Matt Stutzman

Archery is already hard as it is, trying to shoot 70 meters with 44 to 56 pounds of draw weight.  How about you try to shoot this just as accurately as any Olympic archer but with no arms.  Matt using his compound has just broken his own record of farthest most accurate shot.  His new record of 283.047 meters or about 930.04 feet.  Matt shoots by holding his bow up with his leg and pulls back the string with his mouth.  Matt is on the US Paralympic Archery Team and in 2012 went to win a silver medal.  This was all told to my grandpa when last year in 2015 SoCal Showdown he volunteered as a helper.  He was assigned to go get and pull Matt's arrows 60 meters away at the Paralympic trials.   This was also my first time shooting up a division into the Cadet category and since my grandpa wasn't at my back checking my arrow flight, form, and arrow position on the target this made me even more nervous.  IT was a good experience for me, my grandpa, and grandma.  Congrats to Matt's new record and his performance at the Paralympic games.

Medals

Not to brag but how many medals do you have? Medals doesn't matter is its local, state, national, or international (world) medals.  Since I started archery at the end of 2012, so I have been shooting for three years, I have accumulated 48 medals.  Twenty-three local medals, 15 state medals, and 9 national medals.  This is a pride for me, my family, my coach, and my club.  I am the second archer ever to get onto JDT from this club and the only archery still shooting with nationals medals.  The other female archer stopped shooting because she went to college.  She left as a good example to the club.  Rather there is another way to categorize the medals.  I have categorized them by difficulty of the tournament.  Another way to arrange them is by first, second, and third or gold, silver, and bronze.  Not not all 48 medals are gold, it is a variety of all three.  If I classify my medals the other way I have 20gold/first place medals,  21 silver medals/ second place, and seven third place/bronze medals.

School fundraiser

Thirsday April 21, 2016 the school Portola had a fundraiser.  The eight grade fundraiser was at lazer tag from 6-10.  I got there at the same time as my froends becase we carpooled but not all my friends got to lazer tag at the same time.  We where all split because we didnt get the same color wristbands.  The bad part was that we fouldnt change so we could all play together.  My archery skill and previous knowledge of the game lazer tag helped me tremendously.  Out of the four games I played I got, First place with my all time highest score of 22,402.  Te next game someone was being the biggest fricken dick ever and followed me around shooting me every five seconds.  Yet still I was able to have a higher score than that person.  The hhird game I got First again and them the last game I got second by 2,000 points losing to Jasper.  Over all the night was fun with some few stupid people sliding down the island part of two escalators, and jamming the elevator.  But hhe night was still amazing.

Teenage Struggles

In life there are many struggles.  Some you overcome, some you avoid some just keep nagging at the dack of your neck.  As a teenager Inam being hit with all these struggles.  Between sports, academics, friends, and even family time.  My dream is to become an Olympic archery but the academics is stopping me because the time I spend studying for Spanish and Test is taken away from archery.  The stress of tests and homework lowers the ability and my mindset while shooting.  Friends, during the last two year I have lost some friends.  Before I was spending every day 3-5 hours at "playdates" as they where called in Elementary school.  Now I am spending tnat time on training for archery so the friends I had still know menbut I talk to them less and less as I get more serious into archery.  Last is my family.  I am getting to know my grandparents a ton because my mom and dad are spending time with my four younger siblings, but I am feeling that my brother is feeling lonely.  He doesnt have the brother love-spending time.  Day by day I feel he wants to get back at me for leaving him for archery.  He always gets mad when I come and now doesn't want to spent time with me.  These are the all the life struggles I fave as a teenager.

Popularity of Archery

Archery is one of the fastest growing popular sports.  This sport has particularly become popular in young girls.  This is mostly because of the movies that portrayed female archers.  Some of the recent movies include Mockingbird: The Hunger Games, and Brave.  Some of the male archer movies include: Robin Hood and The Avengers.  With archery being shown in movies its also like advertising and growing interest to the sport.   Archery may not be popular now in The United States but it is very popular in other countries.  Archery is to Korea as Football is to America, is a correct analogy to how popular archery is in Korea.   Also for archery in the US about 70% of the archers here have Korean heritage.  Not only is the amout of archers extremely different but the amount of practice also.  While most archers here in the US get about 15 hours a week most Koreans get about 42 hours a week.  Americans average about two to three hours of practice a day while Korenas get five to six a day.  Crazy right,another difference is the time in which we start.  Most kids in the US started from the ages 7-12 while most Koreans starts at the early age of 3-5.  This is the differece between American and Korean archers.

Pin shoot

Tomorrow March 17, 2016 is Vanguards first pin shoot of the year.  Of course just as outdoor season starts they want to do do all the indoor activities.  They plan everything terrible in which once you stop shooting the distance for the year they deside to make you practice againfor the pin shoots.  As in previous blogs I have said the awards I have achieved all the way up to my silver olympian award at both outdoor and indoor pins.  Today I will practive the indoor distance of 18 meters so I can go for my gold olympian.  I have to shoot a 290 out of 300 on the small target of 40cm by 40cm.  Outdoors I should be recieving my silver olympian also.  For gold olympian at 70 meters the score needed is 320 and I currently shot a 317 at the practice outdoor shoot at Long Beach.  Right now is the transition from indoor to outdoor distance so there are many practice outdoor and the the last of the indoor tournaments at this time.  It make is difficult to keep yor sight at a same place since in two weeks in outdoor nationals.

Range

Outdoor season is just starting.  The biggest season and the only other one compared to short indoor.  There are some big problems concerning people that shoot at the woodly range.  They have closed down the range for 4 months but no its starting to leak into outdoor season.  The park was supposed to open a month ago just as indoor finished but because woodly is a city owned park the work is slow.    The estimated day of open is April 15th a week after the first outdoor nationals.   This is a problem because us woodly shooters dont have a range to shoot the needed 70 or 60 meters.  The closest range with the distances needed is El Dorado Park in Long Beach.  This is at least a 40 minute drive there with no traffic so archers who would practice every day outdoor can now only practive once or twice a week.  This will be detrimental to the scores to the archers tjat shoot at woodly.