I’m a little behind on posting here, so let me start by apologizing. I got home from the last World Cup in Bangkok and a few days later headed straight to Illinois for another tournament.
The flight to Thailand was very uneventful. I tried to sleep as much as I could on my first flight to Tokyo, so I could then stay awake on the flight from there to Bangkok. I knew I was arriving late at night, so that would put me on a good sleep schedule right off the bat since it was a 12 hour time difference from home. I met up with most of the other US archers (we had a lot of us going to this World Cup) in Tokyo, which helped kill the time during my 3 hour layover in Japan.
By the time we got to our hotel, after collecting luggage and hailing a taxi, it was the early hours of the morning on Friday (practice day). We all headed off to bed, so we could be ready to practice in the afternoon. Practice went decent for me, nothing fantastic, nothing horrible. We were all tired, so we ate an early dinner and headed to bed. This ended up working out for the best because the women compounders had to shoot first thing in the morning.
Scoring began and I was struggling. I felt like I was making good shots all day, yet they were not hitting anywhere expected. Usually whether I am shooting good or bad, I know my shot well enough that I know where the arrow is going to land (within a certain distance), however, my arrows were going nowhere expected throughout the round. Unfortunately, I started to started to over think everything, trying to figure out what I was doing wrong. All this did was make me more frustrated as I couldn’t figure it out. It got so bad that I drew back on one end, not even sure if I was on my target, and instead of letting down, I thought to myself, what’s the big deal…I’m doing so poorly a miss isn’t going to change things (if I shoot the wrong target).
Lesson for those at home: THIS IS NOT WHAT YOU WANT TO DO!
At the half, I just decided screw it, I am just going to shoot. I was tired of fighting myself and trying to fix a problem I couldn’t fix. I knew I would have a low seed for day 2, but I also knew elimination day was where it really mattered. I could beat anyone out there, so I just had to finish the round and then try to solve the problem before the next day. This change in attitude worked, as I shot 6 points better in the second half. It still wasn’t a great score, but it was respectable, unlike the first half. In the end, I still qualified 8th, which I couldn’t complain about.
I headed right to the practice range, with some friends and tried to diagnose the problem. We made a few adjustments, so I was feeling more confident going into day 2. My first round match-up was against a girl from China. I was able to start strong and gain an early lead, which I maintained throughout the entire match. From there I knew I’d most likely be shooting against fellow Americans unless they lost their matches. First up was Easter, someone I’ve shot against during the outdoor season. I shot my personal best for the new compound scoring system in this match, only dropping 3 points, which moved me on to the next round.
At this point, I had to face top American archer, Erika. We have had too many head to heads to count this year, and I always seem to come up short. I knew whoever won this match was guaranteed a medal match and had a good shot at the gold medal. I felt good coming off of my 147, and I opened up strong. I kept the lead throughout the match, with a one point advantage going into the final end. I told myself, all you need to do is shoot a 30 and she can’t beat you. I shot a great first shot, but my second broke a little left. I knew at this point I had lost the match, so I had no nerves shooting the final arrow and it was a great shot. I came off the line upset bc I fully expected her to shoot a 30, however, all the US archers who were done shooting and standing behind us with binos said she had dropped 1, so I thought I won. It was such a relief knowing I had finally broken my losing streak against her and would now be shooting for medal.
Lesson #2: It is never over until the arrows are scored.
We walked down to the target, and as we got closer I noticed mine weren’t as good as I thought. In fact, ALL 3 of my arrows were just a hair out of the 10 ring. That meant that although I had a 1 point lead and she had shot a 29, I had shot a 27, meaning I had lost by 1 point. I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t crushed at the time, but after I had time to let everything sink in, I had to be happy.
I ended up finishing in 5th place after a miserable start to the tournament. That gained me valuable points for the world cup finals. I was then able to coach both Lexi and Erika who shot for bronze and gold, which was a great honor. And can I tell you; coaching is soooooo much more stressful than shooting in a medal match. I had such a hard time keeping my nerves under control during both their matches!
