In Chacarita, the passion for the thousand-year-old archery wins followers of all ages

In the beginning it was the hunt and it was the defense.

It was Artemis, goddess of wild animals. It was Odysseus, who recovered the patient Penelope weaver just by tightening the bow, disguised as a beggar among the suitors.

They were Cupid, the one who hurts with love; that centaur drawn in the stars that is Sagittarius, and more here William Tell with the apple.

Today is something else. And it is, in part, also the same.

Iván Buccellato is barefoot on the light parquet. “Free!” He shouts, and the neat line of fire is disarmed by students, who advance towards the targets to retrieve the recently shot arrows.

Then put on music. Queen, ring. Later it will be a list of blues and jazz, disparate but enjoyable; not bad for a cloudy Saturday. An internal code shines golden on the wall: “The triumph of one is the triumph of all. Whoever sows discord will be invited to leave”. Undoubtedly: in this corner of Chacarita, camaraderie prevails.

There is a solemn act concealed in the apparently simple gesture of taking up the bow, planting one’s feet on the ground, choosing from the quiver the projectile that will fly forward, tighten the rope, release.

Release as released by Siddhartha Gautama, the young prince who renounced the palace, sought silence and became the Buddha. Like the ancient Turks, who before shooting kissed the hilt, considering it equivalent to man: the link between the upper blade –heaven– and the lower one –earth–; or as it is released in the Japanese tradition, feeling in the center of the universe before the shot so that, united the physical being and the inner being, the archer becomes the arrow that hits the target.Satori.

This is also how Buccellato released, one of the youngest archery instructors the country had – he is 45; he began teaching at 27– and promoter of a movement that gain followers of all ageswhen he took down his degree in International Studies and his postgraduate degree in International Economic Strategy to create the Peregrine Falcon Club, where he trains modern archers. He released because he didn’t want to be “a bureaucrat”. He preferred to be Robin Hood.

-How do you get to the first arc?

-He had passed all the subjects of the first year of high school well. So my parents wanted to reward me. They took me to a mall. Among the clothing and food stores, I saw a camping house. In the stained glass window there was an arch. I told them, “I want that.” It was a compound bow, for hunting. The power with which the practice starts is 20 pounds. That one was 50. And I, 13 years old. It was not for me, and there were no places to throw. Only when I was 21 did I find an advertising flyer for an archery in a hunting and fishing club in Ramos Mejía. I went, they gave me a recurve bow, and I loved it.

-What was fascinating?

-Beyond the legends or a movie, which is more or less what awakens us all, I loved the fun. That’s how it starts. Then there is something deeper, which has to do with aiming for a goal and reaching it.

-There is a feeling of power associated…

-Exact. The real feel and power, because a bow is a weapon. There are people who ask me: does this hurt? In archery, in general, there are no accidents. A firearm is dropped and fires itself. The bow is noble, it doesn’t work like that. It was one of the first technologies that allowed the human being to surpass the rest of the species. It made remote hunting possible; It was a qualitative leap to procure food. The man, who is rather puny compared to many animals, asserted his superiority with the bow. Then it was used on the battlefields. Hence the real power that we still feel today when wielding it. The first shots generate vertigo, but there is no panic.

-The metaphor is to achieve what you couldn’t before…

-Yes. Achieve goals that were not within your reach. There is a lot of symbolism in the deep work of the path of the bow. I have personal experiences, as a goalkeeper, and those of having seen the evolution of people whom I trained in these years. Both in art itself, and in everything that it involves emotionally. Today, many doctors and psychologists recommend practicing archery.

-Why?

Doctors, because it is an activity that keeps you active, improves posture, strengthens back muscles, helps to become aware of joints. From the psychological point of view, when a person shoots, he rests from his own mind… A great benefit! Even if someone comes just to hang out, his mind is in the here and now. There are environments in which competition prevails; Here we listen to music when we shoot, we have a good time. To such an extent is the activity that I have worked with people with intellectual disabilities or blind people positive.

-And what is the challenge of training archers with disabilities?

-First, have a place to shoot, prepared according to the needs of the case. Then, you have to understand how to approach a class so that the person has a satisfactory experience. I started working with kids with Down syndrome, Asperger, autism. Someone with an intellectual disability usually gets frustrated very quickly and loses interest. At first it was hard for me, but when they started shooting and feeling like the heroes of the movies, voila! Their security, their enjoyment, their ways of feeling have changed. That moment shaped me as a teacher. The most important thing, always, is communication.

-But here the view seems essential. How does someone who can’t see aim?

-With a tripod that has a metal sheet; that touches your hand and is used as a sight. Also, yes or yes, you need an assistant to tell you where the arrows go, and that you look for them after the shots. But technique is technique. My first student was José, a man who had gone blind at the age of 48. One day, when I gained confidence, I asked him a stupid question: “What is it like to be blind?” “This is like playing trick with two fours and one five”, he replied to me. “You have two options: you play the best you can with what you have, or you go to the deck and spend the rest of your life bitter. I play with what I have.” With that attitude, he taught me more than I taught him.

