MammotHunter
Interfector Viris Spurii
Offline
Give me a rock, a sling, and give me some room
Posts: 1020
virginia, for now
Gender:
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I think the learning curve is not in learning to sling, but in learning to sling well. Take the hispanic guy I met on the beach where I was slinging last Sunday. I told him "Give me 5 minutes and I'll teach you how to sling." And sure enough, within a minute and a half, he had launched his first rock. Now, Francisco was not going to be picking out a spot on a man's face from 20 paces and hitting it nine times out of 10, but he could get the rock going in more or less the right direction. I've been what I call a "Part time slinger" for the past couple of years, meaning I don't sling as often as I should or like, maybe, but I try to get some sling time in when I can. And only now am I really at the point where I can get a full speed rock to go anywhere near the target or hit it as often than not. As well, I attribute this to the fact that I have only really recently started to stress slinging accuracy; most of the time I sling to see how far I can put a rock out there, or how close I can group them from a lobbing hurl. The learning curve of a sling is very steep, compared to say, a gun. Almost anyone with a reasonable level of physical and mental fitness can be taught very quickly to be proficient with a gun, partiuclarly one equipped with a scope. I've used bows and guns, as well as atlatls before, in addition to slings. And in 22 years, the sling is the hardest, most challenging and wonderful weapon I have ever picked up. When I first started slinging, I couldn't get the tennis ball to go more than a few yards on a good throw. Now, I know I was throwing it all wrong to begin with, never mind using a tennis ball in the first place. And so, I put the sling down for a while in frustration and mentally discarded it. But I decided that thousands of years of use must have some validity and I picked it up again and taught myself how to throw from my own mistakes and my own rage at doing it wrong. Now, I can get a projectile over 100 metres without straining my arm! Even in view of my limited proficiency with it, I would be extremely loathe to give it up, both figuratively and mentally. This morning, I took a walk and realised that I had left the truck in such a hurry with all that I had to do that I was without a sling. I actually felt lost and upset for a moment. And I don't know if it's my youthful inability to realise what's truly important or what, but while talking with an older coworker about some of the things you can't do when you get old, I took a second to think about what my life will be like when I am too old to sling. And to be honest, that thought scared me. What can an old slinger do when they can no longer sling? It will probably take a few more years before I ever get anywhere near as good as some of the people on this board, but I hope to be able to enjoy many more fruitful years practising and passing on to others one of the true loves of my life; slinging.
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