Second Archerversary!

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Archerversary, Archery, Coaching, Event, Mentor, Outdoor, Spring, The Archers of Caledon, Tournament

I can’t believe it’s been TWO YEARS already and as is [what’s becoming] tradition (or just coincidence), Norm and I shot our first outdoor tournament of the season at The Archers of Caledon‘s first tournament of the season 😛

Tournament setup is complete..

..just as the Sun is setting.

The weather was relatively calm all weekend, and warm. However, Saturday started with light showers, turning to mist and fog. It was a new experience for us, but really cool. It definitely made for an amazing photo opportunity, unfortunately I didn’t take any. Sunday started cloudy and eventually turned into full sun, with a slight crosswind all day.

I have definitely improved over the winter, as three of my four scores were higher than anything I had shot all of last year, and I was able to learn from my one lower score which is now helping me to improve and reinforce some mental habits I found were lacking a little.

Sometimes I have a hard time wrapping my head around all that we have accomplished in the past year. Between all the training, travelling, and tournaments, the time has really flown by! We are beginner archery coaches, and we’ve been told somewhat of a mentor to some of the younger archers at our club too! For me, that’s what it’s all about; learning and improving my knowledge and skills so that I can be a better mentor and teacher to others, while we all have a great time getting outside and being active.

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End of 2017-18 Indoor Season

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Archery, Archery Family, Event, Goals, Indoor, Personal Best, Season Summary, Team Storm, Tournament, Training

Well, that’s it (almost) for my second indoor season! There are still a few more fun nights coming up, but all the major tournaments are complete and it’s time to fully focus on 70m. I have almost finalized my tournament schedule for the upcoming outdoor season, but there are still a few tournaments that I’m uncertain about; mainly because they involve a lot of travel, and the travel days are right next to some other tournaments. Meaning that I would need to leave one tournament and head straight to the next. For example, in August there’s the potential of heading out to one tournament on the 5th and going to two more consecutively, and returning home on the 27th.

I had only set a few goals for myself last fall for the indoor season, and at the time they felt a little lofty. Let’s have a look at them now:

Firstly, I would really like to be consistently shooting 270/300s and having a peak score of at least 280/300 for a half round and 560/600 for a full round.

This one I would definitely call achieved! Scores in the 260s are pretty low for me now, and I have shot several 280s and one 281 this season. I wasn’t able to hit the 560 mark, but I did shoot three scores of 556, which is pretty darn close. Because I have been plotting my arrows with Artemis, I was able to convert my IFAA (5-ring) scores to FITA (10-ring) scores to get a better picture of how the IFAA scores compared. At the IFAA Ontario Championship, I shot a 146 and 147 for a 293 total. Not only did that set a new Provincial record (barely), it was also my best performance of the season. The converted scores worked out to be a 281 and a 282 for a total of 563. So I kinda achieved my 560+ goal ..

Second, there is at least one major indoor tournament that Norm and I have talked about travelling to; the Lancaster Classic in January. If we can get the time off work and afford the trip to Pennsylvania, it will earn us some very valuable competition experience, and we’ll have the opportunity to meet and shoot with so many archers we haven’t met before.

This one is a definite ACHIEVED! Prior to heading out to Lancaster, I had been comparing last year’s tournament results with my current performance to get an idea of where I might place this year. So of course I had set a few goals for myself based on that information. Firstly, for such a huge tournament (and my first time at one), I wanted to just shoot an average score for me. Dealing with increased anxiety and pressure from such a large event with lots of pro archers was going to be a good test of my mental game. Second, I felt that I had a decent chance of making the eliminations (top 8) based on last year’s scores. And third (and most lofty of them all), I wanted to make the shootup (top 4), meaning I had to win my first match.

The results were interesting. I only shot four Xs during the entire competition (Xs counted as 11s at this tournament), but I also shot a LOT of 9s which I think was almost entirely caused by extra tension from nerves. This also means that I shot really well overall and I was very happy with how my mental game had improved. I ended up qualifying 8th, achieving my primary goal, but losing my elimination match to Mackenzie Brown. At the time, I believe she was ranked 9th in the world. It was an amazing experience, and this photo represents one my favourite memories. During the practice ends for the elimination rounds, I had noticed all these world class athletes all on the same shooting line as me! It was a really cool moment and it felt good; proper 😀 Check out my 2018 Lancaster Archery Classic post for more details, photos, and a video!

And finally, I would like to keep up, and advance my fitness program and arrow volume so that when Spring comes around, I’m able to go up in draw weight by a couple pounds.

