Month: July 2017

Book review – “A Hunter’s Heart” by David Petersen

If you are a hunter, you have most likely been confronted with questions about the drivers that send you afield, either spit at you dripping with the venom of the convinced anti-hunter, with no expectation of a reasonable answer, or inquisitive, by an open-minded non-hunter, who is seeking to understand. You may have any number of ready-to-go responses that cover both situations. If you take the trouble to read “A Hunter’s Heart – Honest Essays on Blood Sport” cover to cover, all of your standard replies will be challenged.

The book contains 41 essays, that range from memories from the field and accounts of personal experience and emotional evolution in hunting, to analysis of arguments and ethics. If all you want to read are stories that highlight the accomplishments and benefits of hunting and hunters, you will not like this book. If you like to see confirmed in writing that anything in hunting, be it technological or behavioral, as long as it is legal, is sufficient justification for our actions, you have picked the wrong read. If you want to learn about what has driven others into or away from the pursuit of hunting, if you want to discover how some of our go-to arguments in defense of hunting sound hypocritical to some non-hunters, but also if you are keen to read good reasoning in favour of hunting, this might be the book for you.

It is hard to summarize this work in a few paragraphs, because its constituent chapters are so divergent in nature. Some are uneasy to read, because they hold up a mirror that doesn’t always show the hunter in the best light. Read them anyway, and see how others might see us. You may not read this book from beginning to end in a captivated daze, as you might an adventure story, and probably that is good, because the food for thought offered is best consumed in bite-size chunks. That said, I read it quickly, and read it whole, and enjoyed it, and feel that I need to read it again.

A lot of the material could have been written with the traditional bowhunter in mind, as it speaks of the journey that many of us have gone through, seeking experiences rather than the quickest way to a kill, finding challenge in doing with less technology instead of adopting more.

Published 20 years ago, some observations are a bit dated, but most are as relevant today as they were then. A highly recommended read for anyone willing to be challenged in their thinking, and looking for a deeper understanding of the motives that drive a hunter, and the image we uphold to the outside world.

The book is still available from a number of outlets, such as Barnes and Noble and Amazon.

FD

 

The Long Road Back

“If you are 50 or older, and you get up in the morning without anything hurting, check your pulse; you might be dead”
Anonymous

Warning:
This is mostly an old guy complaining, but hopefully this story can convince an archer or two to take care of their shoulders before they become a problem.

The situation:
About to order my first traditional bow, wondering about draw weight, I figured that some extra strength exercising couldn’t hurt. I had been shooting a low-40s self-made longbow for a while without ill effect. Just the odd soreness in the bow shoulder joint, which I tried to manage by not overusing it.

What happened:
I increased the frequency and intensity of the pull-up work-outs, resulting in a good old case of inflammation of the bicep tendon (in the shoulder), and more soreness in the top of the joint.

How it got better:
It didn’t at first. Two courses of anti-inflammatory drugs and resting the shoulder did absolutely nothing. An ultra-sound and X-ray investigation with contrast fluid in the joint showed fluid in the bursa, but no damage to the rotator cuff. So good news, no real damage, but unfortunately also no clear path forward. Doc kinda shrugged and mumbled something about age. I dropped my expectations and instead of ordering 55# I ordered 47# limbs, and prayed that I hadn’t just purchased a very expensive walking stick. I googled “shoulder exercises”, picked some that seemed to make sense, and exercised for a few weeks, with no effect.

In December I started physiotherapy. Their assessment was swift. Very bad posture, combined with a desk job, made that the tendon in the shoulder was subject to constant rubbing, and the extra exercising just sent it on a downward course. Their suggestion was regular visits for ultrasound, some manual stimulation of the tendon, use of suction cups, needles, etc. combined with posture-improving and shoulder-strengthening exercises. This was going to take 2-3 months, they figured.

Very slowly the tendon started responding to the treatments. It was an up-and-down roller coaster with good days and bad days. One unhappy afternoon I was feeling strong, and added 3 and 4 lbs weight to a certain exercise, figuring that I needed to get stronger quickly to be able to shoot my new bow that was to arrive shortly. Unfortunately this caused my shoulder to hurt like never before, and a miserable week followed until my next physiotherapy visit.

My new bow just sat there while I went back through a daily series of exercises to strengthen the upper back and shoulders, and some lightweight stretchy band exercises to keep stimulating the tendon. I started shooting my old bow once or twice a week, and managed maybe half a dozen arrows at a time before the shoulder started hurting. Of course I overdid it a time or two, and punishment was swift and painful. It was a constant balancing act between common sense telling me to take it slow, and my desire to shoot the new bow.

Things gradually started turning around towards the end of April. I managed more arrows per session, and the result was more a nagging feeling of tiredness instead of the sharper pain of tendonitis. The soreness in the joint remained however. The physiotherapist mentioned the A-word (arthritis).

We threw in a few more treatments for good measure and kept increasing the workload of exercises, including some involving weights. It seemed to work! Mid-May we parted ways, with the strong recommendations ringing in my ears of continuing the exercising and increasing the workload SLOWLY.

Depending on the exercise, I grab weights between 7 and 12 lbs now, where I was using 30lbs weights before. I haven’t done a pull-up since October. A dozen arrows from the 47# bow is all it takes for the bow arm to start shaking during practice. But the good news is, that the tendonitis is all but gone, and the last week or two the soreness in the joint seems to be diminishing. There is hope.

What is the lesson:
Don’t let it come this far! If you have a mostly sedentary occupation, and you are hunched over your keyboard for most of the day, take stock. What is your posture like? How flexible are you in the shoulders? What are you doing to keep your back and shoulder muscles strong, and keep full range of motion? The sports physiotherapist told me that our ability to recover from injuries drops sharply after age 30. It is a lot easier to maintain your strength and flexibility than it is to get back after you lost it. Add an injury, and things get worse.

It took me from October till the end of May to get back to the point where I can shoot the bow on consecutive days. Don’t let it to that point. Google “shoulder exercises for archery” and “full range of motion exercises shoulder”. Focus on getting full range of motion first, before strengthening. If you can’t find anything that strikes a cord, contact me, and I will try to explain the exercises that the therapist had me do.

Stay healthy!

FD