Olympic Countdown

Holy moly, we are almost to August! Where has the summer gone?! Hope yours has been a good one, whatever you have been up to.

I think I have shot my bow a grand total of 3x so far this month. I know. I know. However, the 6-week plan from last year was dusted off last weekend and restarted with some effort. The muscles are feeling it right now, I tell ya. At this rate, I'll be ready for December! Haha!

This will be going through every athlete's mind next week.

Our local PTTC club was featured on the news this week regarding the surge in interest in archery, the video can be found here:  http://www.whec.com/sports/


The Olympics start next Friday, including Archery on 7/27. Check CNBC for the full schedule. I am still trying to sort out how I can get streaming vid from their site on my Android - not looking good. Their app is kind of stinky. If any of you know of  a good workaround, please let me know!

Archery has become the hip new thing

Those of us that have been doing this for awhile are nodding sagely with a hint of “I told you so.”  Girls that shoot are now definitely regarded as cooler by the boys, especially in high-school, where coolness can be tough to come by. Between the Hunger Games, the Avengers movie and the upcoming summer release of Brave, kids and adults alike are getting more than usual exposure to archery this year.  And don’t forget the London summer Olympics, which is right around the corner.

All kinds of  interesting archery
products are available now

Wired magazine’s GeekDad author Jim MacQuarrie coaches JOAD kids along with his wife Terri, and has helped the sport gain exposure through a non-sport avenue by bringing his experience to bear in tongue-in-cheek fashion on how it’s done (or not) in the movies recently. Because of Wired, Jim has probably introduced archery to more hipsters in NYC and Chicago than anyone else, so there are more skinny-jean and fedora types out on the range with the camo’d club these days.  In the Pasadena area the interest shift has been a little older than expected.  Jim and Terri have noticed that, “After Hunger Games, the single largest increase at our range has been women age 25-35, which more than doubled.” They expect they will get more boys after Avengers, and a wave of 6-12 year old girls after Brave.

My new friend Sydney is 15 and is also a dancer.  This girl also loves to shoot targets with her dad and siblings on their property for fun.  Sydney is also looking at getting her small-game license to have even more fun this summer.  Bit by the bug just before the movie rush hit, she’s shot some 3-D this winter as well.
Local shops from Pasadena, California to Fox Valley, Wisconsin are seeing a boost in kids wearing mockingjay necklaces leading their parents in to look at bows.  Both shops where Matt and I shoot have definitely seen growth in league signups, classes and just general interest. Camps that offer archery are expected to get more kids in the door this summer.

Clubs are getting more calls, too.  Doug and Sue Ludwig, coaches for the Points to the Cross club, run one of the upstate NY JOAD programs that introduces kids to Olympic-style archery. Doug is also one of the coaches for the Olympic Dream Team, which is bringing up the talent for the limited spots that will go to London. PTTC has received more interest recently, but they aren’t sure if it’s from the movie buzz or from the upcoming Olympics.


Teresa Iaconi, PR consultant for USA Archery and certified coach, has a similar perspective. “Clubs in general are reporting big increases in beginners wanting to learn how to shoot, and the biggest thing USA Archery is in need of right now are instructors, and people who are willing to start Junior Olympic Archery Development (youth) clubs in their community.”

Just to give you an idea of how much interest has grown this year, www.usarchery.org  quoted 30,585 unique visitors in March 2012, versus 19,206 in March 2011.

It’s an Olympic year. I know this because the P&G tear-jerker commercials with the gymnast mom are already running and my friend Dan is shooting full-time just in case this is THE year.  According to US Archery, the U.S. “currently has the number one world-ranked athletes and teams in six of eight categories, including superstar Brady Ellison, increasing the country's hopes for a gold medal performance in London and making the sport more popular than ever.”  World Archery recently nominated the USA as the “top archery country since 2008”. Until then, Korea had been the perceived power house team to beat in the past along with India and Italy. Lee Ford-Faherty, US Archery Para-Olympic Team member, has definitely noticed a jump in interest in her club from high-schoolers all the way up to middle-aged women where she trains.  Watch for Lee this summer as she competes in London with the USA team.

