Brooklyn Johnson, March – Have you ever faced an obstacle in archery? Meet Jackson Chopra. Jackson is a senior archer at Carl Junction High School. However, it hasn’t been very easy for him. Jackson has to do archery slightly different than everyone else on his team.
He has to shoot with only one arm!
Jackson lost his arm in a lawn mowing accident when he was a young child. Now in his 2nd year of archery, he has learned to persevere through it. He shoots with one arm by pulling back the string with his teeth, which is a challenge for him. His team helped him work through the struggles. “The team is a big family and they all keep me going and just keep me on my feet,” Jackson said.
A few months ago he received a prosthetic arm and shot with it for the first time. Shooting with a prosthetic arm meant he was going to have to change almost everything he was doing, from switching the eye he shoots with to how he pulls back the string. Jackson decided that he was going to stay with the original way he was shooting since this was his last year shooting archery in high school.
Jackson has grown in archery since last year when he first started. He says that his coach, Chelsi Leggett, helped him to get involved in archery. “I really like Coach Leggett,” Jackson says,
“She keeps me going, and she keeps me positive. She’s just been a big help for me.”
His favorite thing about archery is how he shoots. “The way I shoot is a challenge, so I think that’s kind of fun figuring that out,” he said. Not only does Jackson love the way he shoots, but he also has some goals that he hopes to achieve this year. One goal Jackson has is to participate at State this year. He would love to achieve this goal and hopes that he can also get a new personal high score as well.
Jackson is a really good example of what it’s like to persevere through the struggles in archery. Not every tournament is going to be easy, and not every tournament is going to go as we want them to. However, we can’t control that. On the other hand, what we can control is how we respond. Giving up never works and leads nowhere. However, resilience and determination lead to better days. As Dolly Parton says, “The way I see it, if you want the rainbow, you gotta put up with the rain.”