With a few hiccups, I have managed to maintain my weekly arrow count, and have just started slowly increasing my draw weight. My fitness program hasn’t been as aggressive as I had hoped it would be, but taking it slow is really important, especially when you want to build and support proper form and technique. It’s not always easy to take it slow, but trust me, it’s well worth it!

I just received my order of new Easton A/C/G arrows from Canada Archery Online, but I won’t be able to really try them out until I’ve gone up a little more in weight. Hopefully I can get them to tune as well as my previous arrows were. Slightly better quality arrows should help my group sizes stay a little more consistent, especially in the wind. Which leads me into some goal setting for the upcoming outdoor season! Norm and I are now members of the Peel Archery Club which has an indoor 70m range; It’s allowed us to get an earlier start on outdoor training this year.

Based on my indoor 70m performance so far and the big major goal I have for the summer (I’ll talk about that in a moment), there are some score goals I have in mind. I think the main goal this year is to make Blue Squad. This is just a ranking system Archery Canada uses, and to make Blue Squad last year required an average of your top 5 scores to be 588+ (last year my top 5 average was 540ish). Currently, some of my poorer indoor 70m scores have been in the 560s and 570s while my better scores are in the 580s and 590s. With the assumption that I will continue improving through the Spring, and my new arrows helping to mitigate the wind a little, I’m seriously aiming to have several scores in the 630+ range. I know building goals based on scores isn’t always the best approach, but this year is a big tournament that has minimum score requirements. Which leads me to the big major goal; the Pan Am Championships. This tournament acts as the primary qualifier for next year’s Pan Am Games, which itself is a qualifier for the 2020 Olympics. You can see now how this is a big deal, right? 😀 Well, I really want to be named to the team going to the the Pan Am Championships, and do well enough there to earn Canada a spot at the Pan Am Games!

2018 Lancaster Archery Classic

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Archery, Archery Family, Event, First Time, Friends, Indoor, Lancaster Archery Supply, Lancaster Classic, Logo, Roadtrip, Spooky Nook Sports, Team, Team Storm, Tournament, Warehouse Hotel, YouTube

Just over a week ago, Norm and I packed up the car and headed south to Lancaster, PA again. This time, we went to compete at the Lancaster Archery Classic hosted at Spooky Nook Sports, rather than just a shopping trip to Lancaster Archery Supply like we did last year. The sports complex is amazing, not only can it support nearly any sport, most of them can be played inside the massive warehouse style facility. Built into a section of the warehouse, is the Warehouse Hotel. It’s a full service hotel that is as good as or better than any hotel I’ve stayed in, and definitely worth it for the convenience. Here’s a 4 minute video of some of our experiences from our trip, or rather, the ones we remembered to record.

Warm up before elimination matches with Gabriela Bayardo and Ana Maria Rendon (world ranked 60th and 14th, respectively).

Shooting my elimination match against Mackenzie Brown (world ranked 9th).

Scoring the last end of elimination matches with Mackenzie Brown, Susan Bock, and Aleasha North. Mackenzie won 118 – 109.

I’m very thankful that many of my fellow archery friends also attend this tournament, some have even been several times before. Having them around provided a sense of comfort and support when my nerves started getting to me. I could go to them and ask questions and not feel completely overwhelmed by the scale of the event. And they knew all the best places to go for dinner each night 😀

While combing through all the photos and videos we took, I also started tinkering with a logo design. Unfortunately, it’s not Storm Archery .. yet (partly because there may already be one of those), but it’s a start. What do you think?

The Final Countdown

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Archery, Archery Family, CAFAC, Carbon Express, Charity, Event, Facebook, First Time, Grand River Hospital, Grey Wolf Archery, Indoor, Instagram, Lancaster Archery Supply, Lancaster Classic, Roadtrip, Shooter's Choice, Team Storm, Tournament, YouTube

It’s finally here! Norm and I leave for the Lancaster Archery Classic tomorrow morning. After league tonight, we’ll be finishing up packing then it’s off to bed early to prepare for the 8 hour drive to Lancaster, PA early tomorrow morning! If you would like to follow our adventure, stay tuned to Facebook and Instagram, or check out the live scoring and video streams – I’ll be shooting on the 1/26 12:00 pm Qualification Line)! We will try to take lots of photos and videos to share our experience, but I have a feeling we may get too swept up in the experience (or too busy shooting) to record everything we intend to. If you’re attending too, send us a message and maybe we can meet up!

.. and now, some new accessories! Brian at Grey Wolf Archery did an amazing job making and painting some new stabilizer weights to match our bows. We’re really pleased with the results and can’t wait to show them off! If you would like some custom coloured weights, definitely get in touch!

