. And even if I count those as misfires, that’s still a 92% success rate, which I haven’t enjoyed since early 2023.

So yeah, my shooting has definitely improved, and I’m pretty happy with where I’m at, with an eye toward improving even further in 2026. Or, as the Japanese would say, “Daiseikō!”

Aside from general improvement, one of my next steps is joining the local archery range and getting proficient at distance shooting. The range is open all day, every day, and is a very convenient 10 minute drive from home.

I also have the option of formal testing and advancing in rank, but – having begun in a different school of kyūdō that doesn’t have tests or ranks – those things aren’t of any interest to me. Nor am I particularly interested in flying out to South Carolina (or further) every few months for seminars.

For now, I’m perfectly happy taking my time and refining my form, free of the significant downsides that come with formal testing and ranking systems.

Though I will say that after 2½ years of stress, insecurity, and failure, being the top dog at the dojo – even if it was just for this one day – felt really, really good. If this were a TV drama or sports anime, this would have been the climactic episode of my redemption arc! And it was a deeply satisfying way to begin a new year.

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The Arrow’s Journey

2025-10-08T13:25:20Z

My Austin kyūdō group doesn’t have a teacher; it never has. But we fall under the distant tutelage of a Japanese archery group based in Greenville, South Carolina. The South Carolina Kyūdō Renmei (or SCKR) is run by Blackwell-sensei, one of the most senior kyūdō teachers outside Japan, and his wife Reiko-sensei.

SCKR hold kyūdō seminars a couple times a year, which are attended by local South Carolina practitioners, Austin kyudoka, as well as people from all over North America.

Given my well-documented and very fundamental beginner struggles, I never attended a seminar. I didn’t want to take sensei’s time away from his many advanced students to deal with my remedial problems, and I didn’t want to waste an expensive trip if I wasn’t going to get the attention I need.

However, sensei offered to run a seminar just for us, only open to the comparatively junior members of Austin Kyūdō. It was an irresistible opportunity to get sensei’s help in a way that didn’t feel like I was imposing on other archers. So in September I joined ten other Austinites for a three-day kyūdō intensive.

And “intense” is the right word to describe my experience, from beginning to end. There’s way too much to be able to share it all, but I’ll do my best to briefly share the important parts of where I started, what I went through, some of the things I learned, and where I go from here.

The Honda Prelude

Just two weeks before the seminar, I was ready to call off the trip and quit kyūdō entirely. After two and a half futile years enduring consistent failure in stoic silence, I had finally reached my breaking point.

While everyone around me – even complete first-timers! – demonstrated basic competence and increasing proficiency, I simply couldn’t successfully fire a bow without injuring myself or damaging equipment. My arrows would fly through the air sideways and clang off the practice target, or flop feebly to the ground only a few meters downrange. I broke strings, stripped the feathers from arrows, and bruised my forearm. And the months I’d spent trying dozens of different ways to correct it had all been for naught.

In the interest of moving on, I’ll leave it at that for now. But to get a better idea how frustrated I was, I’d encourage you to read the blogpost I wrote eight months ago, entitled “All the Gear and…”. Just take all the anguish in that post and amp it up to eleven.

Ironically, that week I had a promising insight: that I clenched the fingers of my right hand so tightly that they were interfering with my release. That didn’t solve all my problems, but it seemed like a clue: one piece of the puzzle. But I didn’t even have time to put it into practice before the seminar was upon us.

So that was my mental and emotional state going into the trip: off-the-scale frustration, extreme pessimism, and the only thing I wanted out of the seminar was for sensei to fix me… Although I was skeptical whether he would, or could.

It was – if you’ll excuse the pun – “my last shot” at being a kyūdō practitioner.

The Tyranny of Logistics

Bearing so much emotional distress, I wasn’t very tolerant of the usual discomforts of travel. Other than two trips between Pittsburgh and Austin when we were deciding where to move, I hadn’t flown in six years: since before the COVID-19 pandemic. And it was my first time flying Southwest Airlines, whose asinine unassigned seating policy makes boarding a complete free-for-all.

Things didn’t get a lot better once we arrived, either. I had to share a room with another person, which added some more stress. Not only were we going to prepare communal meals, but because no one had bothered to communicate with one another, sensei and his friends had also prepared meals for us too, which was yet another stressor for everyone.

Even the seminar provided some unexpected wrinkles. Sensei vetoed my use of the familiar bow I’d brought. I’d purchased some used zori sandals for outdoor use getting to the dojo and fetching arrows, but those promptly broke, necessitating a special trip to the store to buy replacements. And although the seminar was supposed to be for his Austin students only, we were sporadically joined by 5-10 local practitioners. Despite being able to use the dojo 365 days a year, they took shooting spaces and sensei’s time away from those of us who had traveled from far away for a precious 2½ days with him. And I have to admit I got frustrated by seeing other kyudoka improving much more rapidly than I did.

But the underlying message here is that the seminar was extremely mentally, physically, and emotionally draining. In addition to my already-charged emotional state, I was dealing with lack of sleep, poor and insufficient eating, muscle fatigue, dehydration, headaches and nausea, social stress, and of course the emotional rollercoaster of judging every shot I took.

