This past week I had the privilege of running the archery range for two days at my church's annual girl's camp at Camp Batel, Wyoming. The girls that attend these camps range in age from 12-18 years old and the majority of them are not experienced with archery. In fact, a few have never touched a bow in their lives!
I had groups of 20 or so come through during the days, with most groups shooting for around 45 minutes. About 150 girls in total shot at the range, I think.
I took up some standard 40cm targets and some balloons (about 8 inches) to shoot at as well. The balloons had a little extra fun added - I put a bit of flour in each so they make a cloud when they pop.
In the afternoons and evenings the girls had free time and a lot of them chose to come down to the range and shoot some arrows. Some girls were getting pretty competent, so I worked with those that wanted to improve a bit.
One girl was shooting very well with the camp's Polaris bows, so I offered her the opportunity to shoot the PSE Optima I own that I brought up. She did much better with this Optima and acclimated to using a finger tab quickly.
The girls all wanted to shoot at some balloons, so I put some up. The girl shooting the Optima immediately hit hers and asked for another. As I was putting up the balloons I decided to give this girl a challenge. I gave her a small water balloon to shoot at instead (~2 inches), placed right over the 10 ring on her target face.
The first response to this was "I can't hit that". I told her that I was pretty sure she can. She responded "No way. I can't hit that. I haven't even had one arrow fall in the yellow directly." I again reassured her that I was positive she could hit it and asked her to try. I told her the funny thing is, if you aim small, you'll hit small. She was skeptical but agreed to try.
The best thing happened next. She shot her first arrow after putting up the small balloon and the arrow went right into the X ring, popping the small balloon! She was so excited . There was a lot of cheering and celebration. It was really cool!
When shooting with the JOAD team, I regularly put up targets that have only the 7, 8, 9, and 10 rings (only red and yellow), but they're the exact same size as the 40cm targets' red and yellow rings. A funny thing happens - the archers' aim improves even though the area they're aiming at is exactly the same size. The removal of the distractions allows them to focus on what's important.
So, this experience at camp reminded me that when you allow yourself to be distracted by extraneous stuff, you may not hit your target. This applies to regular life as well as archery. When you focus on what's important, you're much more likely to achieve it, even if you think you can't.
