Archery is a great sport and something I love to do. I am going to describe my cycle of shooting. First, I take my bow in my left hand and go to the line. I look up at my target and take a deep breath to lower my heart rate. I step up to the line and turn my back pivot foot to the right, in order to face the target slightly. I rest the bottom cam of my bow against my left leg and bend my leg slightly with my toes on the ground in order to hold it up. I place the arrow through the riser and nock it while setting it on the lizard tongue. I then grab my release out of my quiver and place it on the d loop. I make sure that my fingers are placed correctly on the release and take a deep breath and take another look at my target. I draw another deep breath as I lift my bow and slowly draw in order to keep the arrow in place. When drawn, I breathe in as I set my knuckles against my cheekbone and my nose and corner of my lip against the string. I slowly lower my pin to the bullseye, and make sure that my level is on, then grab the release with my back three fingers to get set for the shot. I then slowly exhale while thinking about pulling tight against my release. I steady in for five to seven seconds and my release goes off. I drop my elbow back and let my bow go forward slightly to stretch out for the follow through. I reset my release and rest my bow on my leg again and check to see where the arrow hit on the target. I then work through my mind any mistakes that I made during the shot cycle.

I Wonder Freewriting

I wonder where we would be at today without the Roman Empire. They conquered the known world at that time, established a language that is the root of almost all languages of today, and brought new philosophy and science that started theories and the way we think today. I wonder what the world would be like if we all spoke one language. How much could we work together to further human livelihood. The Asians and their skills with technology, the Germans and their talents on engineering, the Americans and their leadership and power, the Europeans and their livelihood with social, style, and literature. Imagine if all of these worked together and were able to communicate with each other easily. Where would our world be today? Would it even be different? Hhhmmm

Over the last few years, our family has traveled a lot for shooting in competitions. Most of the time it has been for archery, but also a little bit for rifle and pistol. It started in 2013 when I made the .22 rifle team as a freshman in high school. That summer we traveled to Grand Island, Nebraska to shoot three events over five days. I had a blast and shot in the top five a couple of times. The next year I shot on the .22 pistol team and competed at the same place with three similar events, only with a pistol. This last year, our whole family got into archery pretty hard. Our first big trip was to Des Moines, Iowa, and it was a big tournament. I got to meet some of the top shooters in the world and compete alongside them. I didn't do that well at the shoot, but had a lot of fun. The next shoot was in Kansas City, Missouri, of which I ended up taking first place. My scores started improving, and it was addicting. In March, we went to Louisville, Kentucky for the all time national shoot, where there was almost two thousand shooters. I ended up getting eighth in the nation, and it is the biggest shoot I have ever been to. This season we went back to the Kansas City shoot, and it was the first time I ever had to shoot in the adult class ever. I took second and got to have my first experience in a shoot-off. We are now planning on going to a big shoot in Illinois, back to the shoot in Des Moines, and possibly to the Vegas Shoot, which is the biggest shoot in the world held in Las Vegas. They are a lot of fun and I hope our whole family can do well in the near future.

Archery Technology

Your bow; your bow for target shooting should be long axle to axle length and have a lot of brace height for the best forgiveness on your shooting. A shoot through riser is a popular technology in order to get perfect center shot by actually shooting through the riser itself. The new Bowtech Fanatic is one of the leading technologies with  a shoot through riser, a dual cam system with yokes for the cables on both ends in order to achieve cam lean on both end equally and tune to the center shot on your bow. It also has the flex guard in order to allow your cables in when drawn, and pull them out of the way as the arrow goes by in order to get the best performance and accuracy. The Fanatic has the center pivot design on the split limbs for a smooth, accurate, and performance based feel. Bowtech also came out with micro adjustable draw stops for different amounts of let off and two pegs against the cable for the most solid backwall ever. The Fanatic is truly the best bow and target technology of the day! Shoot Bowtech!

In 2014 I made the small bore rifle team in 4-H to go to nationals on a team of four. The national shoot was in Grand Island Nebraska, and was five days. It was a lot of fun! We shot three different events; slow fire, camp perry, and silhouettes. The slow fire was four rounds of ten shots at 25 yards. I got third in that event with a one point split between each place from first to third. The second one is camp perry, which consists of ten shots slow fire, fifteen shots timed fire, and fifteen shot rapid fire. I also got third in that event. The last event was silhouettes, which is metal targets in the shape of a chicken, pig, turkey, and ram. They are shot in sets of ten from forty yards back to 110 yards, all with a .22 caliber pistol. It was a great experience and I am going back this year for archery.

 Archery is a great sport and something I love to do. I am going to describe my cycle of shooting. First, I take my bow in my left hand and go to the line. I look up at my target and take a deep breath to lower my heart rate. I step up to the line and turn my back pivot foot to the right, in order to face the target slightly. I rest the bottom cam of my bow against my left leg and bend my leg slightly with my toes on the ground in order to hold it up. I place the arrow through the riser and nock it while setting it on the lizard tongue. I then grab my release out of my quiver and place it on the d loop. I make sure that my fingers are placed correctly on the release and take a deep breath and take another look at my target. I draw another deep breath as I lift my bow and slowly draw in order to keep the arrow in place. When drawn, I breathe in as I set my knuckles against my cheekbone and my nose and corner of my lip against the string. I slowly lower my pin to the bullseye, and make sure that my level is on, then grab the release with my back three fingers to get set for the shot. I then slowly exhale while thinking about pulling tight against my release. I steady in for five to seven seconds and my release goes off. I drop my elbow back and let my bow go forward slightly to stretch out for the follow through. I reset my release and rest my bow on my leg again and check to see where the arrow hit on the target. I then work through my mind any mistakes that I made during the shot cycle.