It was, in short, an incredibly draining experience.

Nana Dan the Sensei

I’m gonna be honest: I felt a lot of trepidation going into my first experience with Blackwell-sensei. In speaking with my friends who had worked with him in the past, my preconception was of a teacher who was willfully terse, irritable, intolerant, and easily offended. But after telling their daunting stories, my friends would always add the postscript: “… but as long as you’re serious about kyūdō, he’s really great!”

During the seminar, Blackwell-sensei was actually very willing to give me the benefit of his time and instruction, and he patiently listened to my observations and needs. Despite my skepticism and obvious frustration, he was able to see the mistakes underlying my problems, and gave me clear strategies for correcting them. And he did so with patience and graciousness.

While fixing my issues will take lots more practice and reinforcement, my shooting did begin to improve by the end of the seminar, thanks to his valuable and generously-offered instruction.

Not that he isn’t surly and cantankerous and all that. But I think it shows up in his interactions with more experienced students, with whom he has higher expectations and more established relationships.

My Threefold Incompetence

So what exactly did I get out of the seminar? Well, there were lots of little, specific learnings, but those will be documented in my kyūdō notebook, rather than here. And as far as I was concerned, the only thing that really mattered was figuring out the cause of my constant misfires.

Over the course of the weekend, we identified three specific issues with my release. I’ll distill them down as briefly as possible.

First, my grip on the bow was incorrect, which was causing the string to slap my wrist and the bow to invert itself. Fixing it requires both holding the bow more loosely, plus making small changes in how my fingers configure themselves on the grip.

My second issue was what I’d identified just before the seminar: by locking my fingers around the string, they interfered with the string when I released it, causing the arrow to fire off-kilter, with very little power, and stripping some of the fletching. Ideally, I wouldn’t lock those fingers at all during my draw, but for the time being I’m simply trying to consciously loosen those fingers before I release the string.

I developed the habit of locking those fingers because the string was prematurely coming out of the groove it’s supposed to sit in within the glove. Sensei gave me several techniques to counteract this tendency during my draw, including: keeping my right hand flat; being careful to keep my thumb level or pointed up, rather than downward; making sure my right elbow comes down and back as I draw; not drawing the arrow all the way down to the chin; and not holding my full draw for very long.

Of course, there’s an immense difference between a conceptual understanding of what one has to fix versus actually physically performing it reliably each time one steps up to shoot. And because I’ve spent two years developing muscle memory of improper techniques, my attempts to correct my form feel completely unnatural and wrong. So even though I know what I should be doing, it’s going to take time and lots of practice to learn new habits.

The Fourth Problem

As chance would have it, our kyūdō trip coincided with two Zoom calls that I wanted to attend, both organized by Cambridge Insight Meditation Center, where I practiced meditation for 12 years, and which has been an important part of my growth for more than two decades. Saturday’s call was in honor of CIMC’s founding teacher, Larry Rosenberg, who is in his nineties and in poor health; and on Sunday we celebrated the 40th anniversary of CIMC’s founding. These were intensely moving for me, and featured several of my dear old friends. A shaved-headed version of Ornoth even showed up in the background in part of the “community reflections” video they shared!

The main reason why I mention these here is because those celebrations included poignant messages about looking at how one relates to the challenges and suffering that arise in one’s life, and to pay close attention to what one is attached to, especially ego-based ideas about who one is and how one wants other people see them.

The applicability of these ideas to my kyūdō practice couldn’t have been clearer, and really put the past couple years into perspective.

To clarify further, here’s a citation from a recent article in Lion’s Roar magazine that stated things rather well:

Often a problem at home or at work isn’t just troubling because of the surface issue that the problem is about. It’s what the problem makes us feel and think about ourselves that is disturbing. Taking the time to examine those feelings and thoughts using our meditative practices often shows us that we have some internal hook by which the external challenge has grabbed us.

[…]

Try answering this self-exploratory journal question: “What is the difference between the actual problem posed by my situation and my perception of and feelings about my situation?”

A neutral observer would see that there’s really nothing objectively painful about my kyūdō practice, other than maybe an occasional abrasion. The towering mountain of anguish I’ve endured is entirely due to the meaning I’ve attached to my practice, specifically my need to be seen as a competent – if not a skilled – archer, both in my own mind as well as in the estimation of others.

My need to be a skilled kyudoka was the source of a great deal of pain: that is the fourth problem with my archery practice.

I would free myself from an immense quantity of suffering if I were able to let go of that need, or at least hold it more lightly. Like changing my shooting technique, that’s easier said than done, but just having that mind-shift cleared some space for me to relate to myself and my struggles with more ease, more compassion, and hopefully a little more freedom.

Since my early days as a tech consultant, I’ve known that I don’t thrive in my “stretch zone”; I thrive in the “comfort zone”. I want to enjoy life as it comes, in accordance with my own values, without unnecessary effort or discomfort. I don’t understand people who fixate on personal growth, always striving for something more, wanting to leave their mark on the world. To me, that sounds like living in a perpetual hamster wheel: lots and lots of effort, achieving nothing of value. Or as Devo sings: “Toil is Stupid”.

