The Archery Tournament

As I said yesterday, my kids participated in our state outdoor archery tournament this past Saturday at Rock Eagle 4H camp. This is our second year at this tournament. The twins really enjoy archery. It is the only sport they participate in (their choice). I like the fact that the only person they really compete with is themselves. With each arrow shot, they only hope to get a better score than their last arrow. It doesn't matter what the shooter next to you does...until they do a whole lot better. My girl has excelled at archery since the first time she tried it. She has very good aim and has a knack for compensating, very quickly, for wind and target changes. I call her Catniss. (you Hunger Games fans know what that means!) For the last 2 years, she has placed 4th in her division at the state indoor tournament and last year, she placed 5th in her division at the outdoor games. This year, she had to share a target with a girl from another county. Normally, my girl is very focused when she is shooting and nothing really distracts her. This girl did. Or actually, her bow did. What a beauty it was. Professionally balanced with all kinds of gadgets on it. The girl using it shot an almost perfect round. Out of a possible 360 points, she scored 316. There was no other shooter that even came close to that. I think it kind of took the wind out of baby girl's sails. Everytime she made a shot, the other girl made a better one. It kind of psyched her out. However, I think it was an important lesson to learn. There will always be someone who can do something better than you can so you need to stay focused on what you CAN do. Congratulate someone when they best you and try and improve what YOU do. Hard lesson for a 12 year old. She was really hoping to place again but I don't think she did. It didn't help her mood any that it was 95 degrees and they shot for 4 hours with no shade and no breaks. ANYWAY, they did enjoy themselves and are ready to start the whole process over in August. Here's a couple of pics from the day. I only took a few because it was so hot, my phone was overheating!

That's my boy looking at the camera and my girl, on the right, listening to her coach.

Half of my boy and my girl is getting ready to shoot

Catniss taking aim!