Latest / Salish Wolf / #86 Patricia Gonsalves on Project Quiver

Transcript

#86 Patricia Gonsalves on Project Quiver · Salish Wolf

0:00
The official pre sale for our new book, Quiver, The Art of
0:03
Life Through Bow Craft runs from June 30th to July 13th.
0:06
Published by Trope of Chicago, this 336 page coffee table book
0:11
features more than 350 photographs and explores the
0:14
legacy of primitive archery through the lives and work of 14
0:17
of the world's finest traditional boggers.
0:20
We're launching a special Founder's Edition available
0:22
exclusively through Project quiver.com.
0:24
Each copy includes A numbered book plate hand signed by Ella
0:28
and me, and is available only during our limited presale.
0:31
The Founder's Edition presale lasts only two weeks, from June
0:34
30th to July 13th, exclusively at projectquiver.com.
0:39
We'd be honored to have your support and to share this
0:41
project with you. Welcome to Project Quiver, a
0:50
father daughter journey across the globe to document the
0:52
artistry and spirit of the world's finest traditional
0:55
bowyers. I'm Todd and Ella is my
0:57
daughter. Together we've traveled to the
0:59
workshops of master bowyers, carving bows under their
1:02
guidance, photographing their work in extraordinary detail and
1:05
preserving the stories behind one of humanity's oldest crafts.
1:09
The result is Quiver, the Art of Life Through Bow Craft, a
1:12
photographic and narrative exploration of traditional bow
1:15
carving, this podcast shares stories and experiences of the
1:18
remarkable individuals who are carrying forward the enduring
1:21
legacy of the bow and arrow. The book is Quiver.
1:24
The journey is Project Quiver. Welcome to the Salish Wolf
1:27
podcast. I thought by taking alternate
1:32
route I would get faster and that was definitely wrong so.
1:38
Yeah. So it's the World Cups going on
1:41
there and elsewhere all across the Americas.
1:44
Is that how it's working? Chico, the US and and here and
1:50
while there. I don't think there's a game
1:51
this morning. There's lots of events going
1:55
around Vancouver and trying to keep up on the schedule.
2:00
So, you know, with transit, I'm not getting crowded.
2:02
And yeah, I thought I made the right call to take an alternate
2:06
route, but apparently, apparently no, that was a bad
2:08
call. So it would.
2:11
Yeah, like people just holding the doors open.
2:14
So then the train, if that happens too many times, the
2:16
train just stops. Really.
2:18
It just totally stops. And they have to send a
2:21
technician to come and, like, restart.
2:25
Yeah, we're just sitting there. But it was cool, you know, it
2:30
was kind of neat. Everyone was cheering.
2:32
And this is very, very upbeat atmosphere in Vancouver right
2:36
now, so. That's awesome, I heard there's
2:38
something in Brazil too though for the World Cup because
2:40
they're not have a friend there right now.
2:43
Yeah, well, that the World Cup is going on.
2:46
Turkey were sending me photos. They've gone to Antalya province
2:50
and they were watching the first match against Australia, which
2:53
has a bit of a historical significance in like a Roman
2:58
amphitheater with a giant screen team.
3:00
How cool is that? All right.
3:02
Yeah, I just heard there. Were actually games.
3:04
Games in Brazil, but maybe I misheard.
3:08
Yeah, it's just big events in in in countries, just hoping big
3:11
watching events and stuff and it's happening here.
3:13
I mean, the games were the game with Turkey the other day,
3:16
Australia, Turkey was like rained out block and it was
3:19
really cool for me. I'm a huge fan of Turkey.
3:23
This massive like 8 long, 8 block long parade went by and I
3:29
had on my Turkey shirt and yeah, there's it.
3:32
It was, it was pretty. They lost, but it was still
3:34
pretty. Well, that's, that's cool.
3:37
I hang on. I just realized I'm not on the
3:39
right Wi-Fi, so I've got a slow connection.
3:42
Let me get the faster one. You're a little pixelated.
3:46
Yeah, and I had, I have a few to choose from and I did not choose
3:51
the right one. OK, that's a cool background you
3:56
have. What's going on?
3:58
Thank you. This is possible.
4:01
You're seeing part of our museum.
4:03
I'll just rotate a little bit here.
4:06
So we start, of course, now it's not going to rotate, right?
4:10
It's start here, this bow here, this one.
4:14
Yeah, I I can't see it, but maybe the video is picking it
4:17
up. Hang on, let me change my
4:18
layout. Let's see.
4:21
OK, got it. On there is a replica of the
4:24
home of Guard bow that I made with Jurgen Junkman.
4:33
He's I believe he's a professor actually of prehistoric archery
4:40
projectile fix his partner Marin is she's a specialist in this
4:45
guy. The at ladle which I see my
4:47
staff drew on the wall yesterday we we had a collapse covered me.
4:52
So he's drawing little at ladles.
4:54
It's a whole it's awkward. So it allows us to to that
4:59
where. Before you move on, where is
5:01
Jurgen, Professor? Jurgensen, Germany.
5:05
Junkman. Jurgen Junkman.
5:06
You can. He wrote a paper on Otis bow.
5:09
He was one of four researchers that wrote a paper on Otz on
5:15
Otzi's bow. If you're familiar with Otzi the
5:18
the Coppery. So he wrote a paper talking
5:21
about that bow. I visited him, I think it was
5:28
2018 or 2019, and we drove from from Germany to Switzerland.
5:33
I made it in a little town called Lohman, Switzerland.
5:38
Yeah, it was. It was very cool.
5:40
How did you get hooked up with Jurgen?
5:43
Jurgen and Marin, I met Marin first, his his partner, she's
5:46
like I said, specialist in the atlatl They I first met them at
5:51
the very first conquest cop in Istanbul in Turkey.
5:55
What's the Conquest Cup? So the conquest cup is the Fetti
6:01
Kukashi which is conquest cup in Turkish is it started in 2014 in
6:09
the ultra larvachte which is The Archers field or lodge.
6:14
And this was this this space, you should Google.
6:18
It was where the sultans practice.
6:22
And when I first visited Istanbul in 2013, it was just a
6:27
field. It was just a field, but it one
6:30
of the largest archery world because they do historical,
6:34
traditional, compound, light and Olympic.
6:39
Wow. Yeah, you've got Archers,
6:41
different types of Archers coming from all over the place.
6:43
It's it's very cool. It's very, very cool.
6:45
So it's a fantastic competition. And this year they got a with
6:52
the formation of the additional archery.
6:58
I think it's better read then I missed my opportunity to put my
7:01
name on the paper because that come back to work.
7:04
Last year they had it. They had a influence of money,
7:11
so they were able to bring it back to what it Laurie like
7:14
there's fireworks and everything on the opening ceremonies.
7:16
So it's it's a, it's a really cool, very cool competition
7:22
because not with the traditional and historical side, you get a
7:24
lot of people like Jurgen and myself that are Archers, but
7:28
we're more on the academic side. So we met a lot of very, very
7:32
exult people that. Sounds that sounds awesome.
7:36
Do you you mentioned Turkey a few times.
7:38
Do you have Turkish ancestry? I.
7:40
Do not well, maybe I, I have Jewish ancestry on my father's
7:47
side a little bit. I don't know a ton.
7:49
I've tried to follow it up. We are from Portugal, but it was
7:53
actually Aaron who put me in touch with somebody and I
7:57
reached out and I have found markers at the synagogue there
8:04
in Galata that have, they have my same last name.
8:07
So I don't know if there's a connection, but I I just, I love
8:12
the country it it is. If you have a chance to go, you
8:14
should go. It's AI would move there in a
8:17
heartbeat, mostly because the the food.
8:22
Yeah, I don't know what happened and I was trying not to leave
8:27
the studio because I wasn't sure I would be able to get back in,
8:30
but it looks like it's still recording the original stuff, so
8:34
I don't think we lost anything. One sorry about that.
8:37
That's OK. I actually thought it was us.
8:41
No, I'm in the jungle, so jungle jungle Wi-Fi is a lot worse than
8:44
city Wi-Fi. You're in the jungle.
8:48
In the jungle. Where are you?
8:49
Where are you exactly? In Costa Rica, in Nosara.
8:53
What do you view? Yeah.
8:56
I one of my students went on a a Costa Rica trip the other day.
8:59
He had He had gone to Costa Rica years ago.
9:02
OK. We had a funny conversation
9:04
about naming groups of animals. You know what a group of sloths
9:09
is called? I do, but hang on, let me think
9:12
about it because. It was very recent.
9:15
It is. What is it?
9:16
There's some clicking noise. Is that on your end?
9:18
Sounds like a typewriter clicking.
9:21
Well, that might be my earring on my earbud.
9:24
Taking it out and let's see, OK? Give me one.
9:27
Second, OK. How's your?
9:29
Back. That's fine.
9:32
Yeah. OK, sloths.
9:35
A group of sloths. No, I do not.
9:38
No cuddle. A cuddle.