I had an exchange with one of the senior kyudoka from South Carolina which was especially discouraging. He told me that he enjoyed having the younger Austin people visit, because they reminded him that practicing kyūdō could actually be fun. If enjoying kyūdō is an alien concept to such a longtime practitioner, that raises a big question about whether I even want to continue. What’s the point, if there is no enjoyment?

Kyūdō challenges my self-image, my attachment to how I am perceived by others, and the basic values I hold toward life. Hopefully I can work through those challenges and find a better way to relate to them, so that I don’t have to suffer as much as I have for the past two years.

Seeking the Target

So where do I stand?

Sensei actually gave me both hope and a number of specific changes that I can incorporate into my shooting technique. It would be logical to make a sincere effort to adopt his suggestions, to see whether they actually improve my shooting or not. That will take time and practice to prove out, but that’s an investment I’m willing to make.

I’m also willing to work on my relationship with kyūdō. It’s important that I learn how to let go of the frustration that comes with identifying as a competent archer, while at the same time asking myself whether kyūdō’s endless self-improvement treadmill is something I am able and willing to tolerate over the long term.

As such, I am not going to quit kyūdō… yet.

But at the same time, I am only suspending judgement long enough to work with sensei’s suggestions. Those changes might not help, and I might still decide that I can’t cope with kyūdō’s perpetual challenges and frustrations.

So we’ll see. The arrow’s journey continues, for the time being.

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All the Gear and…

2025-02-16T16:22:01Z

Like golf, kyūdō is supposed to be a little humbling. Part of this Japanese martial art is to provide the archer with opportunities to observe and reflect on his emotional reaction to stress, adversity, frustration, and failure.

I really don’t think it’s supposed to be this hard, tho.

But before I talk about what’s going wrong, let’s talk about what’s gone well: buying things!

Soon after restarting my lapsed kyūdō practice in a new lineage, I purchased a basic kyūdō uniform: a dogi, kaku obi, hakama, and tabi (i.e. shirt, belt, pleated skirt-pants, and footwear). Plus my first yugake (shooting glove), custom-sized for my hand and specially crafted in Japan.

Last year I added the essential equipment. I ordered four semi-fletched arrows from respected kyūdō teacher Dan DeProspero in North Carolina for close-range indoor use with a makiwara target. Then I gained a beautiful set of six fletched arrows for long-distance shooting, which my buddies picked up for me while they were attending a workshop at Blackwell-sensei’s dojo in South Carolina. And I topped it off with a new, extra-long (yon-sun), 12kg draw weight Jikishin II composite bow in a group order from Japan’s Sambu Kyuguten.

I definitely look the part. So what’s the problem? Literally everything else!

But taking aim at the main problem: I can’t release an arrow properly. Sometimes the arrow launches feebly and bounces off the practice target. Other times it flies thru the air sideways and clangs off the target. Sometimes the string tries to rotate around the bow so violently that the bow “flips” and inverts itself, requiring a manual reset. I’ve even broken the string on one bow. And every misfire produces eye-wateringly painful abrasions and bruising on my left thumb or wrist.

This kinda thing happens to archers from time to time. With a normal problem, you would diagnose what you’re doing wrong, correct it, and move on with your practice; but it’s been more than 18 months, and I’ve tried so many things, with no success in fixing my release. In the past six months, I’ve made just 23 successful shots, against 31 misfires of various kinds. And I sat out three entire practice sessions purely out of fear of shooting. I’ve even had actual nightmares about kyūdō.

These days, I panic before every shot, anticipating the painful abrasions and bruising that accompanies yet another humiliating misfire. Obviously, my “release anxiety” isn’t helping matters at all.

Another frustration is the number of plausible fixes I’ve tried. At first I thought that the glove on my right hand wasn’t holding the string securely, causing it to slip free unexpectedly, with my other fingers impeding its release. When fixing that didn’t solve my problems, I started looking at my left wrist, which is weak and thus has a tendency to buckle inward or outward at full draw. Then we tweaked my grip on the bow, even swapping in a larger grip, because my fingers are considerably longer than those of the average Japanese archer. I tried rotating my right arm vertically on release rather than horizontally, in case that motion was interfering with my release. I tried changed where the arrow was positioned against my glove and putting less torque on my right hand, thinking my glove might be nudging the arrow out of nock. I’ve perpetually been advised to loosen my grip on the bow, but that’s something I’m pretty cognizant of, and doesn’t seem to be the main problem. Because I’ve been afraid of doing a full draw for so long, I tried altering my stance to force myself to fully extended my left arm, in case that was influencing the flight of the arrow. And most recently, I’ve tried focusing my grip on the bow with my middle finger. Out of all these things I’ve tried, nothing has worked.

A complicating factor is that our club doesn’t have an actual experienced teacher among us. Our most senior member is still pretty junior, only recently graduating from Second Dan. So although I get a ton of well-intentioned advice from other members, it’s mostly amateur guesswork and is sometimes contradictory. So many different suggestions have been piled on simultaneously that I can’t adequately test whether any of them are working. Especially when we are only able to shoot three or four arrows per weekly session!