Fads happen in every sport. Daniel Grundman, owner of Flex-Fletch Products Inc., attests to the fact as their clear fletching is selling like hotcakes due to the Hunger Games using it in the star’s set up.  All teenage girls know that if you look like Katniss, you will shoot like her as well. Amen and pass the fletch glue. I suppose training with Khatuna Lorig wouldn’t hurt either. Lorig has been a great ambassador to the sport at the Olympic level and the Katniss Everdeen character showed correct form throughout the movie due to her excellent coaching.

It’s not just the clubs that are seeing more popularity. Archery themed anything has become easier to find and more mainstream.  Etsy and Pinterest are seeing a burst of handmade quivers, archery themed home décor, and archery related jewelry now being sold online. Those of us who already decorate with our extra arrows and gear laying around the house now look like we know what we were doing the entire time.  Score. 

  
Of course, I am truly excited that my sport is getting so much attention right now.  Any sport that welcomes and is accessible to so many age groups gets a solid thumbs up.  It’s a sport that kids who may not be quick with a bat or big enough for football can excel in.  It’s a sport where a 30-something woman (or man) can figure out well enough to fill the freezer or hit some foam in the middle. It’s satisfying, relaxing, social and for the life of me, I can’t figure out why more people don’t love it with or without the movies.

*** Since this was written, I've continued to receive more feedback from all over on this subject. It really has become a world-wide growth phenomenon. Folks from California to the UK are continuing to tell me that they are doubling or tripling their student numbers. Woot!

See this article and more in the Summer Issue of Bow Adventures.

'nuff said

Be Brave

Looking forward to the "Brave" Pixar movie this week. I'm sure it will be a major hit with the 6-12 crowd, along with bringing BIG hair back. Thinking we will see lots of red haired archers around Halloween maybe.

I posted a question about a month ago on LinkedIn to find out if archery is really getting a boost because of the summer movies. The short answer is, yes.  All over and down under as well. I love LI as one of my favorite social tools, as there is a robust archery online community there.  Now I feel the need to go visit those nice folks in New Zealand and Australia to see for myself. Add one to your class, please! There is a longer article on this subject coming out July 10 in Bow Adventures (aka Bow America) with great input from a 2012 Para-Olympian, writers and coaches around the world.

Alaska trip paddle

My summer of shooting has been sort of sidelined, which has made me grumpy, but also reminded me to slow. the. hell. down. I've remembered what my husband looks like (adorable), my dog, read at least three books, learned to make cheese from scratch, opened my Etsy store and have been thinking about buying a kayak. Last summer I was shooting for two hours, 4-5 days a week. Was in better shape physically but didn't do anything else all summer.  In the last few weeks, I have been starting to pick up my compound again, shooting a little 40-50-60 with friends in the evenings, and reevaluating my archery goals in general. I really don't miss working that hard, but if you want to do recurve stuff, then it comes with the territory.

Goals. I currently have none. It's a weird place to be in my head and I feel a little lost without them honestly. At work I live and die by deadlines, they are an evil necessity. And right now I have some major ones there, so trying to figure out when I will be sleeping and having a life in the next six months. Motivation. Fear is a good one, but not sustainable. Right now, I want to just hop in a kayak and paddle somewhere out of cell reach.

I get a bit neurotic about how I am shooting, which hasn't been great for the past six months. The only summer tournament I am interested in coincides with two straight weeks of travel leading up (no practice time) and a concert that Saturday that we signed up for months ago. My general attitude regarding this whole deal is "meh".  This is not a self-pity party, so much as a "what do I want to do with this?" question. Time management is a very real part of this equation. If my brain is melted by the time I get home at night, how much energy can I realistically expect to be able to put in?