9:42
Oh, that's so cute. That's pretty cute.
9:46
They're not very cuddly though. They have some serious claws,
9:49
but. Yeah.
9:51
But yeah, they do look cuddly. I would definitely.
9:53
Want a cuddle? We have attended Lycopus field
9:56
at a team since the first one 2014 and the only years that we
10:02
didn't was obviously COVID. Post COVID it was only for
10:07
Turks, post post COVID, COVID, it was only four people on the
10:12
continent or that could drive there.
10:14
So if you could drive from Asia or you could drive from Europe,
10:17
you could come. We didn't go this year.
10:19
Yeah, so this year we did. We we did not go because we're
10:22
concentrating on Nomad games this year.
10:25
What's that? Well, this we're not getting
10:27
anywhere, but we're going everywhere.
10:28
This is good. That tends to happen with me.
10:33
Nomad Games is, it's kind of the traditional archery, traditional
10:41
or indigenous sports Olympics. It happens every two years.
10:44
We did host. I think.
10:46
I'm not 100%, no. That was indigenous cage.
10:49
So this year it's in Kyrgyzstan and they do traditional and
10:52
historical archery, horse archery.
10:55
There's like historical wrestling.
11:02
There's like, I think there's hunting like a eagle that that
11:06
I'm not. Yeah, yeah.
11:08
That's so cool. OK, yeah.
11:12
My daughter and I were supposed to go to Kyrgyzstan for Project
11:14
Quiver, and then our Bowyer there who we're going to go work
11:17
with, had an injury, fell off his horse, and we had to.
11:23
That sounds fair. We had to go elsewhere.
11:24
It worked out. We got to go spend time with
11:27
another amazing Bowyer. But I really wanted to go to
11:29
Kazakhstan, so maybe in the future.
11:31
That happened to me, yeah. We were supposed to meet a
11:35
traditional Boyer out on the step and yeah, he'd sell off his
11:39
horse and had a hippie and. All right, OK, well, let's get
11:45
back to your museum because that looks fascinating.
11:48
So Marin is a specialist in the atlatl.
11:52
Is it only or is that part of? Other things she's she does
11:57
like. They're both super cool people.
12:02
I visited their house and I think I could just, I stayed
12:05
with them when we did this. And it was like a typical kind
12:08
of old Berman house where you go up and then you go down.
12:11
And then I slept in their library and I couldn't sleep
12:14
because there was this. I could stop looking at the
12:15
books. And I'm like, thank God for
12:17
Google Translate because I'm like, reading books.
12:22
Yeah. She does like other things, Like
12:23
they're both Stone Age Age specialists.
12:27
Yeah. That's really cool, yeah.
12:29
I like spending time with, yeah. All right, back to the.
12:33
Yeah. So this one here is a modern,
12:37
this is like an Assyrian profile.
12:41
We did have an AFR tree sort of Egyptian bow up there.
12:48
They've discontinued 1 is Assyrian replica.
12:53
So this is the one, even though it's not an actual, it's a
12:56
composite because it's wood, bamboo and and fiberglass.
13:01
We literally cannot afford an actual Egyptian angular
13:07
composite bow. So this is what we have to just
13:13
represent the very first composite because King King
13:16
Tutankhamun's bow or Pharaoh Tutankhamun's bow is the oldest
13:20
composite bow that we have archaeologically.
13:23
Really. How old?
13:25
You're putting me on the spot here, sorry.
13:28
You brought it up. Yeah, King.
13:33
I didn't even know he had a bow. So I'm I'm just.
13:35
Oh my my brother, you need to look at all of the bows.
13:40
So when Howard Carter excavated his tomb there are multiple
13:44
multiples. So probably like the first ones
13:46
are little dudes from when he was quite young.
13:50
They're just self bows or just wood bows.
13:53
His bows are made from Maple and almond wood with with ibec.
13:59
Bored. Yeah, so cool.
14:02
Yeah, there. And the oryx is also a very,
14:04
very cool animal. It's got the yeah, it's A and
14:10
there's there's quite a few composites.
14:11
It's kind of estimated that his his last bow, so like his war
14:17
bow is around an 80 LB draw. Yeah.
14:21
Wow all. Right, they bend really cool.
14:24
So like the difference between this one and the Egyptian one is
14:28
if you look at the bottom here, I don't know if you can really
14:31
see it in your camera, but it has more of what we call a Sia,
14:35
which is the the bow. It looks more like this this
14:41
shape where the hooks over and into this knock here, where tuts
14:46
bows are more like a modern recurve.
14:48
They just kind of hook over the top and that it slightly changes
14:52
the the profile. So when they're when they're
14:54
both drawn, they look like a Crescent, but this one comes
14:57
into more or the other one comes into more of a Crescent.
15:01
I brought this one back. Bulgaria.
15:04
Wait, I got a whole nother historical field to start
15:08
researching now? OK, the Egyptian bows.
15:10
Yeah, yeah. Look up Howard Carter's notes
15:14
are all in extremely 1920 cursive, so it's very difficult.
15:19
Wow stuff, but you can actually get his notes right online.
15:23
That's so cool. OK.
15:25
All right. And then we have a Turk, which
15:28
is the same as this guy. It's AD curve.
15:33
And again, these bows are just kind of representing right up to
15:37
the UMI the the progression of composite composite bows.
15:44
This one here is my favorite bow.
15:46
This is Marcus, named after the man that I that I made it with
15:50
Marcus Lepola in Finland. And this is what we call a
15:54
finish or it's a 2 wood bow. It's made out of this stuff here
15:59
which is compression wood. That's a whole nether.
16:03
Yeah. Case of bows, yeah.
16:06
Wow, OK. Great bow.
16:09
I love this. Bows do.
16:11
We Do you shoot it or is it just for the Museum Mall?
16:15
He's you see, you can kind of see it right at the top here.
16:18
It's a Ben A. Little Ben.
16:21
He's broken, but I did I did hunt with it yeah got a few
16:25
ducks and yeah, you can Google compression what which is I
16:31
think like it works similar to to corn more on the belly on a
16:36
composite. OK.
16:38
You said a you, me, I don't see it.
16:39
Or is that the one over your shoulder?
16:41
Yes, now I see it. OK.
16:44
And then this is a Hungarian and if you look kind of see it's
16:48
asymmetrical. Yes, I can see that.
16:51
Roser this is from Grozer and he only he only made like 5 or 6.
16:58
It's fifty 5055 lbs at my draw and I I I love shooting this
17:04
boat. It's got giant ears and it's
17:06
just like shooting, like shooting a punch.
17:13
Yeah. And then we have what do we got
17:17
over here? We've got some long bows.
17:19
This is Dave down here. He's he's kind of a replica of
17:24
100 years war Welsh longbowmen, though he's got a war bow on on.
17:31
And we've got this one here is you can kind of see the tips are
17:36
bent this way. So the replica of the
17:40
ballanderry bow in Ireland and then the bow farthest over.
17:44
It's the Victorian Longbow all. Right.
17:50
Then the one you can't kinda. I don't know why my tripods not
17:55
coordinate, but that's a flat bow in a traditional First
18:00
Nations bow and arrow Clipper combo.
18:06
All right, very cool. Thank you.
18:07
And for the listeners who aren't watching the video, I'm sorry,
18:11
now we're going to get into some conversation, but that's that's
18:14
really cool. So all right, let's I want to
18:17
get to know you a bit, so you go by Patricia.
18:21
Yeah. OK, what's your last name?
18:24
Jarvis. OK.
18:26
And you said you're Portuguese? It's Portuguese, yeah.
18:29
So it's BONSALVES. Does that have a meaning?
18:35
Not that you're aware of. Yeah, I know what my.
18:38
I know what my second name means, which is I know what that
18:41
means. But yeah, no idea what last
18:43
names. And then what is your role with
18:48
Lycopus? Did you start it?
18:50
Is it your vision? I own, yeah.
18:52
I own Lycopus. Lycopus means sheep, yeah.
18:56
Good to meet sheep. She she Wolf.
19:00
She Wolf. Yeah, and you can find there's
19:03
three pottery shirts depicting Lycopus, the Amazon 2IN Greece.
19:09
I've seen the one in Greece and one in the British Museum.
19:12
And so like little pieces of pottery and it says Lycopus in
19:20
ancient Greek on it. So she was Amazon warrior
19:24
according to the Greeks. Wow.
19:27
All right. And when did you start this?
19:32
Start Lycopus. Well, I've been teaching our
19:35
tree my whole most of my life, quite a bit in my life.
19:40
But I started like Opus in around 2000, I would say 4 TE,
19:48
No, a little bit earlier than that probably it was around the
19:51
Olympics. We're here.
19:52
So around 2010 I started to make moves towards setting up a
20:01
school, starting a business. Then I booked onto ATV show and
20:07
that kind of took over my life for the next 8 years.
