u/Aeliascent

The Ming Dynasty Archery Instructor, Gao Ying, composed a military archery manual in a desperate attempt to turn the tide of the Manchu invasion into China. Towards the end of the manual however, a more laid back version of him shines through. He wrote about what makes him happy: True friends, good wine, and a strong tailwind to send his arrows far.

Whenever I travel, I hope to find an opportunity to practice. I find that no matter where you are, where there are archers, there are passionate people who understand the same unspoken language whether they practice Olympic Recurve, English Longbow, Kyudo, or even Target Compound. There are always people to learn from.

I've also found that no matter who you are, you can find respect among archers if you're competent. A well placed arrow can cut through any voice that tells us to hate the person next to us. It won't change any worldview, but it opens a door for sure.

Having a bow that fits in my checked luggage lets me search for those three things Gao Ying cherished hundreds of years ago.

(Photos for attention - Tokoname kyusu with Aichi Tokujyo sencha)

I'm love unglazed teapots and I'm looking for a teapot for the office. When I'm at work, I usually drink dancong, sencha, hojicha, and genmaicha.

I also have a thing of earl grey from Taylors.

Would it be crazy to get a more affordable tokoname teapot for those teas? I know tokoname can do dancong pretty well, but I have a feeling the earl grey may ruin it. I'm looking for a teapot with a ceramic filter or even a seramesh/sasame filter because I find them much easier to clean than metal mesh filters.

That pretty much rules out french presses.

I came out at 18 and detransitioned due to lack of acceptance , then started again at 25 when I decided screw it!

My arrows are definitely not tuned. When I got my hands on this, I just grabbed any arrows that are safe to shoot and headed for the range.

This is probably the most well-made glass laminated bow I've ever tried.

"Like when you've tried a Ferrari. Only when you've tried it will you know the difference between the Ferrari and a normal car. ... I like Ferrari!"

I recently adopted a second discipline and started learning kyudo at a club that's part of the Heki Ryu Bishu Chikurin Ha school.

I'm working on a couple of things here:

1. Trying to reach my full draw- I'm more accustomed to a shorter draw. I feel like my draw length is so ingrained that a half inch difference in draw length feels like three inches.

2. Slower expanding release - I've had target panic for a while, even with my Chinese archery form and it carried over to kyudo. I'm working on being settled with my draw then slowly expanding. Without this step, I look like I'm release as soon as I get to full draw without taking my time to expand.

3. Bow grip. In Chinese archery, we follow the mantra "the draw hand release and the bow hand does not react." This is true in kyudo as well. I notice that with kyudo, I have a tendency to jerk the bow to the left. This is why my arrows always fly left.

4. Forward lean. I'm not really supposed to do this but it's very ingrained in my form. The modern kyudo is very upright like the Olympic reform, but older kyudo form had the forward lean because it was needed to draw heavy bows and kyudo was closer to its battlefield roots.

I think my last shot looks the best out of the four.