frewriting

 Once we got the second opinion on my arm, we went to this orthopedic specialist in St. Louis Missouri. His name is Dr. Goldfarb, and he as an outstanding doctor. He determined what needed to be done and scheduled a surgery for the end of that week. I went in for surgery and they did the operation. They removed the extra bone and used a bone graft from my hip to put in and help the ulna heal. They put in four pins to hold it in place and the pins went right through a growth plate in my arm. After several weeks with a splint, they took the pins out and took some x-rays. They had some bad news when they came back into the office. The bone had not healed back even with the graft in place. They scheduled another surgery at the end of that week again. This time they took another graft from the hip, but put in some new technology of bone grower in with it. They fastened it with a plate and nine screws along the ulna bone. This time, it worked. They took the splint off, and we started some therapy several times a day. For a year, everyday, we did therapy several times, and could not get all of the range of motion back. When we went for another check up, Dr. Goldfarb recommended another surgery to try and get the range of motion back. He did the surgery and removed the plate and screws, (which they let me keep), and I was back out that day. Soon after we started the therapy again, and this time, we got a lot better results. Now I am able to do everything with my arm. Shooting my bow is important to me, and I can still do that great. I am able to touch my shoulder and get it almost all of the way straight. I am so thankful for what Dr. Goldfarb did for me.

In 2012, only a year after I got healed up from my arm injury, I had another break in the same arm, only this time much worse. At our last visit to the doctor for the first break he said that I had the worst arm break of the year at St. Johns hospital in Springfield. In September on labor day weekend of 2012 we were at the annual Mule and Donkey Days at the fairgrounds in Ozark. They had some timed events, of which one was called the rescue race. The rider started at one end of the arena and ran down to a barrel that another person was standing on, and as they turned the barrel, the person jumped on behind the rider and you ran beck to the other end of the arena. When I jumped onto the mule and we started to run back, I lost hold of the saddle and fell backwards off the mule. When I did, I landed on my arm behind my back and broke the ulna just below the elbow. We hurried to the hospital, (this time I wasn't in shock), and immediately went into the emergency room. The doctor who was there looked at my arm and said to just put a cast on it, of which we strongly disagreed. My dad asked and asked to do some x-rays the right way and see what it needed, but they drug their feet the whole way. Weeks later the doctor told us that the arm was healed and was “just a funny looking fracture” when we saw the x-ray each time. We went to go get a second opinion from the doctor who did such a great job on my first injury, and he did some x-rays and a CT scan. He told us that the bone was still broken, had not healed at all, was pushing the radial bone out of socket, and had grew an extra bone on top of the radial head because the bone was never aligned to heal. He referred us to an orthopedic specialist, and that is were the big story begins.

freewriting

 In 2010, I had my first experience with a broken bone. I was twelve years old and had just finished vacation bible school at our church in Springfield. We had a big carnival and games and inflatable slides. One of the slide had a maze that you had to work through and a slide at the end. All the same time you were racing somebody in an identical maze right beside you. At the end of the maze I jumped and landed about halfway down the slide. When I did, my arm happened to be under me and it broke the humorous bone right at the elbow. The broken bone also slide up my forearm, ending up with my elbow in the tricept area of my arm. Of course I started freaking out and going into shock. We hurried up and jumped in the truck and headed to the hospital. The road seemed very rough on the way there. When we got there, they took some x-rays and decided that they needed to do surgery right away. Before I knew it I was awake with a big cast on my arm and a dizzy feeling from anesthesia. Over the next few weeks we had checkups with the doctor, cast changes, and x-rays. Then one checkup, the doctor said it was time to pull the pins out that were in place to hold the bone together. They were only sticking out about half of an inch, but went in a long ways through my bone. This part hurt the worst. They laid me down on a table and used locking pliers to slowly twist and pull the pins out from my bone. It was some bad pain, but only lasted a few moments. The doctor did a great job, and after some therapy, I was able to have full range of motion and a 100% recovery from the break.

Freewriting

                        This year my dad and I went elk hunting in Colorado with some buddies of ours. It was my first experience in the mountains, and was very exciting. When we arrived there well into the night, we could hear elk bugling all around the camp ground we were staying at. We set up camp and went to bed that night, ready for morning to come. That next day, I headed out on my first expedition in the mountainous terrain. I climbed the closest mountain to camp in just a few hours, and was looking down on camp by midday. I had a cow call and had seen some mule deer and elk on the way up to the top. Before long I was able to get a bull to answer me and the chase was on. I don't know for sure how many miles I traveled that day, but I went all over two mountains that were side by side. I got close enough to some cows to get a shot, but never saw the bull, even though he was bugling at me less than one hundred yards away. The cows ended up busting me and I was unable to get them to answer me anymore; plus, it was getting dark and I was miles away from camp on the top of a mountain. Thankfully, though, going down a mountain is much easier than going up one. By the time I got to camp, I was wore out like no other time in my life, but I had a lot of fun. The next two days I spent learning and catching trout out of the river next to camp. We had mountain trout for dinner that night and it was wonderful. By the end of the trip, I ended up getting to see a bear and one more elk, and killed a couple of mountain grouse that were great to eat. The trip was a lot of fun.