Savannah Tovar, May—How many pairs of shoes do you have? Chances are, if you have more then one or two pairs, you probably don’t wear the same ones all the time, you switch it up. Maybe you have an athletic pair of shoes, old shoes for getting muddy, or even a brand new pair for school. Do you ever consider what shoes you wear on the archery range?
My team is especially adamant that archers wear the same shoes on the range. They never stop preaching this at practices and there is actually truth to what they are saying. They may be saying something more than the physical shoes you wear.
Let me make this clear, there is no way that shoes will change your aiming spot. Sorry for those who like a challenge. Archery is primarily an upper body sport and your feet don’t exactly change your aiming spot. Don’t try this at home, but assuming you have good balance, if you were to shoot 5 arrows, then the next 5 standing on one foot, your arrows probably won’t look as nice. This wouldn’t be because you fell and then released, you would just feel nervous and not focus on the important stuff like your aiming spot.
Sitting in a chair and shooting shouldn’t change your aiming spot, only your mental game would change. You would probably be hypersensitive about everything around you, thus mess up on some important factors when shooting.
Let’s put this into simpler terms: physically it doesn’t matter what shoes you wear. Okay! Just no open toed shoes. If you have any sort of luck like me, you will never drop an arrow, but the day you decide to wear open toed shoes you will poke yourself. Am I right?
Mentally, it is important to wear good shoes. What this means is that you have the right mindset when you shoot. When I shoot, a lot of times I find myself saying “hopefully this arrow goes where I want it to.” We can all admit that we say this way too much. When we say this, we are wearing the shoes of probability, hoping that things work in our favor. In order for us to be better archers, we need to be saying “I will lock in today and give it all I got.” When I say this, I am choosing to put forward all the energy and concentration I have into archery, knowing that I can seriously make an impact not only on my progress in archery, but also bring my team one step closer to victory.
Archery is definitely a mental sport. Remember: both symbolically and realistically, it is important to wear good shoes. Don’t ever take off your shoes of perseverance. Your shoes may be scuffed up here and there, but it can be fixed in no time!
