Savannah Tovar, March –
Recently, I have been having a hard time figuring out my shot set-up. My elbow is not as secure as it really should be (I will fix this very soon, when I have a week with more than just one or two practices). I am probably just overthinking it, but as a result my scores haven’t been as high as I would like. Don’t get me wrong, my scores are good, but we aren’t getting any personal bests, until this tournament.
My 3D tournament actually started off really well and I shot a 48 on the deer. The second round on the mountain sheep, I lost my arrow when pulling the string back and missed the target all together. At the moment, it was frustrating and a little embarrassing. It is easy to begin thinking negatively, such as: this is high school, you can’t be scoring zeros. Missing an arrow can literally ruin the overall score of both you and your team. Joking, that’s what a team is for. Check out my article “The Importance of a Team” when you get a minute. What is the solution to fixing your score after missing an arrow, you ask? Stay mentally strong.
The game wasn’t over, “there are still 4 more rounds” I told myself. Part of staying mentally strong is letting things go. I have probably said this before, but we all must remember that every arrow is a new arrow. To me, that doesn’t mean ignoring the previous arrows, but rather focusing on the next arrow, the one on the bow. If we ignore the past arrows, we can’t learn from our mistakes. On the flip, if we think too much about the past arrows, we get sucked up in it and then don’t pay enough attention to the arrow on the bow. I remind myself of this after I shoot a “bad” arrow. The main takeaway here is that you don’t need to dwell on past arrows too much, but instead concentrate on how you can make the next arrow better than the last.
Throughout the rest of my tournament, I kept mentally strong. I would like to think though that if I never got the zero I wouldn’t have focused so much more, and thus not score the score I got. Crazy how that works, right. I had shot a 280! That was my personal best— by only a few 10’s! I would just like to make sure you know that it is okay to have a bad arrow, it happens to the best of us. As one of my coaches would say, it is how you react. By reacting positively, you are setting yourself up for success and are that much more likely to achieve and exceed your personal best. Good luck in your next tournament!