In the legendary pages, the Amazons, those sensual warrior daughters of Ares organized in a matriarchy, made such a cult of mastery of the bow that they even gave up a breast to throw more easily. In reality, the inheritance of the original myth –somewhat hostile towards voluptuousness– is translated into the language of the indomitable: an independent way of inhabiting the world, the feminine force in the face of circumstances. Although distant, some echo of that prodigious lineage now resonates in this room, in which every week many women from the age of 12 onwards assemble the bow and position themselves on the shooting line.

“In general, the attendance at the club was 80 percent male and 20 percent female. After the quarantine, that was reversed. Suddenly, 80 percent were women. That’s how it was throughout 2021. Today it stabilized; it’s a 50-50 or 60-40, but it’s still an upward trend. This speaks of our time. And I think that, post-pandemic, we all went out to do a thousand things that we had pending ”.

-Do you notice differences between archers and archers?

-I notice them between generations. In general, women over the age of 70 have had little physical activity and their bond with the body is different. It is more difficult for them to gain confidence; they wonder: ‘Is this for me?’ Adolescents stop in a different way, they shoot safely because they have it in mind in their culture. They do not doubt; they know that yes, this activity is for them; They were born in other times. Likewise, whatever the age or gender, there is a process; a release of mental, emotional and physical structures that transforms people.

-What most obvious changes do you remember?

-One of my first students, a very shy girl, closed her eyes when she pulled. It was clearly an emotional lock; very afraid. I made her drop to the floor, so she would feel safe. You can never miss the floor. Thus she gained confidence. Finally, she got up and started shooting at the target.

-And that is reflected in life, after…

-Exact. That fearful girl today is coach ontological; motivate other people. When you’re better off on the shooting line, you’re better off in life as well. The archer’s posture is one of dignity. You have to open your chest, present yourself upright. With time and practice, those who take it seriously incorporate it. There is a way to go. With bibliography, with stories from the past, with anecdotes of the meanings… You get into a wonderful culture.

Every Friday, inside the Peregrine Falcon is Archer’s Day, a tradition for the initiated, in which the arrows sleep, the glasses are raised and the room becomes a cinema, or an auditorium for fables and stories from the past. Because, if in Ithaca Ulises is the sea, in Buenos Aires Buccellato is the land, with friendly firmness, always ready to receive, to integrate, to give more to those who seek. And for that he tells stories. How the blunder was born [el general romano Craso ordenó el avance de sus tropas frente a la aparente retirada de los partos, que en realidad habían tomado distancia para aniquilarlos con sus arcos]; of the question of the weak point and the skillful Trojan Paris, who killed Achilles by shooting the only vulnerable part of him –the famous heel–; of Cupid, who with his perverse side “made beings who should not be linked to each other fall in love”, and an irresistible one: the origin of that insulting raised middle finger, which began in the Hundred Years War and we replicate until today. “When a British archer was captured, the French would cut off his index and ring fingers, so they couldn’t shoot again, and then return them to his ranks,” he recounts. “The mutilated, then, made that gesture with the finger that was left up, as a sign of contempt for their eternal rivals.” Then they added the oral component; The English slur that begins with F.

-How would you explain the pleasure of shooting to someone who never had the experience?

-To draw a bow, a gradual force is applied until reaching a maximum point, in which you do not have to stay for many seconds because you lose control, and release. So, the feeling is that your effort leads to an accumulation of energy that is finally released. Something that, for many, is very pleasant. Someone once told me: “This is like having an orgasm” –he smiles–. And yes, there is an indisputable physical sensation, which is not given by any discipline.

-Beyond the erotic, there is a key concept in archery, philosophical, that of ‘not doing’. You don’t pull, but you ‘let go’. That idea of ​​ceasing to do is very difficult…

-Yes. Because we live in the time of constant doing. In martial arts, they talk about the approach of the two complementary doors: what cannot be achieved from the body, can be achieved from the mind. For archery, I add one: the emotional. For example, overcoming a fear modifies the physical posture. And that that hand manages to release the arrow, without effort, also changes the emotions and the intellectual. Therefore, the way of facing life.

.In the famous book Zen in the art of archery, Eugen Herrigel recounts how his Japanese teacher spoke to him about the arrow as an extension of the mind. Be the arrow and be the target. Is it possible today, for a Westerner who practices for a while when he gets off work, to be the arrow and the target?

-I can’t speak about Herrigel’s experience, but about mine. When you shoot regularly, you can get into a state of attunement with the target and the arrow. When pulling, it seems that everything is part of the same. It no longer matters what you do with the technique; it is as if the arrow were always through a channel towards the target. That is transcending. You end up shooting with your whole body, with the bow, with the arrow and the target. A simple comparison occurs to me: Elvis moved his hips because he sang with his whole body. If he stopped moving, he didn’t sing the same. It’s something like this.