.. and now, new used gear! From Lauren, a hard bow-case for when we start travelling with our bows in the air. And from April, some Carbon Express Nano-XR arrow shafts. I’m just waiting for some new points and some free time before I can try them out though.

.. and finally, I made up some new pink and purple arrows for the upcoming Canadian Archer’s for a Cause’s Boob Shoot charity tournament on February 3rd at Shooter’s Choice in support of the Grand River Hospital Breast Centre in Waterloo. If you would like to donate to the cause, you can do so at: http://www.grhf.org/event/cafac/

Holiday Archery Fun Times

Tags

Archery, Coaching, Event, Indoor, Tournament, Training, YouTube

There’s a fun tournament this weekend at OCCS, and I was joking around with them that I would decorate my bow with tinsel and lights. They seemed excited and encouraging .. so I did it! Here’s a short video of the first two test firings:

I had to take the tinsel string dampeners / silencers off, partly because they were making a mess of the floor, but also because they slowed my string down so much that my arrows no longer flew consistently.

I will update this post with photos of my Christmas Elf outfit that I plan on wearing to the tournament tomorrow, and to league on Wednesday. As always, check out my various social media for more immediate updates!

Not pictured, bells on my shoes and the necklace of bells that I had to take off.

Prior to the fun bow decorating, I had a really good session with my coach at The Archers of Caledon. We managed to identify three issues and developed a plan to hopefully eliminate them.

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The first issue my coach found was that my sight pin doesn’t always track vertically down on to the target. Quite often I’ll have to adjust horizontally, which can increase the time at full draw and cause a rotation in the arm/core, both of which will lead to becoming fatigued more quickly.

The second issue I’ve been struggling with for a while now; an inconsistent vertical pressure on the grip. When I’m shooting well, the pressure on my grip is fairly centered, but sometimes that pressure will drift a little higher or lower, causing lower or higher shots respectively. After some discussion with my coach, he made a suggestion that I think is going to work very well. The suggestion was to place either a texture change or a small bump on the grip where so I can consistently focus my hand pressure on that spot. Once it becomes more natural, we can remove the aid from the grip.

And finally, during video analysis of my release, we saw that on shots that didn’t feel as good as others, I was engaging a muscle that shouldn’t be engaged. The result is very minor, but with the high speed camera, we could see that my elbow was dropping a little just before executing the shot, rather than coming straight back. The solution, for now, is to simply be a little more mentally confident and strong to ensure that the elbow stays straight all through the shot process.

November Update, 2017

Tags

Archery, Archery Canada, Indoor, Outdoor, Peel Archery Club, Personal Best, Peterborough Archers, Saugeen Shafts, The Archers of Caledon, Tournament, Training, World Archery, World Archery Award

Another few weeks have passed and I’ve been working away at my new fitness program and trying to make some minor form changes a natural part of my shot process. Having to think about the new changes and make sure that I’m doing them is a bit of a distraction, but the more I train, the more automatic they become.

It took a while, but now that I’ve adjusted to shooting 18m again, I’m starting to see some substantial performance improvements from last year’s indoor season. Last year, my personal best (and only score over 530) was a 532 and while I have only shot the one 530+ at a tournament this year, my league and training scores are frequently higher; into the mid 540s. Just last night at league, I bested my old PB of 544 by 1 point for a new PB of 545. Here are a few recent scores from this month; the first is from practice at Peel Archery Club. The 2nd and 4th are from league at The Archers of Caledon, and the 3rd is from a tournament at Saugeen Shafts by Peterborough Archers.

        

I’m really enjoying plotting my arrows and using that data to reflect on and pair with my mental image of how the shots felt. ArtemisLite is a free download on Google Play if you’re interested in trying it out.

And finally, the pins I earned from the outdoor season have arrived! During the summer, most of my scores were over 500 and a a few were over 550. That’s what earned me the white and black pins, respectively. I’m getting really close to the WA 18m indoor threshold of 550 for the blue pin too! But since the score must be shot at a World Archery registered event, I only have a few opportunities this season to qualify. Even if I don’t qualify for a pin, I’ll still be very happy with my progress and performance 😀

UPDATE: I shot a 556 at the 2018 Canadian Regional Indoor Championships to earn a blue pin!

Just for reference, here are the score requirements for each pin colour.