As I said above, part of being a kyūdōka is learning how to manifest stoic strength, showing neither elation nor disappointment in one’s performance. So I’ve been exceptionally patient, never showing any overt emotional response. Meanwhile, I’ve helped new practitioners, who began with considerably less skill and self-awareness, advance far beyond me in skill. Although I really don’t care about rank at all, after nearly two years of incompetent struggle, I’m not improving, and I’ve finally exhausted my willingness to suffer in silent solitude.

A normal kyudoka would long ago have called on the experience of their teacher. For better or worse, our Austin group falls under the auspices of a Seventh Dan teacher who lives in South Carolina and runs his own group there. He never comes to Austin, and we can only travel to see him once or twice a year, when he holds kyūdō seminars that are well-attended and open to the public. At those seminars, he prefers to work with his advanced students, and I don’t want to show up on his doorstep asking for him to solve some aging stranger’s beginner struggles. Ideally, I’d get my problems cleared up and develop some basic competence before working with him. But until that happens, I’d be too ashamed to show up with such fundamental problems, and it would be a pointless waste of a trip if I was unable to participate in shooting.

While I expect my struggles to continue, there are two potential options for possibly getting help.

Our sensei has mentioned the possibility of hosting a weekend seminar specifically for our Austin group. This could be a way for me to meet him and get some personal instruction without taking his precious time away from his favored students. The challenge would be getting a critical number of students to schedule travel together to South Carolina to make it worth sensei’s time. And meanwhile, I’ve got an upcoming surgery that’ll prevent me from flying for six months.

Another possibility might be sending video clips to him for his critique. This has the advantage of being easier to make happen, but it would limit how much sensei can see, as well as how quickly I could test out his suggestions and get rounds of feedback. Plus it would still be an imposition, and he’s known for being terse and a poor correspondent.

At any rate, I’ll be taking the month of March off from kyūdō following my upcoming surgery. I have no idea whether that downtime will be a useful reset for my technique or an opportunity for me to atrophy and fall even further out of practice.

This is all an immense challenge to the air of competence and Buddhist stoicism I usually try to exemplify. Despite my obvious struggles over the past year and a half, I successfully remained nonchalant and kept my frustration on a low simmer. But at this point the pressure has built up and reached an explosive level where it has to come out. It’s been a very long time since anything has frustrated and humiliated me so thoroughly as kyūdō.

After two years of continuous struggle, it would be illogical to think anything is likely to change. So there’s no way to end this post optimistically. Just venting, while documenting my lengthy, painful, and ongoing struggle.

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Sterling Archer

2023-04-03T18:29:03Z

Cambridge Massachusetts, February 23, 2014: I grab a Japanese bow, walk to within two meters of a target, and inexpertly bury two arrows into it. Thus began my excursion into the meditative / martial art of kyūdō. There’s some background info on kyūdō and my “First Shot” ceremony in this blogpo.

However, 18 months later, I moved to Pittsburgh, where the lack of a kyūdō group forced me to step away from the practice. Seven years passed.

When Inna and I were recently evaluating cities to move to, kyūdō was an important consideration for me, and I checked out the local groups when we visited Raleigh/Durham, Denver/Boulder, and Austin. So when we finally moved to Austin, one of my first stops was Austin Kyūdō.

My Second First Shot

In Japan, there are several schools of kyūdō, each with their own slight differences in philosophy, terminology, and technique. Of those, there are only two that are active in the United States. There’s the All Nippon Kyūdō Federation, which I’ll shorten to ANKF, that came out of a postwar attempt to unify all the diverse styles into one common form. That’s what’s typically taught as an activity in Japanese high schools. The other presence in the US is the Heki-Ryu Bishu Chikurin-ha school, which I’ll call Zenko, which is one of those older schools, traditionally headed by the Shibata family of bowmakers to the Japanese nobility, and which was supported somewhat by the Shambhala organization.

Sadly, there’s some rivalry and mutual condescension between these two schools. While that might make more sense back in Japan, it seems pretty counterproductive here in the US, where the differences seem trivial and – since neither has much of a following – a spirit of mutual cooperation would benefit everyone.

All this pertains to me because my practice at Byakko Kyudojo back in Boston was in the Zenko style, but Austin Kyūdō is affiliated with the ANKF. So I’m effectively switching schools and starting over. While there is a Zenko group in Houston with occasional practices in Austin (Emiko Kyudojo), it makes sense for me to get back into kyūdō with the more active local group and consider returning to the Zenko fold after developing a greater level of proficiency.

From the perspective of an American and a novice, the differences between ANKF and Zenko are few, but worth enumerating. Philosophically, Zenko is more focused on the internal, meditative aspect of archery (which appeals to me), and seems more focused on individual practice rather than coordinated group shooting. And – being run by a family of traditional bowmakers – Zenko requires practitioners to use bamboo bows, whereas ANKF is happy to use composite bows that are cheaper, more forgiving, and require less care. ANKF has also added formal ranks, requiring written exams and shooting demonstrations to advance in levels.

With that as background… After arriving in Austin, I learned that Austin Kyūdō was holding a six-week beginners’ course. Between a seven year layoff and joining a different school, that “starting over” route made sense for me. I joined two other newbs for their training series, which culminated on Saturday April 1th with our “First Shot” rite… Which was actually my second First Shot ceremony, having been through Zenko’s equivalent back in 2014, as described up top.