20:09
So I was sort of doing like Hopus on the side and developing
20:14
A curriculum, traveling, using the money from Arrow to start,
20:21
like Hopus, like get a foundation for the school, but a
20:23
lot of traveling through Europe and Asia to really research the
20:27
traditional ways of shooting arrow, crafting, bow building,
20:31
all that kind of stuff. I was just like being a sponge
20:34
because Arrow gave me the opportunity.
20:38
What's arrow or who is arrow? I can see we got more things on
20:44
the museum wall. So these are a lot of things.
20:47
Arrow Television. The Green Arrow.
20:51
OK. And that's the show you were
20:53
involved in? Yeah, I did all from pilot to
20:56
finale. I did all of the Arrow props and
20:59
archery training and all that kind of stuff for the show.
21:02
So we got two months off every year.
21:06
He's basically it's called Arrow, but it's based on the DC
21:09
comic book character The Green Arrow.
21:11
OK. It was like a Batman.
21:16
Yeah, his name is Oliver Queen, and in the comics he owns a
21:19
florist shop, which I thought was awesome.
21:25
Yeah. So yeah, the I booked on the
21:28
show and for eight years it my life.
21:32
And but it did every, we got two months off every year.
21:36
And I, you know, two days after we wrapped, I was literally on a
21:40
plane. I did apply for a lot of grants
21:42
and stuff like that from the government and boom, I I've one
21:47
year I did 15 countries all the way around.
21:51
Lots of, no, lots of filming, lots of travelling, lots of
21:56
sleeping on trains, lots of taking bows all the way across
22:03
Europe. Yeah, yeah.
22:06
Sleeping with bows, showering with bows, all that.
22:10
Well, I was so afraid to leave anything right, like when I, oh,
22:13
guard in Switzerland. I then took it from Switzerland
22:15
to Slovakia to Croatia to Turkey, and then from Turkey to
22:19
like Germany and the Netherlands.
22:22
Yeah. So I was.
22:23
I left the bow once on the metro here.
22:26
Oh no. In Vancouver.
22:29
Yeah. And I never got it back.
22:32
It super broke my heart. And so I had it basically just,
22:38
I had a leather cuff with a leather strap running from my
22:42
wrist to the bow And it went, I leave it behind.
22:47
And there was a couple times, like on the train, I'd get up to
22:49
go back to my birth and I'd be like, oh, crap.
22:51
And like it would fall on me or something.
22:53
And I'm like, right. Same.
22:55
Same with market. When I left Flint, when I left
22:59
Finland, I went home via Iceland.
23:01
And yeah, it it came with me. So we avoided that problem
23:07
mostly because we shipped ours, which was always a concern every
23:11
time we shipped one. But we made, we made what, 8
23:15
bows in Europe? And so we just, we couldn't
23:18
travel around with them. We did for a bit have two or
23:21
three bows with us trying to find a place that would ship.
23:24
And we went to Venice and the post office, we left Austria and
23:29
went to Venice on an overnight train and I was going to ship it
23:31
the next morning. And the post office just looked
23:33
at me like, no, that's too big. And so then we couldn't find
23:37
anywhere in Venice. And then we had to take it to,
23:40
we had to keep that with us all through Italy and then we were
23:44
finally able to ship it out. Few weeks later.
23:48
I'm trying to no, I'm from Brescia actually.
23:51
It's our second to last bow year was in Brescia near Garda Lake
23:56
and so he was able to arrange I think for like a DHL pickup.
24:01
Nice. I've never been.
24:03
I've been all over Rome. I've been Italy, but not Venice.
24:08
Venice was just a quick stopover, just we are going
24:11
through sort of like, all right, let's check it out.
24:13
I shipped hip swords from Rome and I've shipped two or three
24:19
bows from. I think Rome will just let you
24:23
do anything because it's Rome. Yeah, probably.
24:26
So what's the business model for Lycopus?
24:31
I just heard a bit about it when you're talking to customers, but
24:34
take us, take us through. We, you know, when I started
24:39
Lycopus I, it was just teaching. OK.
24:43
And what's the setting like? Are you urban?
24:46
Yeah, we're in. I'm sure.
24:47
I don't know if you can hear the traffic, but we are literally
24:50
just outside of downtown Vancouver.
24:54
It honestly, it's not my preferred setting.
24:59
I'm not really a city person. I grew up a lot in the outdoors.
25:05
If I could change it, I would. But the upside to that is we get
25:09
a lot of people, especially post COVID, a lot of people got
25:14
really interested in traditional skills.
25:18
So here they say bushcraft, right?
25:23
Yeah. Like that fella on the phone, he
25:25
was, you know, he was just, he, he was interested in traditional
25:29
historical archery. Like that's what he was asking.
25:32
And and he was like, I'm sure you heard me talking about the
25:35
bow crafting. And like a lot of people just
25:37
kind of blow in the shop and they're just like, whoa, what is
25:40
this place? And this is so cool.
25:42
And you build bows here, you build arrows here.
25:46
And I'm like, yeah, we also do leather crafting, wood carving.
25:49
And they're just kind of you can see their little minds blowing
25:51
that something like us exists in the city.
25:55
This is something you backed on Salt Spring or on the Sunshine
25:59
Coast or, you know, out in the interior of BC, not something
26:04
you're going to find right in the city.
26:05
So for me, that's that's pretty awesome.
26:09
Yeah. And then the shooting, is that
26:10
indoors? Yeah, just to my right is our
26:16
now we used to have a giant range where we had 90 feet, but
26:20
we moved out of there because stuff and we're now in a
26:25
heritage building built in 1812. It's a lot shorter of a range,
26:31
but you know, it serves the purpose for what we do.
26:34
And we take the opportunity to head to the outdoor range in
26:38
northern Burnaby. And we also have like a little
26:41
team, unofficial team that hits up all as many 3DS as possible.
26:46
We just came back from Vancouver Island for a 3D called Hellhole
26:51
and it was actually held at the place where I really started my
26:55
archery shooting, like official journey.
27:00
So that was a lot of fun. Where was that?
27:03
In Duncan. My wife is from Duncan.
27:07
Really. Yeah.
27:09
I spent some not great years there as a young as a teenager.
27:15
Think the same for her. I was like, wow, she must be a
27:19
strong individual. The couch Bowman, they were a
27:23
guy named Jim Tulip. He was the very, very first man
27:28
to say girls can do archery. Of course you can do archery.
27:32
There's why can't you do archery?
27:34
Because so most up until that point, I was 131314.
27:39
I've been told it's really not for girls.
27:42
And then the fellow who owns Bucky's, who your wife might be
27:47
familiar with, He also, he sold me my first boat and I, I
27:53
actually saw him on this trip and it was way more emotional
27:57
than I expected. And he's selling the business
28:00
and retiring. And after about 30 minutes of
28:02
talking to him, I thanked him. He was suddenly he remembered
28:05
me. I mean, this 1986, Oh, you were
28:09
the little girl that bought her bow like like $25 a week.
28:13
And I'm like, yeah, because it was my, my newspaper route
28:16
money. And it's meant, let me tell you,
28:18
Todd, the day I got my that last paycheck, I was like, OK, I'm
28:22
not doing this anymore. They're like, but you have
28:23
papers to deliver. And I'm like, yeah, but I don't
28:25
care. I.
28:26
Got a bow? Yeah, I went to Buggy's and I
28:29
still, I still have that recurve.
28:31
My regret is when I went over this time, I did not take her
28:34
with me and get him to sign her. I I'm hoping to maybe do a trick
28:39
before he fully fully retires, but yeah.
28:41
What is what is Bucky's is like at a sporting goods store?
28:43
The. Sporting store, Yeah, it's a
28:45
sport. Back then he was in his like,
28:47
30s, you know, he's in his late 70s, eighties now.
28:51
Must be. And yeah, it was a sports store
28:55
and it was my haven in the town of drunk, drunk.
28:59
Dunk it, dunk it in. And I can't help it.
29:04
All the time I lived there, yeah, it was the Bucky's or
29:08
couch in Bowman. And unfortunately my mom was
29:11
just not really supportive of girls doing that kind of stuff.
29:14
So I would often ride my bike out to the Bowman and and just
29:18
spend like all day there after school or on the weekends or
29:22
what have you. So I was either a he's in the
29:25
bike store in Bucky's or in the skate shop.
29:29
So what are the couch in Bowman? They are archery club.
29:34
I believe they're one. No, don't quote me on this 100%,
29:37
but I believe they're one of the oldest archery clubs on
29:39
Vancouver Island. All right.
29:41
Been around for years, years. And yeah, that's where I really
29:45
cut my teeth on archery. That's where really encouraged
29:48
me to get my coaching certification and learn how to
29:52
teach. And yeah.
29:55
OK, so you were 1314, you got introduced to archery, fell in
29:59
love with it. What happened after that?
30:01
When I was 9. 9 OK. In South South Carolina, I shot
30:07
my first bow at nine years old. Yeah.
30:10
And I was best with Robin Hood. So like, super obsessed with
30:13
Robin Hood. Like, like, probably way too
30:15
obsessed with Robin Hood. Yeah.