Event	White	Black	Blue	Red	Gold	Purple
WA 720	500	550	600	650	675	700
WA 900	750	800	830	860	875	890
WA 25m	500	525	550	575	585	595
WA 18m	500	525	550	575	585	595

More information about World Archery Awards from Archery Canada can be found here: http://www.archerycanada.ca/en/wa-stars/world-archery-awards-page. If you’re outside of Canada, you should contact your local national archery body for information.

End of the 2017 Outdoor Season

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Archery, Archery Family, Friends, Goals, Injury, Outdoor, Personal Best, Physio, Season Summary, Team Storm, Tournament, Training

This weekend’s Caledon tournament marks the end of my first outdoor season. Similarly to what I mentioned at the End of the 2016-17 Indoor Season, this season I was involved in a few more charity events, I set a couple new personal bests under tournament conditions (one at the Canadian Championships), I learned a lot about my form and the sport, I started a physical training plan, I met even more wonderful new friends, had my first injury to deal with, and I even managed to win another medal at a Provincial Championship!

It’s been an amazing few months, and I’m sad that it’s coming to an end. I am just now feeling recovered from my injury and I was just starting to really feel like I was getting into a good groove outside. I guess I’ll just have to figure out how to take that mental state and bring it inside for the Winter season.

Review of Plans and Goals

In my last end of season post, I talked about some plans and goals Norm and I had for the summer. While I didn’t achieve all of my goals, I did achieve many of them, and I’m really happy with how the season has gone overall.

First off, physio and physical training. I definitely didn’t put as much time into hitting the gym and working on cardio as I had hoped to this season. The back injury in July was a major setback, and delayed the advancement of my training program. It did however give me some much needed time to work on the mental side of things and to take a short break, which I feel was very beneficial as my average score for a 720 round jumped about 30 points during my recovery.

The early morning training that Norm and I had talked about doing was actually very successful! Most weeks, we were out at the range Tuesday and Thursday mornings by about 7am. We were even pleasantly surprised to be joined by another archery friend for many of the Spring mornings! Even though getting out of bed is hard sometimes, it was a really fun experience, and one I’m sure we’ll do again next Spring/Summer!

I feel like I have moved away from the weekly arrow counts I threatened you all with, mostly because I created a home just for them, and I felt like it was kind of boring for you. I did however keep up my promise of weekly posts, in a mostly journal type format. I expect this trend to continue, but during the shooting season transitions, there may be weeks where there’s nothing to talk about. I don’t really want to say nothing during those times, so I’ll have to come up with some interesting content to fill the gaps. Now that I have an Athlete Page on Facebook, there’s a good chance that I may do some live or pre-recorded videos. Suggestions have included Tutorials, Q&A, Equipment Reviews, and the like, but I’m always open to hearing other ideas. What would you like me to talk about? What would be interesting or useful for you to see on here?

And finally, goals. I had set out to open the season shooting 510/720 and end the season by getting up into the 550 – 600 / 720 range. Unfortunately, I didn’t meet my 575 or 600 score goals, but they were pretty lofty. Looking at my Tournament Scores chart for Outdoor 720, 70m, you can see that I have definitely been improving. I didn’t start out as high as I had hoped, but I feel very satisfied with how I’ve developed over the season and how I’m consistently scoring in the 550 range now, which is where I wanted to end the season. I learned a LOT about shooting outside, with changing weather and lighting conditions, and how they can affect your equipment and your shot.

And as a reminder, it’s not about how many 10s you shoot, it’s all about minimizing those lower scoring arrows. As evidence, I shot four 720 rounds this weekend, and I had almost the same number of 10s in each of those rounds. BUT, in the two rounds that were about 550/720, I had 12 arrows that scored less than a 7, while in the two rounds that were about 520/720, I had around 21 that scored less than a 7. Sure, more 10s won’t hurt, but less 3s, 4s, and 5s is even better!

Indoor Goals

For this upcoming indoor season, I have a few goals in mind. Firstly, I would really like to be consistently shooting 270/300s and having a peak score of at least 280/300 for a half round and 560/600 for a full round.

Second, there is at least one major indoor tournament that Norm and I have talked about travelling to; the Lancaster Classic in January. If we can get the time off work and afford the trip to Pennsylvania, it will earn us some very valuable competition experience, and we’ll have the opportunity to meet and shoot with so many archers we haven’t met before.

And finally, I would like to keep up, and advance my fitness program and arrow volume so that when Spring comes around, I’m able to go up in draw weight by a couple pounds.