While it’s wonderful being a full-fledged kyudoka again, I’m far from satisfied with my first shot. While passable, my form wasn’t up to my own expectations, so I have plenty of “stuff” to work on.

But I was also put off because my hands are too large for any of the group’s dojo-owned gloves for students. In addition to a bow and arrows, a kyūdō-specific glove is an absolutely essential piece of equipment, since it is the glove that actually holds the bowstring when it is drawn. For my first shot, I wound up borrowing another student’s brand-new glove, and the bow just wasn’t cooperating with it.

While I always intended to send away to Japan and invest in my own custom-made glove, the lack of a dojo glove to practice with has made that purchase a pressing need. The fabrication and shipping will take 2-3 months, during which I really can’t do any shooting, either at distance or at a close-range practice target, as in the photo above.

Despite that frustrating delay, there’s still a lot I can work on in the meantime, so that when my glove arrives I can dive back into practice with diligence, energy, and more confidence in my form.

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Keep Austin

2022-05-22T17:23:58Z

Last month Inna & I spent eight days in Austin. She was headed there for a four-day workshop, and it made sense for me to tag along and extend our trip, so that we could check it out as a possible place to relocate to.

Austin Skyline

Inna enjoying her palapa

Sparky Park

Austin Boardwalk

Craft

Couple under a palapa

Couple at Clay Pit

Couple at Lupe's Tex-Mex

Mt. Bonnell Sunset

Prologue

This was my first trip out of Pennsylvania since the Covid-19 pandemic hit; my first time sleeping anywhere other than my own bed since 2019. With the pandemic winding down, it was a nervous, awkward person who finally emerged from his cave after 2½ years of hibernation.

Leading up to the trip, I wasn’t able to muster much motivation to do the advanced research I needed to be well-prepared. I wasn’t big on the idea of living in Texas, and my previous visits to Austin (in 1994, 2003, and 2004) had left me with the impression that it was a cycling-unfriendly area. On top of that, I had some trepidation about the reasons behind Inna’s sudden enthusiasm for moving to such a scorchingly hot location.

I should also point out that I just wasn’t in a very positive place emotionally, which colored my experience of Austin and thereby this account of our travels. So please discount the “grumpy old man” factor that you’ll encounter below.

Here’s my day-by-day account, but if you’re only interested in the bottom line, you can skip ahead to the Epilogue.

Wed April 20: Travel

Arriving at the Pittsburgh airport, I dropped Inna near the terminal, drove out to long-term parking, and made the long walk back. Only to discover that Inna had forgotten to leave her winter coat in the car, so I offered to schlep it back out to the car and repeat my inbound hike. We breezed through security thanks to TSA PreCheck. Breakfast from McDonalds. Unlike ourselves, only 10% of people were masked up.

Our two-stage flight went well. I used the flight time to practice Japanese on Duolingo. At our connection in Detroit, our outbound flight to Austin was the same gate and aircraft we’d arrived in from Pittsburgh, which happily obviated the entire hectic connecting-flight dependency chain.

Grabbed our rental car from Enterprise, where they were much too friendly. Drove across town and checked into our hotel, right on the I-35 highway access road. Seeing Captain Benny’s seafood restaurant with outdoor seating and palapas right next to the hotel, Inna was delighted by the reminder of our time in the Caribbean, so we immediately had a light outdoor dinner there.

The weather – as it would be all week long – was very windy and heavy overcast that would occasionally burn off to reveal the sun. Days ranged from 20-30° and nights from 10-20°. Inna found it delightful, and it was quite an improvement over Pittsburgh, where it had snowed all day the day before we left.

Afterward, we went straight to the Atown local souvenir shop, checked out “Sparky Park” (a former electrical substation decorated with pretty and sparkly and delightful junk), and got supplies at the local H-E-B (Howard E. Butt) grocery, which included some interesting “double chocolate” Lindt truffles.

Had some challenges navigating the Texan highway access road system, Austin’s half streets (e.g. East 38½ Street), and the mystery of why anyone would name a residential street “Speedway”. Returned to the hotel very tired and spent some time catching up on stuff before turning in.

Thu April 21: Level Up Circling & Mariposa

After a breakfast of OJ and cookies, I dropped Inna off at the modest ranch house where her four-day Circle Anywhere workshop was held. My plan for Day 1 was to shower, settle in, and attend an evening meditation group at Mariposa Sangha.

My contact there had proposed meeting up beforehand, but never replied to my response, so I had dinner on my own: an idiosyncratic Panang curry at Thai Kitchen, where I got instant service, being the only customer who was dining in. Dessert was a Mexican vanilla milkshake at Amy’s Ice Cream up the street, after being asked by the staff whether I was able to fix their “waffle dough pump”.

Then to Mariposa, a small peer-led Vipassana meditation group, held in a Methodist church chapel, which was still filled with Easter lilies. Met Paul Schlaud, who was leading the evening sitting and dhamma talk, covering the Buddhist precept against misusing sexuality. I contributed during the Q&A, and chatted with Paul afterward. It seemed comparable to our sitting group in Pittsburgh: pretty small and informal, where I’d be equally welcome to teach as well as be taught.