30:18
I saw my first bow at 9 and it just archery just fast.
30:22
Robin Hood fascinated me. It's really, it's Robin Hood's
30:25
fault, really, Robin. I blame.
30:28
I blame a fictional. Or.
30:33
Obsession, because it's such, it's such a broad story.
30:37
There's so much a lot of people just think Robin Hood is kind of
30:40
like this romantic character, but there's so much more to that
30:45
story as far as politics go. So yeah, yeah.
30:51
And to me, that about like that's why we have the home of
30:54
our bow here. That is the oldest bow in the
30:56
world. That's in the National Museum in
30:58
Denmark. I just saw it again for the
31:00
umpteenth. I'm on my birthday in February.
31:03
I decided, yeah, I'm going to Denmark in February.
31:08
Yeah, it's it's 9000 years old like that just like let's that's
31:14
crazy. It's mind blowing.
31:16
Sure is. So what was the arc, pun
31:19
intended, of your your archery path from there?
31:22
So you were by your boat, Bucky's shooting with a couch
31:26
and Bowman. Then where did you go with
31:27
things? Well, unfortunately, again, this
31:33
was the 80s. I was really I thought Olympic
31:35
Archers must be billionaires and super famous, and I was told
31:40
incorrectly by an art teacher that archery is not a job.
31:46
So I pursued another career, which was cooking and got my Red
31:52
Seal in the early 2000s. I'm a Red Seal chef.
31:56
I am retired now. I think I was really drawn to
32:00
cooking as knives. And my dad is a military
32:06
background. And I really, I, I really like,
32:09
like discipline and things being in their compartments.
32:14
And yeah. And I loved, I love cooking.
32:18
I still love cooking. I love cooking for my friends.
32:23
I, I didn't necessarily love working.
32:29
I worked for a restaurant chain, which I absolutely loved.
32:31
And then I left and I never really in found, I would say
32:36
found my place cooking after that.
32:42
Yeah, I had a pretty shitty sorry, excuse me, I had a pretty
32:45
garbage. You're welcome to say that it's
32:47
fine. A vehicular collision.
32:50
And that kind of ended my cooking career.
32:51
And everybody like, you need to do archery.
32:53
And I was like, it's not a job. And they're like, what the hell
32:57
is wrong with you? What do you mean it's not a job?
32:59
What, what, what, what even is that?
33:01
And so, yeah, then like Opus was born.
33:03
I was recovering from the collision in the surgery and I
33:08
just had a, a couple of friends in one friend in particular that
33:13
was just dragging me out of my depression and was got me
33:17
outdoors and was like, pursue this, you need to pursue this.
33:20
And I did. And I was, I was working at like
33:24
another historical martial arts school and then Arrow Cave.
33:30
Amazing. Rest is history, yeah.
33:33
And sorry, so arrow you that was your vision you started that or.
33:38
Arrow is the TV show. OK, I know, but you didn't start
33:41
it. You you made their props and
33:43
stuff OK. This is Warner Brothers.
33:45
Yeah. They for training.
33:48
And they were asking like, what's wrong with archery and
33:52
film? And like, if you had to choose a
33:54
good film Archer, who would it be?
33:55
And I'm like, you know, all the Spidey the Archer sent.
34:00
So. And I'm pretty.
34:01
I'm a pretty handed individuals, so I was pretty honest about
34:07
Jeremy Renner's absolute fail as Hawkeye.
34:10
And never seen it but. Yeah, don't do it, man.
34:14
It hurt your eyes. But he a good point.
34:16
You know, he they sent him for this is the same thing that
34:18
happened to Jennifer Lawrence with with Hunger Games.
34:22
They when we say archery people default to the Olympics.
34:27
Yeah. Not Jennifer Lawrence was
34:30
trained by an incredible Olympian.
34:32
I've I've met Cortana. She's an amazing woman and but
34:36
the whole character in hunter games is a woman is a child is a
34:39
girl who grew up hunting in the forest.
34:42
You don't Olympics while hunting and, right, Renner said.
34:47
You know, he went to a couple lessons and he's like this, this
34:49
doesn't translate on the screen. And he's right.
34:51
It doesn't as far as an action film goes, it it doesn't
34:54
translate on the screen. No action hero runs up, takes
34:57
stance, knocks their arrow, lifts their bow, takes their
35:00
time. It's got to be fast.
35:02
So when I was on arrow, yeah, I made sure that the that that the
35:08
number one guy could shoot. I mean, we dry fire the bows.
35:12
I had modified them. It could shoot realistically
35:17
quickly without looking like a dork.
35:22
That was my goal. No one wants to look like lip.
35:26
You know when you said dry fire, like my whole body had a
35:29
physical reaction? I was.
35:31
Like it, I, I could see it, I could see it, I could see it
35:35
because everybody's like, I didn't drive and we modified the
35:39
bows. We even dry fire to compound
35:43
which I know your face is turning red.
35:45
It's like the last before I hand my boat, any boat, to a student,
35:48
I'm like, do you remember? Do not dry fire.
35:50
Yeah, yeah, sure. No, no, no, Please remember, do
35:53
not dry fire. And one out of 10 still does it.
35:56
Like no. I could be next door at the
36:00
Coffee slash donut gourmet donut shop and I can hear somebody dry
36:04
fire over here and I'll be like, but that's one of the first
36:08
things I kind of had to get over on arrow right away was we for
36:14
safety purposes, we need to dry fire these boats.
36:16
So one of my first was figure out how we can safely accomplish
36:22
that. And to this day, arrows been
36:24
wrapped since 20/18/19. To this day, I still get people
36:29
D Ming me calling me names because, you know, you shouldn't
36:33
dry fire a bow. I'm like I am so used to it now.
36:38
I mean here at like, yes, my ears are very tuned.
36:42
My finger and my Superman staff Bruno, we're both very on it
36:45
because these are school bows, right, These are these are bows.
36:49
Not that we didn't shoot real bows on arrow.
36:51
We did, but they I want to clarify like how modified they
36:55
were. We can do that.
36:56
And that's not to say those bows would eventually break, right,
37:01
They would eventually give out and that was part of my job.
37:04
It was a joke that I could, we'd be shooting and then I'd go up
37:08
to the stunt guy or up to the number one and say, hey, I need
37:11
to switch out bows. And they'd be like, why?
37:13
I don't like because that one's going to break.
37:14
I could, I can, I can hear it. I could just hear that little
37:17
slicked kind of sound. And every once in a while
37:21
somebody would push back and sure enough, the limb would just
37:23
go and they'd yell, why is that happening?
37:27
I'm like kind of told you. So I'm just going to go to
37:30
crafty and gummy bears. When did you start Bo carving?
37:37
So, well, it started with it. Actually it did.
37:40
It started with OT. I went to Bolzano in, in Italy.
37:45
I saw OT and I saw the bow and I realized that it's not a boat,
37:48
it's a stave like he was work, right?
37:51
They refer to it as a boat, but it's not a boat.
37:55
And I, I was in Denmark looking at the Home Guard.
38:01
I think it was the second time I'd seen it.
38:04
And I'm not ashamed to say every single time, even this past
38:07
February, it totally brings tears to my eye because you're
38:09
looking at something that's 9000 years old.
38:11
Like it's mind blowing. But I went to the Ross Kildee
38:15
Viking Ship Museum, and that's where I learned that the Vikings
38:19
are the ones that brought the longbows to what is now England
38:24
or the. And I went down that bow rabbit
38:31
hole and I met a guy in Ireland named Steven Fox who'd written
38:34
his masters on Viking archery and this bow, which is probably
38:38
why it's one of my favorites. It was my first trip coming back
38:42
from my first year of trip in 2013.
38:45
I had to change flights and I had a long layover in Finland.
38:51
And I fully admit I didn't know much about Finland.
38:55
And I Googled what bow they had and I was like, what this, this
38:59
thing is crazy. Like what do you mean it's glued
39:02
and it's 2 woods and it's made out of the what compression?
39:06
What is that? And I bought a reindeer hide And
39:09
I came back to Vancouver and I started researching this bow and
39:13
I found this fellow named Marcus Lepola.
39:17
And I reached out to him and I went to Finland and we went on
39:22
his boat, which used to be during World War 2, was used to
39:26
smuggle stuff. It was a cucumber boat made out
39:29
of plywood. And that's a fascinating story.
39:33
After we went to this little island called Branchar and we
39:37
made, we started making the bow and we made Doc arrows.
39:41
And he was very kind enough to invite me to accompany him to
39:46
the National Museum in, in Helsinki to see these bows from
39:51
the 18th century, 19th century, to actually see the ones.
39:54
They're, they're in Russia. So I'll never be able to see
39:57
them in Russia. But he had requested they come
40:00
because he was writing his masters on them.
40:03
And that was an amazing opportunity for me and that
40:06
trip. Really like it really opened my
40:11
eyes to the diversity of bows that exist globally.