2017 Canadian Archery Championship | Championnat Canadien de tir à l’arc

Tags

70m, Archery, Archery Family, Event, First Time, Friends, Goals, Injury, Outdoor, Personal Best, Physio, Team Storm, Tournament

This past week was all about the Canadian Nationals in Brossard, QC. I shot 314 arrows, nearly double what I had been shooting the two weeks prior and I worked with my physiotherapist earlier in the week to figure out some final plans and ideas to help minimize the effect of my injury. The plan worked out really well, and my back is feeling MUCH better. But, because I had been taking it easy, I had lost some of my stamina and struggled to continue to shoot strong shots by the end of each day. I’m meeting with him again tomorrow to work out a recovery plan. Hopefully I’ll be able to get back to full time training again in a week or two.

I shot a personal best on the first day, and achieved the first of 3 score goals I had set for myself for this season. I didn’t shoot as well on the second day, but it was still one of my highest scores for the season so far. During the elimination rounds on the third day I started strong, winning my first match, but I wasn’t  quite able to keep it up in the second. I lost two sets by only a single point or two and wasn’t able to keep up with my opponent. It was a great experience, and being only my second time doing eliminations, I learned a lot and and can’t wait for the next opportunity do it all again! Overall, I am very happy with my performance. It hasn’t fully set in yet, but top 10 in Canada with a 7th place finish in qualification and 9th in eliminations is very satisfying!

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Like other events I’ve been to, this one was no different. The organizing committee and all the volunteers work so hard for us. I can’t express enough how much your hard work means to us. Merci beaucoup! Every event I have been to has been full of friendly, hard working, dedicated people. The archery community is definitely one of the best! There is always a new friend at each event waiting to be made and so many interesting conversations to be had.

Michele, Dakota, Norm, and I carpooled out to Brossard and shared a room for the week. We had lots of fun and became better friends because of it. Thank you so much Michele for everything this weekend, I’m not sure we could have done it without you! Congratulations to Dakota and Norm who also shot personal bests this weekend, you guys rock!

Preparation & Recovery Planning

Tags

Archery, Archery Family, Injury, Outdoor, Physio, Team Storm, Tournament, Training

As my back slowly heals, I’ve been able to get out shooting a little more in preparation for next weekend’s 2017 Canadian Championship in Québec. It wasn’t a lot, but this past week I shot 177 arrows, slightly up from the week before. It’s really hard forcing myself to not shoot as much as I want to, but I have to take it easy to avoid making this injury any worse. My physiotherapist and I have come up with what I feel is a pretty good plan for dealing with the injury leading up to, and during Nationals. When I get back from Nationals though, I will likely take two or three weeks off to get some good rest and hopefully fully recover from this injury.

Since the injury isn’t directly related to archery, knowing that I was still able to perform well with the pain and discomfort at Provincials, and having had a couple really good training sessions this past week with Norm, I feel very strong and confident about my form overall. There are still a couple issues that I’m trying to work through, but knowing what they are and how to fix them is a great start; I just need to stay mentally strong and focused for the duration of the tournament to minimize their impact. During my break, the mental game is something I’m going to be spending a lot of time on.

We’re really excited and looking forward to this tournament. It won’t be the last of the season, but it is the one we’ve been working toward all year. Plus, we’ll get to see more of this great country and meet many other fellow archers!

2017 OAA Target Championships

Tags

70m, Archery, Archery Family, Arrow Volume, Friends, Injury, Outdoor, Physio, Team Storm, Tournament

I’m still dealing with back issues and haven’t been able to do any training since last week.  Hopefully, my physio appointment this week helps me start the healing process. The only shooting I did do was at the Ontario Provincial Championships this weekend in Sault Ste. Marie where I shot 262 arrows in practice and competition.

Norm, Shannon, and I all piled into the car early Friday morning for a long drive out to the Sault. On the way, we stopped by Sudbury to check out the Big Nickel at Science North. We didn’t record much of the archery, but we did get some video and photos of the trip. There was even a Rib Fest in town while we were there!

On Saturday, we shot two 720 qualification rounds for the Ontario Target Championship and I finished 4^th in my division with a 7.22 average arrow score. Since some of the divisions were a little smaller, they were combined to make for a single larger elimination bracket, putting me into 5^th overall. I was pretty satisfied with my performance, which was a little better than last weekend’s. I learned a lot, and even figured out something in my release that will make for more consistent shots in the future.

The Ontario Open was on Sunday. It’s a head-to-head style elimination tournament using Saturday’s qualification scores for seeding. I was very pleased with my performance overall, shooting a 7.4 average arrow and winning each of my three matches 6 – 2 to take the gold!

A huge thank you to the hosts, the organizers, and all the volunteers who put on a fabulous event! And