My session ended just as Inna’s post-workshop dinner broke up, so I swung by the Italian restaurant to pick her up and drive back to the hotel.

Fri April 22: Bike Shops

After dropping Inna off, I began my cycling-focused day with a stop at TJ’s Cycle, where I got a lot of good pointers, despite them being mostly an MTB shop.

The guy there pointed me to a new shop nearby called Bicycle House ATX, where I gathered a little more info.

Then downtown, where I stopped at REI to get an independent opinion. I picked up a hardcopy Austin bike map and chatted with a couple friendly locals. Then the nearby Rapha store, which was predictably pretentious but helpful.

My final downtown stop was Mellow Johnny’s, the store founded by cycling pariah Lance Armstrong. It is a hub of the local cycling community, and had dozens of workers manning the store, but to me it seemed both tackily self-promoting and thoroughly unfriendly.

My final stop was Trek Bicycle Lamar. The former center of Austin’s cycling scene, it had been known as the Bicycle Sport Shop before a corporate buyout. I spoke briefly to an attendant who had once lived in Pittsburgh. The shop had a whole wall full of suggested rides, which I captured for future reference.

By the end of the afternoon, I had gathered way more information about the Austin cycling scene than needs to be recorded here, but my impression was that cycling was popular enough to support for several bike shops and group rides. And although I couldn’t find evidence of any centuries or major events (other than the Hill Country Randonneurs), people sounded confident in riding out beyond the city limits into Texas proper. Austin seemed to pass my cycling sniff test.

I’d planned to walk around the corner to visit Peter Pan Mini Golf, which I’d visited with my DargonZine pals in 2003, but by then I was so tired that it slipped my mind in my desire to get back to the comfort of the hotel.

After meeting up with Inna, dinner was a pound of pork ribs at Rudy’s BBQ. As we entered the building, the wind was so strong that it blew down a renovator’s ladder, which nearly fell on top of me!

For dessert I took Inna to Amy’s Ice Cream. She’d had a challenging day at her workshop, and I let her talk it out and relax in the outdoor seating. We were both beat and headed back to the hotel to crash.

Sat April 23: Kyūdō & Newspaper Quest

After taking Inna to Day 3 of her workshop, I went back to the hotel to shower, which for this one day was swarmed with dozens of college students. Then it was back into town to pick up some Excedrin and the day’s main event.

I stepped into the Rising Sun Aikido studio, where people from Austin Kyūdō were assembling for practice. When the leader introduced herself to me, I heard her name as “VHS”, which she subsequently corrected to “Beatrice” (Haven). I also met Helen Febrie, whom I’d exchanged emails with to schedule my visit.

I have two main takeaways from their practice. One is that they’re an ANKF/IKYF group, rather than the Zenko/Heki-ryu Bishu Chikurin-ha lineage of kyūdō that I studied back in Boston. That means they put less emphasis on the mental and meditative aspect of kyūdō, and like other martial arts they give formal ranks to practitioners. There are also some tiny differences in their technique, such as using the two-arrow form, not smoothing the arrow feathers, emphasis on coordinated team practice, less ritualized arrow retrieval, and permission to use bows made of materials other than bamboo. It also means they’re on good terms with American bowmaker Don Symanski, which could someday prove valuable. But I’m agnostic about which school of kyūdō I’m involved with, and find that petty rivalry to be shortsighted, given how tiny the pastime is here in the U.S..

My other takeaway is that it’s a small group with friendly, approachable members. They’re a small offshoot of the IKYF South Carolina Kyūdō Renmei based near Greenville, SC. They’re not unfriendly with the remnants of the dormant Austin Shambhala kyūdō group, as well as Zenko, and they sometime cross paths. It seemed like a nice, supportive group, although requiring an immense 1,800 KM trip to SC to get instruction and support from an experienced teacher.

I stayed for the full 2-hour indoor practice, occasionally chatting but mostly enjoying the beauty of the form and teasing out the differences in technique.

It being Saturday, I wanted to pick up a Barron’s financial newspaper, since I’d suspended my home delivery for the week. Long story short, I had no luck, despite hitting a CVS drugstore, Barnes & Noble bookstore, Kinokuniya Japanese bookstore, and 7-Eleven and Valero convenience stores all across town.

Frustrated, I went back to the hotel and spent the night eating snacks and watching soccer. I was too tired to go out, find a big meal, and fight the Saturday night crowds. Inna found her own dinner and eventually Ubered home.

Sun April 24: Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Hotel Day

Day Four in Austin, and for the third day I woke up headachey and nauseous. The weather was continued overcast, which certainly was preferable to Texas heat, but weighed on my mood.

Despite fulfilling major criteria like cycling, meditation, and kyūdō, much of Austin felt like America at its worst: soulless highway car culture and chain store strip mall hell. The city has become ridiculously expensive and its overtaxed infrastructure can’t handle the explosive population growth it has experienced.

Although I’d brought all my cycling gear and hoped to enjoy some cycling around Austin – especially the Veloway and bike night at the Circuit of the Americas – logistical difficulties had made it impossible. I was disappointed and depressed.

After dropping Inna off at her final workshop session, I wanted to fetch drinks and a Barron’s, but had no luck at Circle-K, the H-E-B grocery, or Target. Then I went back to the hotel to regroup and figure out my plan for the day.

