team USA – J M Tuckerman

My Little Hiatus

School is winding down and so all of my classes are piling on the work. I won’t bother to list all of my assignments that are do within the next weeks. It’s a lot. That’s all that really needs to be said.

It made me wonder how Olympic level archers find the time between work and practice. I’m supposed to be shooting 100 arrows 5 times a week, but life is getting in the way. School isn’t the only thing getting in the way, I also want to see my friends and be social. My life feels like a giant triangle. The points are being social, shooting, and school, and I can only devote my time to one of them.

The worst part is that all I want to do is go out shooting. I’ve given the archery-virus to some of my friends, but they can’t all shoot with me all the time. Shooting helps me to de-stress when my workload gets too high. I hate not being able to shoot every day.

I can’t wait for May 10th. I walk in commencement on May 16th.

THEN I CAN SHOOT ALL THE TIME!

500 to the Left

500 arrows in and I’m adjusted to the weight. My grouping is all over the place. Don’t get me wrong, it was never perfect but it was tight-ish. Now instead of one or two flyers going wherever the heck they want to go–well–honestly, it looks like a 4 year got his hands on a light bright and just threw pegs wherever he felt like.

200 Arrows

I shot another 100 arrows today. I am desperate for my body to adjust to shooting this much at this weight. I feel like my arm is going to fall off.

In lieu of having little more to do than complain about how my entire right arm feels ready to fall off-I thought I’d take the time to just talk about Archery in general and how it has helped me.

100 Arrows In

I was 40 arrows into my first 100 and I was already sore. My coach, Orion White, had just adjusted my brace height and tightened up my bow. Now, instead of shooting 28 lbs with a brace height of 8 3/4 inches, I am shooting 30 lbs with a brace height of 8 1/2 inches. You wouldn’t think anyone would feel the difference, but I assure you I am still feeling it.

My First Steps

I started shooting a few years ago and I caught the bug. Archery is very calming and very emotionally fulfilling, especially when you make the shot. About a year and half ago, maybe two at this point honestly, a friend of mine came to me with a proposition:

BILLIE: So I found a place that gives archery lessons, do you want to take one?

ME: I will if you will.

And so we did. Simple as that. Well–maybe not as simple as that. We went to Banger’s Sports Shop located in Winslow, NJ, for our lessons. They have set up varying levels of classes which works out wonderfully because you can repeat any level and if I had been forced to stand, draw, aim, and hold the way that I do now when I took my first lesson–I may not have caught the bug. We started with a lecture about the parts of the bow, which, if I must be honest, I didn’t actually know. It dawned on me then that although I had been shooting for about five years by that time that I really didn’t know much outside of nocking my arrow and pulling the string back.

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