Asceticism as Dicipline in the Formation of a Journey

In today's class as we read, we spoke at length about the use of asceticism in the reinforcement of symbolism encountered in the exegesis of the story of a journey, and the state of flow which allows for the understanding without thought, and I believe that the use of asceticism in its alternate definition as discipline is vital to the construction of the "flow state". 
For many years, I was not an athletic type, sports did not appeal to me, and the tales of the experiences of others were heard but not processed, I heard them, but I was not listening as I could not find a common ground, I was lacking in the interpersonal part of the interaction. As I grew, I tried a myriad of things, football, soccer, basketball, dance, all of these were fun, but I did not connect with them. I experienced them, but they did not mean anything, and never did I have a goal in mind for any of these sports, they were a means to an end, but the end was without meaning. That was, all until one year in middle school where I was allowed to try out the archery club, and I was hooked. It was difficult, satisfying, professional, and something I felt I could improve upon. My lack of a proper athletic history didn't mean anything, as the bows were all light, and the only true competition I ever had was myself.
I was an archer for 5 years, I had participated in it from time to time for three years before I fully committed myself, but I count only those 5 years as those I was truly an archer. During those 5 years I went from club sport member to sport team member. My first year was a blur of tournaments, bruised arms and fingers, and pursuit of a greater state. In that first year of truly becoming an archer I qualified for the country Nationals competition. I don't know how I did looking back on it, but I was rather impressed at the time. I flew out to Salt Lake City Utah, where my dad and I stayed in a hotel for 4 days, one before the tournament, the two days of the tournament, and one day to prep to leave for home once more. 

It was a beautiful city, the air was hot and more dry than wet, the sun beautiful and bright, and the hills at such an incline that it looked as if the cars should all just slide down the hill rather than scale it. I was there with my team too, all students of my age or older, so impressive to my young eyes, they knew what they were doing. The first day of competition all the teams gathered in this massive building, it was so long the people on the other end seemed ants, lined on two of the walls there were targets, numbering two, maybe three hundred in total. You could smell them, their ballistic foam presence almost as strong as the press of the hundreds of families on the bleachers who came to witness the event. As I prepared for the competition my chest tightened slightly, my breathing going weathered to ragged as unwarranted fear seized my heart. It was of a larger scale yes, but not of any different material as a competition to any other of the tournaments I had participated in. My father, obviously conscious of my apprehension, reassured me and helped me calm down some before my shooting time. 

Before I took to the line I remembered my coach's request of us to be professional, which included having good rapport with our fellow competitors. So, as I stepped closer to the line, I approached the one who would shoot beside me. He too was a boy, as old as I was by my reconning, but he seemed so calm and collected. As I we talked and I made my introduction, he handed me something. A necklace, made from a leather cord, which was well cared for, with a knapped glass arrowhead for a pendant, o carefully wrapped and attached to the cord. There was such artistry put into the work, and the boy had made it himself, not as a charm of good luck, or a reminder of what he was so good at, or even as a tribute to the sport, but as a gift and kindness to a competitor. I put it on as I prepared for the competition to begin and began to think.

Years later, I am disappointed in my performance that day, barely over 230/300 possible points when I was routinely achieving 10 more than that on average is an embarrassment. And in my reflections of that day I can see things that were plaguing me that I could not yet see in the moment. I thought my way through every shot, thinking it through, I did not trust my muscles, I did not trust my arrows, and I did not trust myself to do as I needed to. In my years of training to follow I began to notice a pattern as I shot. I had the upmost confidences in my 10-meter performance, while not perfect, I could hit the 10 ring of the target 8/10 times and barely glance in its direction. But during 15-meter training, I slowed down, I stopped trusting my instinct and began to focus hard on what I was doing, and my performance suffered, greatly. No longer was I hitting the 10 8/10 times, I could barely manage 1 in 10 shots, and all the rest were inconsistent, imprecise, and devastating. I could not make it work, no matter how hard I forced it, no amount of focus on the bow, the arrows, the target, or myself could make me hit the target with any greater accuracy.

