Looking Back

This summer I will have been shooting officially for two years. Just recently I decided to start a scrapbook dedicated to my archery and it has given me the opportunity to compare the "then" to the "now." My.....what a comparison it has been. Just think, two years ago this summer I was shooting a 20 pound traditional bow at 3D targets I was LUCKY to hit, not to mention score well. Since then I have seen State in the pouring rain, Nationals (also in the pouring rain, I was beginning to think I was cursed), the Gator Cup, and more. I have been so blessed to have the experiences I have had, and I wouldn't trade them for anything.

At the start of the two-year mark my coaching staff (I have enough of them!!!) and I have decided to work on a new shooting method. The B.E.S.T., or Biomechanically Efficient Shooting Technique is what Coach Lee (the coach that brought over this technique from Korea) has named this monster. Ladies and gentlemen, let me just tell you how politically correct addicted our country is getting. This method is actually no longer called the B.E.S.T. method. It is now called NTS, the National Training System. People in this God-blessed country have whined about it being called the B.E.S.T. method.

"What makes YOUR method the best?!?!"

"How is YOUR method better than ours?!?!"

Little did these people pay attention, for if they had, they may have realized the B.E.S.T. is an acronym, not an adjective. However, this is still the greatest country on Earth and I wouldn't have it any other way.

In conclusion, I have been working on the method for a whopping 6 whole days. In these 6 days I have learned that in order to break two-year-old habits you MUST have a strength that is NOT your own. If it weren't for God I don't think that I would ever have made it these six days, not to mention the rest of my archery career!

A Few Little Updates

Sunday, my dad (who is now a registered Coach!) and I decided to put on my new clicker. If you don't know what that is, it's a very simple concept. It's basically a piece of thick wire that attaches toward the front end of the riser, typically near or under the sight. You place the arrow under it, come back to anchor, and stretch your back just a little bit extra until the arrow escapes from underneath the clicker. The clicker then makes a "clicking" noise (which you probably deduced) at which point you know you've reached full draw and you release. In short, when done correctly, it allows the archer to reach the same exact draw EVERY time.

Now, as simple as that sounds, it is a PAIN to set up and adjust, especially since I had some consistancy issues to start with. It started out with me coming back to full draw and stretching back just a little more (like I'm supposed to) and it not clicking. Then we started to fine tune the placement, once we knew we were somewhere in the ballpark. That is where the problems started. My inconsistancy curse started to rear it's ugly head. It would go off too soon.......or not at all. Then Dad and I started to disagree about what the problem was, which was dumb since he's the registered coach and I'm....well....not. After a while God started smiling down on me and it started to "click" (pun totally intended). I'm defintely starting to get the feel it, I just have to learn to trust it. I also have to strengthen up some, since I went into muscle failure. :)

A lot of great things happened on Sunday because my grandfather just finished his level 1 and 2 coaches training. He got a 100 on the first test and a 96 on the second one. He's too smart! My dad is getting ready to go to level 2 training in February, which is great. That means that I'll be allowed to have BOTH my dad and grandfather on the line with me, which will be SUPER cool. I'll have my own little coaches panel or something. Not to mention my grandfather is one of the wisest people I know and my dad knows how to irritate me just enough to get me to listen (I hate it when he does that too).

The future looks bright, my journey's just begun, I can't wait to see what God has in store for me.

Sorry for the wait!!

Sorry guys,

Things got sooo busy since my last post that I wasn't able to finish "Our Texas Adventure." Good news is we won third place in all competitions, as well as third place overall for recurve archery. It was a great experience and I would recommend it for all archers wanting an entry-level competition experience.

A couple weeks after Texas I competed in a 900 Round in Atlanta. By God's grace I pulled out with third place. If there were any more people in my division I wouldn't have been that lucky. I had what you call a BAD DAY. My mind wasn't where it should have been and my shooting showed it. I pulled it out the last four rounds......after some sweat and tears. It just goes to show that archery is just as much a mental game as it is an athletic one.

Not only did a get a pretty cool medal for coming away with third, I got the privilege to go, if I so choose, to the 2011 National State Games in San Diego, CA. I can tell you that I am SOOOO looking forward to that!

Now.......the Gator Cup. For those of you that don't know, this past October was the first annual Gator Cup in Newberry, FL, not too far from Gainesville, FL (chomp chomp!!). I tell you what, I have never felt so small and humbled as I did walking onto that range. My dad and I got there a couple days early so we could get used to the feel of the area. As this being the FIRST tournament I had EVER shot 70 meters in, I am glad we did. The unofficial practice day was definitely one for the books. We fixed some string issues that I was having (my string had lost some twists, so I was shooting lower), plus I got a good look at the "competition." I type that with quotes because I really was no match for any of the shooters out there.

That practice day I shot one person down from Brady Ellision, the top male recurve archer in the world, and a couple people down from Katuna Lorig, four (soon to be five) time Olympian. WOW!

Long story short I had a great time and learned a lot. I didn't win any medals but I got a lot of great tips and knowledge, which trumps medal any day (well, almost any day). I thank God each and every day to be able to have GREAT experiences and meet GREAT people in this great Circle of Archery.

Our Texas Adventure ~part 3~

God was in control and we were going to need His help to do what we had train months in advance to do. So here we are, the first day of competition. We wake up really early, get ready, and eat breakfast. I look at my food going, there is no way I'm going to be able to eat this. The butterflies in my stomache take up a lot of room. However, I was able to force down enough food to keep me sustained until lunch......maybe.