While brushing my teeth, I dropped a hotel glass in the bathroom sink, smashing it and cutting up my hands, especially my right ring finger, which began bleeding profusely. It took two hours of constant direct pressure to get the bleeding under control, and another hour before it stopped enough to be able to stick a bandage on it. The white facecloth I’d used was crimson and completely soaked with blood. Getting that under control pretty much took up my whole day. By evening, I was able to gingerly drive myself to another nearby Thai restaurant, Pad Thai, for takeout.

Meanwhile, Inna had decided to spend the evening with her workshop cohort, going wading in Barton Springs before getting a late ride back to the hotel.

From my perspective, it had been another shitty day and I just wanted nothing other than to go home.

Mon April 25: Storms & Hotel Swap

Monday wasn’t much of a day either, washed out by thunderstorms and off-and-on rain. Inna spent her first non-workshop morning recovering needed work files that her teammates had mistakenly deleted. Then we packed up and checked out of our north-of-town hotel. Although we’ve usually stayed at B&Bs, Inna had found exceptional deals at standard hotels, and changing hotels allowed us to explore different parts of the city with less travel time in the car.

With time to kill before our check-in time at the next, south-of-town hotel, we drove around town looking at houses that were for sale. They were mostly ranches, of course, and the residential neighborhoods only varied in how recently they’d been developed. Prices were high but not completely insane.

After an unenthusiastic debate, we opted for a late lunch at the Clay Pit, a downtown Indian restaurant that I had visited during the 2003 DargonZine Summit meetup, and where I’d left behind (and then fetched) a digital camera. The food was surprisingly good.

Our new hotel was located right in the middle of a massive highway interchange in a more industrial section of town. Inna was delighted that the new room — unlike the old one – had a safe, until I pointed out that it was actually a microwave oven, and she probably didn’t want to store her work computer in there!

We spent the rainy afternoon relaxing. Inna napped, and then practiced her Hebrew on Duolingo, which she’d picked up after I’d started using it over Xmas to learn Japanese. Then we went to H-E-B for supplies before calling it a day.

Tue April 26: Grumpy Goes Downtown

By Tuesday, it had all caught up with me: the gloomy weather, my headaches, bad eating, inability to do any cycling, and injuring my hand, all on top of longstanding background dissatisfaction with aging and cardiac health. First thing after waking up, Inna patiently sat through one of my rare emotional dumps.

She then equally patiently helped me shower and wash my hair, since I still couldn’t use my right hand. Afterward, I replaced the bandage for the first time, and happily noted that my fingers looked much better than they had two days earlier.

Focusing on what she could control (my diet), Inna directed us to breakfast at the Magnolia Cafe, where I demolished Eggs Zapata, which amounted to scrambled eggs on english with sausage and spicy queso.

Next stop was “Austin Art Garage”, but we arrived before opening, so killed time in a nearby Indian shoppe. Returning, we scoped out the gallery, and I was amused by their 1980s vintage Tron arcade game console.

Heading downtown, we stopped at the Austin Visitor Center, which provided a transit map and just two brochures, only one of which was Austin-specific. Worthless.

With the day turning warm and sunny, Inna directed us to the mile-long Lady Bird Lake Boardwalk that’s part of the bike trail along the south side of the Colorado River. We took up residence in some Adirondack chairs left on a riverside dock and enjoyed the sun and the skyline view for a while, and watched a couple guys fooling around on e-foils. On the walk back, Inna greeted a young black woman who had brought her cat down to the river.

The rest of the day was haphazard. Another Amy’s Ice Cream, followed by Uncommon Objects, a big antiques (junk) store with most of its wares displayed by color. I dropped Inna off to meet a friend for a food truck dinner, then went back to the hotel, where I waited until 10:30pm to hear whether she needed me for a return ride or not.

Wed April 27: Lupes & More Circling

We (well, Inna) slept in until lunchtime. After hitting CVS, we stopped to admire Casa Neverlandia, a creatively-decorated private house that reminded me of Pittsburgh’s Randyland.

Lunch was a long-anticipated stop on the 360 at Lupe’s Tex-Mex restaurant, an Inna favorite since her first business trip to Houston, having heard it reviewed by a co-worker back when she was in Kuala Lumpur. It being my first time, I was pleased with the fajitas we got. I’m not sure it lived up to the years of hype I’d heard – and it was stunningly expensive! – but it was good to finally try the place for myself.

After yet another Amy’s Ice Cream, we stopped for a brief rest at the small Govalle Neighborhood Park at the Southern Walnut Creek trailhead.

Then Inna navigated us to Craft, a big DIY crafting warehouse. After a quick tour, we settled in and gave it a try. Inna produced one of her typical paint-and-collage compositions, and I stayed true to form with a bold abstract paint-based thing. Nothing noteworthy, but it was a nice activity, and something to do as a couple other than sitting around the hotel or eating.

Although Inna’s weekend workshop was over, she wanted to go to Circle Anywhere’s regular weekly evening session, so I dropped her off and went to kill time at the Kinokunia Japanese bookstore. I browsed for 45 minutes without finding anything that jumped out at me, so I moseyed on to the Daiso Japanese housewares store next door.

