The first 3D competition of the season has just wrapped up, and I must say—it felt rather splendid. Not because I won anything of note (I didn’t), but because for the first time in ages, I felt something beginning to return. A calmness. The faint outline of joy. My old adversary, target panic, seems to be loosening its grip—slowly, stubbornly, but noticeably.

For this particular outing, I dusted off my Win&Win Black Wolf riser, paired with Uukha limbs—a combination I’ve come to love. Shooting it is a delight: low vibration, minimal noise, pure bliss. But there’s a snag, of course. The Black Wolf, in all its carbon glory, is a bit of a misfit when it comes to competition categories.

You see, to qualify for the “Traditional” class, the riser must be made of wood. Carbon fibre is, alas, frowned upon. Yet paradoxically, in the “Barebow” category, I’d have to strip the bow of its string silencers and other charming oddities that make it, well, my bow. Remove those and it’s like asking a violinist to remove half their strings and still play Vivaldi.

Still, this first competition rekindled something in me—and I’m now genuinely tempted to enter the Swedish 3D Championships this year. Which, alas, means the Black Wolf must stay home. So the question becomes: which of my other two faithful companions shall accompany me?

Option one: my Chinese Hou Yi bow—a graceful, historically rich horsebow with character enough to tell tales around a campfire. Option two: my Black Widow longbow—sleek, precise, American in origin but noble in demeanour. Each has its own temperament, like actors from different plays. The Hou Yi carries more historical weight (especially when compared to a modern flatbow with a cut-out shelf), but the Black Widow fits my hand like an old glove and gives me more consistent precision.

As for the medieval competitions this summer—well, that’s a thornier matter. The tournament at the jousting arena, for reasons too tangled to fully recount, has ruled out horsebows and traditional recurves. Some claim these bows didn’t exist in medieval Europe (they did), others cite administrative headaches (a new class means—gasp—adding one more column in Excel). In any case, rules are rules, and the Hou Yi is out.

Yet on other Gotland events, such as the archery competition held by the Society of Creative Anachronism (SCA), it is welcomed with open arms—as it should be. Historically, these bows make far more sense than modern “traditional” longbows.

So here I am, with three fine bows and a dilemma fit for a Shakespearean comedy. World Archery and Swedish 3D events would allow the Hou Yi and the Black Widow, but not the Black Wolf. At the jousting tournament, it’s longbow or bust.

Why, I ask, can one not simply shoot with the bow they love the most?

Yes, yes—I know. It’s a luxury complaint, the very definition of a first-world problem. I have three magnificent bows, each a marvel of craftsmanship. And I can’t decide which to use.

Boo-hoo.

But somewhere in the midst of this mild frustration is the heartbeat of every archer’s passion: the longing to find that perfect union of tool, hand, and soul. And maybe, just maybe, the bow we love most is worth defending—even if only in the pages of a modest little chronicle.