40:15
I started in Istanbul with Doctor Murat Osvari, who
40:19
explained the Turkish bow to me and the thumb draw and I trained
40:23
with him and I was just like like my mind was blown.
40:29
There's as much diversity in archery as there's diversity in
40:32
people. And the so it was really Marcus
40:36
here that started my journey down building bows and, and, and
40:41
then Steven in Ireland and, and yeah, just continuing with all
40:47
of that. But this bow is Marcus's, of
40:52
course. It's named after Marcus.
40:54
We name all of our bows here. It's just, it's, it's amazing.
40:58
It's it's two pieces of wood. It's held together with fishkin
41:01
glue. It's wrapped in Birch bark, like
41:04
everything we made. It was an accent up there.
41:06
We made it with that axe head. Yeah.
41:08
It's just that's, that's what started it.
41:13
My my goal now before is to, is to apprentice with someone and
41:17
make a make a like a real horn bow.
41:23
Like the real not just but I. You need some time.
41:29
Definitely need some time. Yeah.
41:32
That's well, yeah, that's definitely going to be a
41:35
process. Yeah, although there are, I know
41:39
you said real horn bow, so I'm not sure what you qualify.
41:42
You can my my friend Stefan Tim, bamboo bows and the Netherlands,
41:47
who's featured in our book, he makes this amazing Orion hornbow
41:50
and he uses bamboo backing instead of Sino.
41:53
And so he can make the Orion bows much more quickly than a
41:56
traditional hornbow. And they are gorgeous.
41:59
They're amazing. Liking bows?
42:02
I visited it also in the Netherlands Megane comps
42:06
workshop and we filmed him making a horn bow.
42:10
So yeah, the horn wood sinew is what I would love to build.
42:16
That's. Where it's at?
42:17
Yeah, it would enlist some a couple of visits to like
42:21
probably somewhere like Poland or Chechnya or or back to Turkey
42:29
over. Very cool.
42:31
There's yeah. And are you making bows
42:35
regularly? But we hold bow crafting
42:39
workshops regularly. Just did one with Chris
42:41
Appleweight on Salisbury. We did a premium bow crafting.
42:47
Going to be working on a post about that today.
42:51
But yeah, I'm sure you heard on the phone that we we break
42:53
everything up here in intro beginner.
42:58
So we hold bow crafting workshops probably twice, twice
43:02
a year. And you carve a bow during
43:04
those. Yeah, yeah.
43:06
But we start out pretty simple. We start with a Maple bird or
43:10
like red oak Hickory if I can get it.
43:14
It's sometimes hard here to find non kiln dried because if it's
43:18
kiln dried it can be too dry and it can stop.
43:21
Like we had walnut explode a couple days ago.
43:25
Is really sad because took me a while to make it, but you know
43:32
that you could definitely see in the break the white kind of
43:36
powdery look on the inside which is very indicative of killed
43:40
side. Interesting.
43:42
Is your workshop there at at like?
43:46
Workshop is right beside. Yeah.
43:49
And is that where you and the students carve both?
43:52
Yeah, So we do bows right here. So we have here, we have a
43:56
upstairs as well. That's our workshop upstairs for
43:58
things like arrow crafting, leather crafting, anything that
44:02
has to do with wood carving is downstairs on the hardwood
44:06
floor. So some we're holding a couple
44:08
of workshops. I definitely get my 50 floors
44:11
steps in running up and down the stairs.
44:14
What's your favorite kind of bow to make, or do you have one?
44:18
If I could make another two, I would.
44:22
That would be my Yeah, it's just, yeah, Google it.
44:26
It's just, it's really a fascinating boat.
44:30
That would that would be my favorite boat to make here in
44:32
the workshops. I I don't have a favorite boat.
44:35
I just really love when someone shoots something that they
44:40
crafted themselves. That look on their face is is
44:46
probably rewarding even if it blows up, like even if it
44:50
breaks, you know, if they still come away with that learning
44:56
process. And that's what our goal is.
44:58
Like I said, we're in the city. We're in the city.
45:01
We're surrounded by steel and concrete.
45:04
And while Vancouver has a lot of green space, it's not like, you
45:08
know, people are able to just go out and grab a tree, carve a
45:13
bowl like Chris is able to scout out you on Salt Spring.
45:19
I mean, I do have permission from the city that I live in to
45:23
take any holly out because Holly is invisive.
45:26
And Holly is a good way to start boat crafting with because it's
45:30
very forgiving fast. So yeah, that's for me as far as
45:39
boat crafting goes. That's that's my favorite thing
45:42
is, is guiding people getting that hands on.
45:45
Like when you watch people who, you know, they spend their day
45:49
on screens, typing video game, whatever, and they actually get
45:53
like a draw knife or a puko, like a Scandinavian or Nordic
45:58
knife in their hand. And you know, they're shaping
46:02
and they're, they're, they're checking the line and, and they
46:06
get so invested in it. That's, that's my favorite part.
46:11
It's just because we are, if anything, if making the Home
46:17
Guard really showed me anything is like that has a really unique
46:21
shape, right? It's not just as it's not just
46:24
the like a Longbow shape. It's very uniquely shaped.
46:27
It's a flat bow. It's made out of sapling it.
46:30
It's got stiff out of limbs. Like whoever made that bow
46:33
really put some thought into creating something that was
46:36
powerful and could be used for hunting.
46:38
And it's 9000 years old. So we as Homo sapiens, like our
46:45
roots come from hunting, right? Our sustenance comes from
46:48
hunting and working as a group together.
46:52
And I think archery is a big part of that.
46:54
So for me, that's my favorite part of boat crafting is
46:58
watching a class kind of like, oh, how far are you?
47:01
Oh, I'm doing this and, and just them talking and enjoying
47:07
getting their hands onto wood blades and and then looking like
47:13
I made this, like I, I made this with my hands.
47:18
And what, especially when we do the advanced bow crafting and
47:22
they're splitting it with gluts and and they're learning how
47:26
like they're doing it with like a hatchet and splitting it with
47:31
wedges and looking down it and finding the bow.
47:34
Even if they're like, Oh, I can't make a bow out of this
47:36
because the woods doing this, I'm like, you can totally make a
47:38
bow out of a snaky piece of wood.
47:40
Absolutely. And it was like, Oh, the stick
47:44
had to be perfectly straight. I'm like, no, man, you can make
47:46
a bow. I have made bows that are like
47:50
totally snaky or even trying to find like find that straight
47:55
line in a piece of wood that's shaped like this, like like just
48:00
teaching someone how to find that line and, and then looking
48:06
like looking. And then Chris uses a laser and
48:10
a chalk line, whereas I cancel and or a piece of charcoal and
48:15
finger distance. So you're drawing that straight
48:17
line and keeping that finger distance.
48:20
And yeah, I think that's what gives me the most joy.
48:24
What kind of bows did you make when Chris was there?
48:28
I have them right here. So, So we had four people in the
48:31
Class, 2 of them made you long bows and two of them went for
48:38
the heart and their city kids. They went for the more hardcore
48:42
flat bow straight from one is I, it's Cherry and the other one is
48:51
Holly and they went for a flat bow style.
48:54
They didn't finish, but they're there and they will finish them
48:57
up. So when you do the workshops,
49:01
there's a set number of days that you have allotted for it
49:05
and then if people don't finish, they can come back.
49:07
So, yeah, so the one on Salt Spring with Chris was, we called
49:10
it premium a tense because. And you went to Salt Spring?
49:14
Oh yeah, we went to Salt Spring. You went to his place.
49:17
We went to his place. Yeah.
49:18
So they were camping. I stayed in the cabin, yeah.
49:20
I hope, I hope to go visit him in in July.
49:23
I'm going to reach out to him. Yeah, I as a professional chef,
49:27
I did all the food and everything I talked about.
49:29
We went crabbing. He never, Bruno had never had
49:32
crab before. So we went crabbing and yeah,
49:37
like it was 9 o'clock 9:30 in the morning till like 5530 at
49:41
night, maybe a 45 minute lunch break.
49:45
I made yummy chocolate snacky things and just keep everybody
49:48
going. We had ongoing cowboy coffee
49:51
happening and yeah, it was intense.
49:55
Like they started with a lock and use hatchet to take out as
49:59
much material and then eventually getting down to the
50:02
spokeshave they got pretty far for we.
50:06
So we went Friday full day Friday, full day Saturday, full
50:09
day Sunday and half day Monday. It was a long weekend and
50:17
justice arrived late. He he thought it started on
50:20
Saturday, so his bow was running a little late 1 Anthony got his
50:25
bow pretty much done. He just has like little finicky
50:30
sanding bits now to finish and to either finish it with wax or
50:35
shellac or whatever he wants. So yeah, if you if you don't get
50:40
your project finished, and this stands for any project like
50:42
hopeless, if you don't get your project finished, you are
50:45
welcome to join up to four more of the crafting sessions.