Bored with that, I consulted my map to find a nearby park to hang out in for the 90 minutes until Inna’s session ended. Covert Park at Mount Bonnell was nearby and looked like it would have a view overlooking the river, so I drove there.

I’d forgotten that Mount Bonnell is a favorite semi-touristy spot to watch the sunsets from atop a high bluff over the river. I’d arrived just in time, and spent a few minutes scouting out the walking paths, looking for an unoccupied vantage point. It reminded me a lot of the “overlooks” back in Pittsburgh. I relaxed, watched the sun set, and took a couple selfies and panoramas. I also enjoyed the modern convenience of using a 5G phone connection to check Inna and I into our upcoming flights home.

Inna’s workshop session had been unsatisfying, so we chatted about it on the way back to the hotel, where we started packing up while watching another soccer game.

Thu April 28: Killing Time til We Can Go Home

Our last day in Austin began as you’d expect: packing up and checking out of our hotel.

Then we made our way to the Buzz Mill cafe, where we met up with Inna’s friend Sarah Ness, a former Pittsburgher who had founded Authentic Revolution, one of Austin’s other “circling” groups. She was pleasant and interested and energetic, and had lots of positive things to say about Austin.

When Sarah left, Inna and I went next door to a Dairy Queen, where I ordered the traditional Dilly Bar. Then we literally drove around the block before Inna proposed that we go back and hang out at the Buzz Mill until it was time to head to the airport.

The car was dropped off in seconds, our TSA PreCheck got us through security in no time, and Inna disappeared into a massage booth while I finally found a copy of Barron’s at an airport newsstand. Inna stopped at “Salvation Pizza” and spent $7.50 a slice for some greasy pizza that they stacked such that each slice was stuck to the paper plate of the one above it. Did we still eat it? Yeah, you can’t be choosy when eating in the airport.

By the time our 7pm flight was boarding, even Inna just wanted to be home. Happily, like our previous connection in Detroit, our transfer in Atlanta was also back onto the same aircraft at the same gate we arrived at, which made for the best Hartsfield experience either of us have ever had. We shared a laugh when the PA announcer sounds like he asked passengers to please make sure everyone in your party had their body parts for boarding.

Although it wasn’t objectively long, our journey home felt like it took forever. The flight, the trek to the intra-terminal shuttle, waiting at baggage claim (we’d been forced to gate-check our carry-ons), the trudge out to the car, paying for long-term parking, and the 45-minute drive home. There – despite it being 2:30am — I jumped straight into trash, recycling, and cleaning out the cat’s litterbox and put everything out for pickup later that morning. But the cat was happy to see us, and we were very glad to climb into bed shortly before the sun rose.

Epilogue

Recalling that this was my first major trip post-Covid, since late 2019, I am delighted that we made it through without either of us getting sick. We were masked and careful at the airports and during flights, but less so in Austin, where we – like everyone else – went mostly mask-free in stores and restaurants. Although we weren’t especially stringent, we didn’t have any problems at all, even though our immune systems haven’t been exercised in 2½ years.

As for the prospects for relocating, that remains a bit unclear, although after numerous false starts, Austin’s the first place that we both agree has real potential.

For me, the positive side of the ledger includes Inna’s willingness to move there, an active cycling community, the presence of a kyūdō dojo, an MLS team, and no city or state income taxes. Although I’ll repeat how disappointed I am that I wasn’t able to do any cycling during this trip, either solo or in the company of locals.

The list of Austin’s negatives includes the cost of living, the traffic, the highways, the endless expanse of character-less strip malls. Higher property and sales taxes. No casino. Poisonous snakes, spiders, fire ants, scorpions, and lots of other creepy-crawlies. And no matter how reasonable Austinites might seem, it’s a tenuous island of approximate sanity amid Texas’ vast and frightening brand of crazy.

As for mixed blessings… This trip’s weather notwithstanding, there’s the heat. Although I would certainly be leaving New England winters far behind, even a sun-worshipper like myself am intimidated at the prospect of living with Texas’ infamous heat, even if Inna is resigned to being uncomfortable no matter where we go.

And the meditation scene also counts as a mixed blessing. There aren’t any longstanding teachers, nor any retreat centers anywhere nearby. The community is small and led by a group of peer leaders. While that’s much like my situation here in Pittsburgh and would allow me to continue to develop my role as a teacher, I would have even less experienced support in my own personal practice than I already have here.

So that leaves me with mixed feelings. Austin seems to have almost all of the things I want in a home, and Inna seems willing to commit. If it wasn’t Texas, it might be an easy decision to make. But I can’t escape the fact that it is Texas, and living there would require an immense adjustment, as compared to moving somewhere a little more temperate and with a more familiar East Coast culture.

Making another scouting trip would make a lot of sense, to become more confident about our decision, whatever that winds up being. There’s just so much that we haven’t looked at, including Inna’s employer’s local office, and that dreaded summertime heat.

So that’s where I wound up. As a vacation, it wasn’t a very good trip for me; and as a relocation spot, Austin has a lot of potential, although there are lots of plusses and minuses for us still to weigh.

Mt. Bonnell Sunset Pano

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