I managed to spend most of the day up at the range today, which is one of the many things I do instead of aikido, even when I feel like I should be doing aikido. Rather than push myself into doing things I don't want to do, or freak out about whether I'm ditching aikido, I'm allowing as how it's a good time for a bit of a break for me to explore some other stuff, and I am still training 1-2 times a week, and everything will cycle back around.

Today was a work party day, so eventually they needed me to stop shooting the practice range so they could replace the targets, and I had a nice cheeseburger they made before I went and shot some more. I joined the club officially--apparently the county just lets them use the land, and everything else was done either by members or by chain gangs--the current rangemaster was a Deputy Sheriff for a while, and somehow arranged for what the storyteller called "slave labor" to build all the structures and do other stuff. It is slave labor, I guess; unfortunately "slave labor" doesn't tell the story of where it comes from, and "chain gang" doesn't communicate the slavery aspect.

I went out on the field range for once, joined by one of the instructors and his wife and stepson, which was a great time. For the heck of it we shot a couple of 40- and 50-yard targets, pretty serious distance for the simple recurve bows in the group. I did peg two center circles at 50 yards, though I doubt I'll do that again soon. Very peaceful, though, and more fun when you're shooting 50 yards across a ravine.