50:49
But after that, if you're not able to get it finished, then
50:53
it's a business. I have to charge you for the
50:55
time. But most people, they, they do,
50:58
they get it, they get it done. I mean, both from a law right
51:03
off the bat for two more or less city young adults was intense.
51:10
Yeah, Bruno and I did a lot of the hack, hack, hack.
51:13
And then it just reminded me like, like when I first made a
51:16
bow out of a log and like, I'm like, oh, here I go with the axe
51:20
and I'm doing so good. And the instructors like, you
51:21
need to go faster, more material.
51:23
And then he like took it from me.
51:24
He's wow, wack. And I'm like, so I mean, you
51:28
know, like her moment there, I'm looking at one of them and I'm
51:30
like, oh, you got to go faster. You need to, you got to feather
51:33
and you got to do it on an angle like this and then whip it down.
51:36
And they're like, I thought I was doing that.
51:38
And I'm like, that just brought back some memories.
51:42
I remember like 8 go nine years ago, 10-10 years ago that I
51:46
thought I was doing that. But yeah.
51:50
That's so cool. Like Copa sounds like such a
51:52
gift to Vancouver and your community.
51:54
Is there anything like it that you found anywhere else in your
51:57
travels? No, your own invention there's.
52:02
Pockets like that's that's kind of why I wanted to create like
52:07
hope this because you go to you know, I've I've also got
52:12
teaching certification and coaching certification from
52:14
multiple horse archery schools. I don't do horse archery.
52:16
Like hope this did have a horse archery program, but we weren't
52:23
there's Yeah, so like we'll teach it.
52:25
So like we have a thumb draw workshop coming up, right.
52:28
We don't even have our faults mount anymore, but like there's
52:31
pockets. So you can go to like anywhere
52:34
in, well pretty much anywhere in Europe, but a lot of in the
52:37
eastern part of Europe in the in and you know, you're learning
52:42
the Eurasia at a composite thumb draw or this, this new Slavic
52:45
draw. And then, you know, you go West
52:50
and you've got the Longbow and these big heavy war bows.
52:55
And I've shot with the warbow guys.
52:58
I was in Wales, I did a video game in Wales and I got to meet
53:01
Mark Stratton, who still holds, I believe he still holds the
53:03
record for heaviest bow draw, which was how much like 2. 100
53:10
plus. Pounds, man. 200 and what?
53:12
200 like 18 or something. Yeah, yeah.
53:16
It's a really cuddly bear of a man, like mental and soft
53:19
spoken. And I shot with Ian Coot as
53:21
well, who's like a giant 6 foot 6 dude.
53:25
Like he's huge. That was amazing.
53:30
So I kind of wanted to bring all of that here to North America.
53:33
Like so we teach what we call the four disciplines.
53:38
So basically flat bow, which covers Neolithic and North
53:43
American flat bow, Longbow, so the war bow draw and the
53:47
Victorian draw and then the Eurasiatic composite.
53:49
So we teach the high draw and the low draw.
53:52
So I wanted to kind of bring all of that into one space.
53:58
But the main thing I learned in all of my travels is that, and
54:03
we don't find that I find here in North America, I don't think
54:07
anyone else is, We teach archery as a martial art.
54:11
I love that. Yeah, that's what I always tell
54:14
my students, too. That's what I do.
54:16
I'm curious. Tell me about how you do it.
54:19
From attending now I haven't done Japanese art.
54:23
I haven't done Toyota, but there's a Toyota Society and
54:26
I've I have attended as an observer in a lot of their
54:30
classes and I've talked extensively with the man that
54:33
started that school. A lot of people would be like,
54:36
oh, you should read Zen in the art of archery.
54:38
And there's there's actually huge problems with that with
54:40
that book. But I learned a lot and I did go
54:45
to Japan. Unfortunately, I got the flu on
54:47
the plane and I never left the hostel.
54:50
So yeah, it sucks. I lost like almost 10 lbs in
54:55
four days but that's the focus I wanted to to bring here is
55:00
archery is a martial art as a first month.
55:04
So how do you achieve that? What are some of your
55:07
philosophies or principles? We focus on the form first,
55:13
target. So when you start as a beginner
55:15
there, there's no target. You have to earn your way to a
55:18
target. We focus a lot.
55:21
Our forum is not Olympic style. We have a more fluid form and as
55:25
a beginner, we break it down into three positions.
55:30
And then after three months we add a knocking, what we call a
55:34
knocking on sequence. So drawing your arrow, moving
55:37
your hand in a certain way and knocking on.
55:39
And then as you advance those positions and that sequence,
55:44
those motions become less and less and less until you're in at
55:48
most one fluid motion to draw the bow and release and knock
55:54
on. But I have found here,
55:58
especially in North America, you need to break things down
56:03
because people in North America want everything right now.
56:07
That's just my personal observation.
56:09
So by breaking it down into steps, just like you do with any
56:14
other martial art, you break it down into single motions.
56:19
Whether it's sword fighting, whether it's quarter staff,
56:22
whether it's hand to hand combat, you're practicing that
56:25
motion. Are you doing slow work over and
56:27
over and over again to create that muscle memory?
56:31
And that's, that's how we do archery here, all of the
56:34
archery. So yeah, it all breaks down into
56:39
the goal is to get into one fluid motion.
56:43
And one of the things that I hear a lot on ranges here is
56:46
wow, you shoot really fast. That's because it's all one
56:52
fluid, fluid motion. I just fight in North America a
56:56
lot. We got a lot of pushback at the
56:57
beginning. People were like, oh, you're
56:59
making it up or this is, you know, you don't have to stop it,
57:04
this spot. And it's just like, that's the
57:06
way we do it. And yeah, it's worked out.
57:09
It's worked out really well. We can, you know, I've students
57:12
that are intermediates and they've never been taught to aim
57:16
because we don't work on aiming until your intermediate advance.
57:19
And their groupings are like this, but they've never been
57:22
taught to aim, and that's just coming from repetitives for the
57:29
same motion every single time. And how does how does breath fit
57:35
into it? Yeah, we breathe in out with the
57:39
movement. So we have a little app.
57:44
The students call it the Doodaloo.
57:46
So it's and it haunts everybody's dreams here.
57:49
It's like a flute and some water and some frogs.
57:55
You can ask any like hope a student and they will know
57:57
exactly what you're talking about.
57:58
If you say that the doodleoo and yeah, you're breathing in and
58:04
even through the warm up, when you start the warm up, you're
58:06
breathing out and you're doing the motion.
58:08
So at the beginning of every class, we start with a warm up
58:13
and even with the bow crafting, we start with a warm up, right?
58:16
To focus the mind, focus the body, get ready to do the task,
58:22
kind of leave all the extenuous stuff you can hear.
58:25
It's quite noisy, so and we get a lot of silence going by.
58:29
So just to kind of move that out and focus on what's happening
58:34
with your body and your mind. And that starts with breath work
58:39
That's even that's even with that's even with like with bow
58:43
crafting, right? If you're like all headache and
58:46
you're stressed and you're taking off material, you are
58:49
going to end up taking off way too much material on like one
58:53
side. Or if your mind like we had one
58:56
student, he just and I, I feel bad because I should have caught
59:00
it. He was in an agitated mood and
59:04
he came into work on his bow and I should have stopped him.
59:07
I feel very responsible because he was working on his riser into
59:12
the limb and he just went to town and he almost took his limb
59:18
from like this thick to like to like this.
59:20
Like I think we salvage the bow. But you know, I should have
59:24
stopped and I got into the warm up or try and refocus.
59:29
And that's my I feel like that that's my failure as an
59:32
instructor. I should cut that.
59:35
How many hours of artery practice does someone need to do
59:39
approximately to get to that level where they're shooting at
59:43
a target? So the intermediate advanced.
59:45
That's up to them. Everyone's different.
59:49
Like we have students that are with us, they say are natural
59:53
and they can go pretty fast And then we have students that are
59:57
just at it for years, right. But in order to move forward,
1:00:01
did you knew you do need to have a certain amount of shooting
1:00:05
hours and then you need to do a little test 1 is both a sorry.
1:00:17
One is both like a lab aspect, so like a a verbal test.
1:00:24
And then one is it's all tests. I don't like to use the word
1:00:27
test. There is a joke here when
1:00:31
someone starts to get their groupings and their beginners is
1:00:33
a joke. Everybody's like, oh, you should
1:00:35
test. All right, you should test.
1:00:36
It's it's an ongoing joke. But yeah, so, so, yeah, we do
1:00:41
like a little verbal verbal quiz where they have to name muscles,
1:00:45
body and various parts of the bow and the arrow.
1:00:49
And then they have a practical as well, like being able to
1:00:53
knock on blind X amount of arrows, being able to hold their
1:00:57
jaw for X amount of time, be able to shoot X amount of arrows
1:01:00
in a minute without shaking or messing up or what have you.
1:01:04
And I mean, this is something I learned at Couch and Bowman.