By the time we get to the FITA field there are already quite a few people there. Thankfully the guys had already brought over our gear so we didn't have to carry it from the car to the tent. Once everyone got there and got gear put together the range official started stating the rules. Now, since this "wasn't a sanctioned FITA event, they didn't have to follow FITA rules." Therefore, you could go up to the line whenever you felt like it, there was no verbal 30 second warning, and you didn't score the 10x's, just the 10's. Now, this didn't affect us, but the compounds only scored inner 10s. So basically what was normally a 10x for them was a 1o and what was normally a 10 was a 9. It was strange. We also only had two practice rounds from 60 meters and that was it. Normally you have two practice arrows from each distance. Nope, the only practice you got was from 60 meters, so you better had every other distance down-pat or you were in a lot of trouble.

So, the first two practice rounds weren't great, and the next round after that wasn't either. But, my second round of three from 60 was AMAZING. God was really looking out for me on that round. I got three tens, two of which would have been "X's" if I had been allowed to score them. It pretty much went downhill from there, which is strange. The closer I got to the target, the worse I got. Now, it was only by about one point each round, but it was still one point worse. When we finially got to 30 meters my score improved. Overall as a team we did really well. I was so proud to be apart of this team. I had pride saying that I came from Georgia (especially to the Texas guys since we were beating them pretty good).

The awards ceremony that night was pretty good. It took them a while to get to recurve archery, but when they did, you could feel the nerves tighten in our section. We were all shaking with butterflies. How did we measure up compared to every other recurve archer in the nation?

They started calling out placing and scores for individuals and it was looking pretty good. The only male on our team got sixth and our top shooter got third individually. That was good. We had two in the top ten. Then they started calling out teams. Fifth and then Fourth. We beat both of those team's scores. WE PLACED!!!! We got third that night as a team. We were so excited! We couldn't believe that we had placed third out of 16 teams in the nation! Because God loved us so much he allowed us to place as high as we did that night. And He had so many more blessings to offer us!

Our Texas Adventure ~part 2~

........but we were excited to be able to see what our competition looked like the next day. We got up really early that morning to see how long it would take four archers and four adults to get up, eat breakfast, and get to the shooting site. After we did that, we had a whole morning to kill. Our coach didn't have to be at the coaches meeting until 1100 Texas time (1000 Georgia time) and it was only like 0800. It seemed like all day before 1000 came around. My dad took us girls to visit a local jewelry store. I've never seen jewelry that expensive before. They were selling one necklace for $4,000 (though, it was all pretty much pure gold and silver jewelry) After that, three of us went to the fitness center for a while and came back and took a nap. Now, this is all before lunch. When our coach FINALLY got back from the meeting we went to lunch and then went to practice.

If you want to meet some picky line officials, go to Texas. There was a certain line that the coaches couldn't cross and there was another line that the archers who weren't shooting couldn't cross. Boy, if you crossed one of those lines you heard it from the line officials.

We had a pleasant encounter with a lady who thought she owned the world and then some. She comes up to the practice range and, before the official blew the whistle, started moving targets. Ummmm, not good. The targets they happened to be moving were the targets we needed to use. When we asked her if she could just leave one target up she said that we weren't even supposed to be there. She told us that we were supposed to be gone by like 3:30 and that she had the range from then till 6:00. Not true, but she ended up moving some different targets that other people weren't using. After we were done practicing we went back to the hotel to drop off our gear and went to the opening ceremony.

Now, when you put a bunch of teenagers in a hot room with nothing to do while the adults try to get everything in order, you get chaos. The Louisana kids started throwing Mardi Gras beads around, and then everyone joined in. A couple of fights almost ensued when a couple of our archers were pelted in the head. The ceremony itself was pretty cool. The speechs afterward, not so much. One old guy talked for at least 45 minutes. We were bored to tears, and you could tell NO ONE in the audience was listening. You couldn't hear him anyway. When the guy FINALLY finished his speech, he got a standing ovation. When we got back to the hotel we mentally prepared ourselves for whatever tomorrow was going to bring. God was in control and we were going to need His help to do what we had trained months in advance to do.

Our Texas Adventure ~part 1~

Just this past Saturday we pulled out of the Stephens' driveway to make our two-day trek to Kerrville, Texas. It was a LONG journey, but it was WELL worth it. The hotel we stayed in, The Inn of the Hills, was pretty nice. We got in Sunday evening and relaxed. On Monday we had equipment check and unofficial practice. The FITA field was in a valley, with trees on either side. When the wind got into that valley there was nothing there to stop it so it was completely unpredictable. It helped to be able to see what it was going to be like shooting in those conditions on Wednesday.

Later that day we went to a ranch to practice 3D on hills. As you may well know, Georgia is completely and absolutely flat. Texas, on the other hand (especially hill country) is NOT. It took a little while, but we finally kinda got an idea of what it was like to shoot uphill and downhill. After we left we were a little nervous about how we were going to shoot compared to everyone else, but we were excited to be able to see what our competition looked like the next day.

Wow!

This past Saturday the girls of our 4-H archery team went to the local Bass Pro Shops to raise money for our team to get to Texas. We spent the better part of six hours literally begging people for money, asking them to donate whatever they could to our cause.

While a fellow team mate of mine and I were standing at the exit with a jar, we asked a father passing with his son to donate money to our cause. "I only have a dollar," he said. We told him that was perfect, that every little bit helps. His son, who couldn't have been more that six, looked up at us with big eyes and blond, curly hair. "Here, you can have my quarter." It was one of the most heartwarming experinces I've ever had. It also reminded me of a bible story. The one where all these rich men are giving loads of money to the church and this one poor lady gave only a little, but it was all she had.

That one quarter was more meaningful to me than all the twenties and tens we got that day (though we are very thankful for all of those!!! they most certainly got us closer to our goal!!!) He didn't have to give, his dad already did. He wanted to give all that he had. He could've gotten himself a gumball at the candy machine but he gave his quarter to us. You never have to look very far to see the wonderful power and strength of God's love for his children!