One day during a tournament, I believe it was some double set fall turkey-trot competition. 2 competition types, back-to-back in the same building. about half an hour earlier I had shot a decent enough set but had still been so messed up about the 15-meter portion that I kept snagging the flesh of my left arm with the bowstring every time the arrow flew. Then when I had just finished up with a middling performance in the 10-meter portion of the competition and I had an epiphany, in the way that 15-year-olds have epiphanies, I was thinking too hard. I was worrying about every step of the shot, and I was messing myself up. My arm burned from the hits of the bowstring that I had taken earlier, my fingers were begging for a break as I had been pulling the bowstring so taught and holding it for so long. I approached the line, bow in hand and when the call went out I stopped caring. I let the pain drop from my arm and hand, I picked up the bow in fingers loose and uncaring about their actions. the arrow basically lifted itself from the quiver and snapped onto the string. I tuned out the brush of my fingers against my lip with the bowstring between them, I breathed contentedly as I let the arrow fly and BANG., it struck the target, no time seeming to have passed from the moment of my letting go and its impact. I looked in that moment and saw something new, my arrow sticking out from the 9-ring, not a perfect shot, but a better one than I had shot all day. I frantically picked up another arrow, following the exact motion, speeding along ,desperate to replicate the shot, I knew where that shot was now, I could do it, I know I can do it, It is so simple, the arrow comes to my cheek, my fingers burn, my arm aches, and as I fire the string taps my arm, gory fire erupting as the bruise further developed and the shot went wide, the arrow slamming barely into the two ring, the shot was gone, I could not find it, the next three couldn't find it either. Anger boiled in my chest, why couldn't it work, I had made it work before, I was doing it right mechanically, but yet still nothing. The last shot I shot angrily, barely hitting a 7 and upsetting me further, one great shot followed by 4 duds was not the ability to shoot well, it was luck, and luck was not with me. My father called me over then, as I stepped off the line, and he asked me "What happened? That first shot was so good!" intrigued and concerned he had me evaluate what I did, my mother listened as I explained what I did with the first shot and told me not to do that anymore, but my dad coached me to stay calm and try to do it again, just as I had.

"Thinking while not thinking" was a phrase mentioned during our lesson, one that encapsulates the feeling of flow. For that one instant in the turkey-trot I believe I found my first true instance of flow. I knew what I had to do, and how to do it, and in that moment, I experienced a thinning between intent and action and found that in that moment they coexisted. I formed within myself a liminal understanding and it became. I trained in this mindset when I got home and over the next several years, I got better at achieving it. Flow is difficult in most settings, but archery is very good for it. You only shoot with one other person truly beside you, your shots are the only ones that matter, and it is quiet. Not perfectly so, as parents whisper, children babble, and the general noise of humanity permeates the building, but there is rhythm to the noise. Fans whir, arrows thud, and the murmurs of the crowd come and go with the flight of the shots, so they can be incorporated, they can be ignored. another important phrase mentioned in the reading and lesson was kenotic walking, not in the cannon of a story, but Kenosis, the Greek word for empty. kenotic walking was used to describe the meaning behind Thoreau's leaving behind of the village or Dr. Redick's shaking off the marketplace, the leaving behind all that had meaning which would influence the now, one's experience of it and one's understanding of that experience. This too applies to archery, and is very difficult to learn, and worse to apply. 

Asceticism was dicipline in my training, and in it I had troubles. What I will refer to now on as kenotic fire requires not only to leave behind all that gave context in the training to make the shot in the first place, but also the complete and utter disregard for any and all shots fired even within the same set. To further expound, kenotic fire is the total eradication of all inside and out, it is total absence, to keep with the fire motif, everything else burns away and only the moment on now exists. Meaning here that Kenosis must be achieved before and after every shot in order to maintain a state of flow. Actively purging all inactive thought of previous experience and also removing all processing and care of the experience achieved is something I struggle with. Kenotic fire requires the desertion of anxiety and a complete acceptance of what the telos of the round will be, it is an act of faith in oneself that they can perform the intent presented to them and not questioning what that intent produces. In these moments, I find not only improved skill, but also better clarity about what I have achieved, in moments of flow I can see better why what I'm doing is happening the way it is. In moments of flow, I feel that I know more of what it took to get to those moments than I do when merely committing to introspection. It points to how long I have worked to hold onto those small moments; when muscle memory takes hold and the hundreds of hours I've spent on range culminate and become one in the shot that flies from my hand.

In total, asceticism is the force by which I find flow, and through flow, as the now thins and time is seen whole, I see the journey. By seeing how far I've come, I come to understand what I've done in getting here.