1:01:08
Jim had me test myself, right? Because when I would be like,
1:01:13
oh, I'm ready. And he'd be like, test yourself
1:01:16
and you know, he was right. Of course it was he's he's
1:01:18
enlarged. The man was like in his 40s and
1:01:21
I'd like get all nervous and screw up and miss the target.
1:01:24
So that's also part of it when we do testing is a lot of
1:01:31
people, you know, the heart rate goes up, they get really
1:01:33
nervous. And I'm like, you got on.
1:01:34
Just step back, listen to the doodaloo risking to the flute,
1:01:40
and refocus your body and your mind because you can control
1:01:44
your heart rate just like my dad taught me that he was a sniper.
1:01:48
And he's like, you can control your heart rate, you can control
1:01:52
your breathing. You are in control of your body
1:01:56
physically so. That's your dad was a your dad
1:02:00
was a sniper. That's on the DL.
1:02:03
Yeah, it's not. Yeah, he was in there.
1:02:06
But that was a exceptionally good shot.
1:02:11
And he told me how to shoot guns.
1:02:13
And one of the last things my father and I gathered before he
1:02:17
passed away is I went to Barbados and that's where I'm
1:02:20
from. And I took my bow with me, the
1:02:22
same bow I bought at Bucky's. And he shot 1 error.
1:02:28
And it was hilarious because he completely went why?
1:02:34
And he was in his 70s by that time and he, he think it was 5.
1:02:38
The way he jumped up and down. He was so excited.
1:02:41
And I said, OK, it's great, Daddy, let's go again, Let's go
1:02:44
again. And he was like, not bad.
1:02:46
I don't need to go again. I've been wanting to do that my
1:02:48
whole life. And that's my daughter showed me
1:02:50
how and I finish And I was like, Daddy, come on, let's try.
1:02:53
And he's like, he's like you, I'm going to watch you.
1:02:57
And yeah, he came and got me every day.
1:03:00
And we went down to the shooting club and he just sat at the bar
1:03:03
and watched me shoot all day. Yeah, I've had a life altered.
1:03:09
Archery was. Archery has always been my goat
1:03:14
when something major has happened in my life because I
1:03:17
have always used archery to kind of refocus who I am, what it is
1:03:23
I'm doing, what I want to accomplish in my.
1:03:26
That's an amazing therapy. I completely agree and I bow
1:03:31
crafting, aero crafting, all of that is part.
1:03:33
All of it's therapy. Getting into that.
1:03:36
Yeah. Are you teaching both kind of
1:03:39
the Mediterranean draw and the Asian draw?
1:03:42
So off the hand, off the thumb shooting?
1:03:44
Yeah, we do them all. So when you're doing beginner,
1:03:48
you start with a modern recurve, OK, start with a modern recurve
1:03:51
in an ongoing adult classes. We don't currently we don't
1:03:57
really have enough people to do full classes of flat blow, flat
1:04:03
flat blow, flat bow, Longbow or the Asiatic composite.
1:04:06
So we hold workshop. So we have like an upcoming your
1:04:09
Asiatic composite workshop. I'm not calling it thumb drop
1:04:12
because we're not just doing thumb drop, we're doing other
1:04:15
drops as well. So it's a 2 day, 8 to 9 hour
1:04:21
workshop. Yeah, yeah.
1:04:24
So you. Go ahead.
1:04:26
No. No, Yeah, you can.
1:04:28
Do I think you heard me on the phone?
1:04:29
You can do private lessons on any of the disciplines.
1:04:33
Yeah. I'm curious when someone gets to
1:04:36
that point where they're, as you said, they're testing or moving
1:04:40
up to the target, what are, can you share any of the the key
1:04:46
teachings for how someone can aim?
1:04:48
Because you said a lot of your students haven't been taught how
1:04:49
to aim. So I'm just curious what some of
1:04:53
those fundamentals are. As I'm sure you made me know,
1:04:57
there's different, different types of Amy, right?
1:05:01
Like when I was young at Couch and Bowman, if you did what they
1:05:05
now call string walking, you would have been accused of
1:05:08
cheating, sound out cheating. And now people string walk all
1:05:14
the time. So what is that?
1:05:17
So it's where you're you kind of got marks on depending on your
1:05:23
distance. OK.
1:05:25
People, as far as traditional archery goes, you know, there's
1:05:28
no site in traditional archery. We're shooting a bare bow, but
1:05:33
it is kind of like using a site, but it's on your string, right?
1:05:38
So we don't actually, I am not personally, I am not fond of
1:05:42
string walking and I don't teach string.
1:05:45
But what we what we like to do here is that's part of being
1:05:48
intermediate to advanced is finding out which style of Amy
1:05:53
is shooting you as an Archer, right?
1:05:57
I'm not going to force you to aim in a way that's just not
1:06:00
working for you because that's going to be disruptive.
1:06:06
If you're, if you're being forced to say, do gap shooting
1:06:08
and it's not working for you and arrows are going left, right
1:06:11
that are you're going to the average individual.
1:06:14
As humans, we are inclined to do this.
1:06:16
We're going to negate on ourselves, right?
1:06:18
We're going to we're going to say it's us, whereas maybe just
1:06:21
gap shooting doesn't doesn't work for you, right.
1:06:25
So we want to find the right type of aiming that suits you.
1:06:33
So like there's times where if I'm shooting close distance,
1:06:38
personally, a 10 to 20 meters, maybe up to 30 meters, I'm not
1:06:42
closing boat, I'm not closing my non dominant eye.
1:06:44
I'm not aiming with my daughter. I both my eyes are open, right.
1:06:47
But if I'm shooting, it's a conquest cop where that target
1:06:51
is 607080, sometimes even 90 meters away.
1:06:55
I am definitely closing my eye, but definitely going to be
1:06:59
closing my eye. I don't gap shoot.
1:07:03
We do teach it here, but you know, that's it is our goal as
1:07:07
instructors to find out what works for you and what helps
1:07:13
with that. Like I said, like we were
1:07:15
talking about earlier, that breathing that flow, right?
1:07:19
And that's part of the reason that we get told.
1:07:22
But Bruno and I both get told you shoot really fast.
1:07:24
Yeah, because we've got that cycle going on.
1:07:28
It appears fast to other people, but to us, we feel like, you
1:07:32
know, we're taking our time because all those extenuating,
1:07:36
it's not there. So when it comes to aiming, our
1:07:40
goal when you're an intermediate is to find out what's working
1:07:43
for you. So we'll go through multiple
1:07:45
different types of aiming methods and find out what what
1:07:49
equally what doesn't work and what does work, and then we'll
1:07:54
focus on what does work. I love it.
1:07:59
You're doing such, such a great job.
1:08:01
I'm, I'm not sure if I'm going to be in Vancouver over the next
1:08:05
couple months, but if I am, I will come and look for you.
1:08:09
I don't think I can do cities anymore, but yeah, maybe, maybe.
1:08:14
Even this morning with like the whole, the whole metro, the
1:08:17
whole sky drift thing, I was so many people and I'm just like,
1:08:21
oh, what am I doing? I'll just, I don't.
1:08:25
Know where are you from? Well, we have a farm on
1:08:28
Vancouver Island and in Sanagton, so kind of midway,
1:08:33
Midway, you know, Sanagton near the ferries near Sydney.
1:08:38
Yeah, over there. So I'll be there through some of
1:08:41
July and some of August and I, I'll make it to Salt Spring,
1:08:45
probably to visit Chris. I don't know if I'm going to
1:08:47
make it to Vancouver. We'll see.
1:08:49
It is, it is. It's hard.
1:08:51
What I missed an opportunity, I think it was in 2017 or 18,
1:08:59
where one of the actors on another show that I worked on,
1:09:03
he's from Denmark, and he offered to help me set up the
1:09:05
shop there and move everything over.
1:09:07
And I, I, you know, you can't, you can't change.
1:09:12
There's no that you can't, once that arrow's gone, the arrow's
1:09:15
gone, you can country and there's no point in beating
1:09:19
yourself up that, oh, I flew my hand away or I did this or
1:09:23
whatever. The, the key is to not do that
1:09:25
the next time. So like, you know, I can't live
1:09:27
in the past. But like I do, sometimes I
1:09:29
regret not taking that opportunity because even though
1:09:35
Denmark is a pretty big or Copenhagen is a pretty big city,
1:09:37
there's just so much more of chill.
1:09:41
Yeah, it's pretty magical there. Everything here is just like a
1:09:46
couple weekends ago. Not that I have the Theresa
1:09:49
Duncan, but still that being able to go down by the river and
1:09:54
just relax. Everything here is so hectic.
1:09:57
And I really find as I'm getting older in North America, people
1:10:01
are just so angry and I'm like, come do our tree.
1:10:05
It's going to help with increasing negative political
1:10:10
atmosphere that we're having Just come and do our command.
1:10:13
Just once, I like to tell my sons, once you come through that
1:10:15
door, everything outside is outside.
1:10:20
Got in here. Everything outside is outside.
1:10:23
That's why we do, when we do our physical warm up, there's a
1:10:26
point where you're just lying on the floor.