Thinking back to when things were flowing along, my mindset was different. And yes, more positive.
How do I get back there?What things do you do to get yourself out of a shooting slump and excited about it?

(PS - shot my recurve on Monday with some lighter limbs. Felt SO good. Yeahhh!)

DIY

Friends don't let friends glue their own fletch.

I am pretty handy with modge podge (you DO know what that is, yes?) glue stick, even fletch tape is ok. Super glue and I are not friends.  I was shown how to do this, oh... maybe two years ago. Not hard to do. The trick is to use glue that does not dry white so your mistakes are at least transparent. And keep the top edges lined up. Sounds easy, right? 
Hey, at least I have something to shoot until I scrape everything off and start over.

Speaking of making stuff from scratch, I finally put some of my quivers up on my new Etsy shop - Queen Bee Quivers . They are not your momma's quivers, so if you are looking for something different, check them out here. Going to be adding some other gear bags and just cute bags soon, so check back for more archery gear with a twist. 

Say Cheese

Doesn't that view make you want to just fling some arrows?

I love three day weekends. Stating the obvious, as who doesn't right? Gave me some extra time to play and hang out with some friends I don't see enough.

Was able to snag some new compound gear and get moving on that end this week. Still needs some minor tweaking, but hey, at least I am shooting. Spent some time in the sun shooting 50 and 70 m finally. Felt soooo good to be out there.

Also had the opportunity to learn to make some homemade, from scratch cheese with some archery (and non-archery) friends. See the full story and recipes on Steph's blog. Yes, there were goats involved and I wanted to take them all home with me. Thank you to Sara Turnbull for letting us use your kitchen and giving us the skinny. 

The ricotta in question

My cow queso blanco (fancy-speak for white cheese) turned out fantastic, but the goat mozzerella did something odd and turned into the inedible brick version.  Made THE best grilled pizza ever for dinner, though. It's super easy, so I am sharing the recipe with you. We've trialed and errored our way out of the bugs.

Grilled White Pizza
Oil up some paper towel with vegetable oil and grease up the grates while heating up to 350-400.Turn the middle burner off on a gas grill so you get nice indirect heat.

We're usually in a hurry, so we use the premade frozen version, let it come to room temp and cut in half. Any bigger and it gets too hard to handle.  Work the dough out with your fingers, lay on a peel or a really large cookie sheet.

You can almost smell the garlic...

Sauce
2 cloves garlic, diced fine
1/4 c olive oil
1/2 t salt
pepper

Mix and let sit for at least 10 minutes while the grill is heating up.

Put your dough on your peel and oil it up good so it doesn't stick. Place on the grill face down for 5 minutes.  Pull off the grill, flip and oil up the other side. Flip back over and slather on your now garlicky oil. Add fresh mozzarella, parmesan, and ricotta (used the homemade, drier version from above).

Slide back on the grill for another 4-5 minutes. Watch so it doesn't burn.

Pour a nice glass of white wine and you have dinner.

One Year Ago...

It was waay too nice out for the world to end, as yesterday was first day we have woken up to sun and not the inside of a golf ball.  I am apparently one of the naughty ones, as I was still here sitting on the porch with my coffee listening to the turkey cackle in the hedgerow. Good thing, too, as it was a great week for shooting and I want to keep going.

You ever notice that the more you do something, the more you want to keep doing it? Not like a habit, but you improve your skills and get excited about it and want to go out and do it again as soon as possible. Yup, I am in the happy space right now. Good light bulb stuff happening and the fact that it's not drizzeling is definitely a plus in my book.

After the lawn and laundry chores were done, Matt and I met up with some friends for an impromptu 40-50-60 shoot. First time out - we were looking for zombies in the woods. Found Grant's new turkey decoys instead. The shooting part was great - I had one pin marginally set for 40 yds and had to guess for the rest.