1:10:28
You just lying prone on the floor on your tummy and
1:10:32
breathing in and out with the flu.
1:10:33
And we say this is where you need to just let go of any crap
1:10:39
that happened in the day because part of our tree is recognizing
1:10:44
when that shot is gone, it's gone.
1:10:48
When the day is done, the day is done.
1:10:52
All you can do is take the next shot or the next pass with the
1:10:56
trial knife or the next push with the with the plane or what
1:11:01
have you. All you can do that next time is
1:11:04
just try. And if we all lived by that
1:11:08
philosophy, the world would be a happier place.
1:11:12
I agree. I think that's a great, great
1:11:14
spot to end things on. Where can people learn more
1:11:18
about you and like Opus? You can learn more about me
1:11:23
personally just by Googling me. Apparently I am all over the
1:11:25
Internet. Going to do, you know.
1:11:29
Really hard for me to just disappear into the wilderness in
1:11:31
Finland somewhere. And you can find Lykopis at
1:11:36
LYKOP is.com, lycopis.com. Our next coming workshop is the
1:11:43
Eurasiatic Composite and then we will be doing another bow
1:11:47
crafting, leather crafting and advanced aero crafting coming up
1:11:51
in. Amazing.
1:11:55
Thank you. You and advanced aero crafting
1:11:57
at Chris's. Yeah, that will be fine.
1:12:02
Anything else you want to add? Any questions?
1:12:04
Any anything to share before we sign off?
1:12:07
No, I think what you're doing is great.
1:12:09
And I have a quick question. How did you find who?
1:12:13
How did you find? You've come up say, at least
1:12:18
twice now and someone I gotta pull up another page here.
1:12:26
May I ask Chris? And I'm like, did you tell him?
1:12:27
And he was like, oh, I didn't, I didn't tell him.
1:12:30
And then he's like, Oh my God, I should have told him.
1:12:32
May well hang on there is. And if someone reached out
1:12:36
recent. Oh yeah, I got.
1:12:37
I know who it is and I don't know if I should say her name
1:12:40
because I don't know if she wants me to.
1:12:41
But after we sign off, I will tell you.
1:12:44
But yeah, it was just someone who has been following us and
1:12:48
she, yeah, just spoke very highly of you.
1:12:53
And that's, like I said, that's at least the second time.
1:12:55
And so. I'm curious if I.
1:12:58
Reached out. Thank you very much.
1:13:01
You're welcome. Thank you.
1:13:02
I've been following your journey and I had a very close, close in
1:13:08
later years, closer relationship with my father.
1:13:10
And I just thought the project was super awesome.
1:13:13
And yeah, when I first heard about it, I was like, that's
1:13:18
that's that's ambitious. I think that's great.
1:13:23
I am my question to you, my some questions for you, but my main
1:13:27
question to you is have you come across any other women boyers in
1:13:32
your travels? Because I have not come across
1:13:35
any other women boyers. I'm I'm on DL, I'm trying to
1:13:39
work with a group in I have to send after I'm done with you,
1:13:42
I'm sending them an e-mail to kind of do a like a a ladies and
1:13:46
ladies only bow crafting workshop Vic.
1:13:51
I was supposed to interview one yesterday and I had our time
1:13:55
zones wrong. But there's Erica, who lives in
1:13:59
North Carolina, who I'm interviewing next.
1:14:02
Week. Sorry, where?
1:14:03
She's in North Carolina. South Carolina.
1:14:05
That's where I shot my first book.
1:14:07
Yeah. And so she's on, she's on
1:14:10
Instagram at Erica, which is a IRKAH.
1:14:15
So check that out, ARAIRKAH. I'll try and find.
1:14:23
Her so I don't know much about her, but she makes bows and
1:14:27
we're going to chat next week and so outside of that no, not
1:14:34
yet yeah. But yeah, it's as as you were
1:14:41
told rightfully at 13 like you this is not just for men by any
1:14:46
stretch making bows shooting bows now it's and what I find
1:14:50
with my students who come to learn Archer with me it's it is
1:14:54
a global thing. It's within our DNA.
1:14:57
So whether you're a man or a woman, everyone pretty much
1:15:01
without fail is, is drawn to it and just absolutely full body
1:15:08
alignment when they're on the range, holding a bow, knocking
1:15:12
that arrow, and then taking their shot.
1:15:14
It's, and that's part of the way.
1:15:16
That's why I was very curious about how you teach it as a
1:15:18
martial art because that's what I'm telling my students
1:15:20
constantly. It's forget about the target.
1:15:23
This isn't about the target. And so, but yeah, it's across
1:15:27
the board. Everyone resonates with it.
1:15:29
And so that's where I find that it's, it's such an incredible
1:15:34
therapy, which is why I use it actually therapeutically.
1:15:40
And I think that's like I said, Jesus, he cuts something,
1:15:49
something else that archery has. And bow crafting, any wood, any
1:15:54
wood crafting, we do spoon carving, we do kooksile like
1:15:58
wooden mug carving. We live in a very chaotic like
1:16:04
this. This whole timeline.
1:16:05
That's the kids. This timeline was not on my
1:16:07
bingo card for being in my 50s. I never would imagine we would
1:16:12
we would be back to where we are now.
1:16:15
And something I find about archery, no matter where I go in
1:16:18
the world, it's just it's a stick.
1:16:21
It's a string and it's a pointy stick.
1:16:24
It can be as complicated as a compound bow and it can be as
1:16:28
simple as like a Native American little 32 inch bow, right?
1:16:36
It it seen you back, not seen you back it it is just it's such
1:16:43
a simple thing and when it comes to mental health, like we live
1:16:48
in such a stressful time and we live in a time with this.
1:16:53
I mean, I don't want to get too much into it, this whole
1:16:55
manosphere thing and masculinity.
1:16:58
And I just, I feel that archery or any type of wood carving is
1:17:07
just bringing it back to the simplicity of that.
1:17:11
And I think we, I perceive, feel as a society, we are going
1:17:16
backwards and we should be it's we should be going forwards with
1:17:21
things, right. So for me, like when it comes to
1:17:26
teaching bow crafting, honestly, most of my I've only ever had
1:17:30
one female student and she made a very kick ass bow.
1:17:35
It it's probably more drawaway than it should be, but it looks
1:17:39
and she did such a good job and it's just so nice to have what I
1:17:46
would use my age, but like young men, what are considered young
1:17:49
men in their 20s and their 30s. Just coming here and finding
1:17:54
this kind of peace in something that is traditionally been been
1:17:59
said has been a very vasculent thing.
1:18:03
You know, just for the mental health.
1:18:09
I think archery is, and all of the aspects of archery, whether
1:18:13
it's leather crafting, bow crafting, arrow crafting, any of
1:18:16
that, all of those aspects is very mentally stimulating and
1:18:22
good for the mental health on a very simple or simply taking a
1:18:28
stick and making a projectile thing.
1:18:34
Whether you're doing it to hunt, whether you're doing it for
1:18:37
sport, whether you're just doing it in your backyard for the fun
1:18:40
of it, it it it's fundamentally part of our, as you said, DNA,
1:18:48
but I think it's also fundamentally part of our mental
1:18:50
health. It is.
1:18:55
Yeah. Well, thank you, Patricia.
1:18:58
Just on that side there, you should look up a guy named
1:19:00
Tibor. I don't know if in him I can
1:19:04
text you his last name. He's on Facebook.
1:19:07
And he makes historically accurate Plains First Nations
1:19:14
Native American bows. He makes amazing bows.
1:19:18
I would really like that empty space right in there.
1:19:22
This and he's, he's for a Scythian bow that I would love
1:19:25
to get off a fella named Jason Beaver.
1:19:27
I don't know if you've heard of Jason Beaver.
1:19:30
He's enough. Jason, definitely.
1:19:34
He makes some really phenomenal, phenomenal bows.
1:19:38
Yeah. And tebore.
1:19:42
Sammy, any, any people, any recommendations?
1:19:45
I'd be happy to reach out to him.
1:19:47
I love getting to do this, so thank you.
1:19:50
Thank you. Keep up the amazing work and
1:19:53
spreading the legacy of archery. Thank you so much and have a fun
1:19:57
in Costa Rica. Thank you to meet you.
1:19:59
One day we will. Thanks for listening to Project
1:20:08
Quiver on Stylish Wolf. Follow our journey on Instagram
1:20:11
and YouTube at Project Quiver Official as we discover the
1:20:14
world's most extraordinary traditional bowyers and join our
1:20:17
newsletter at projectquiver.com. Quiver, the art of life through
1:20:22
Bow Craft, Our photographic and narrative exploration of
1:20:25
traditional bow carving published by Trope, will be
1:20:27
available in fall 2026. We are honored to share with you
1:20:31
the beauty, tradition, and magic of the bow and arrow.
1:20:35
The book is Quiver. The journey is Project Quiver.
1:20:37
This is the Salish Wolf podcast.