That quote probably sums up 98% of us Joes at some point when we are on the archery range during a tournament that we give importance to. I won't say anything more about it. Just think about it and look into your glass ball when considering your last month on the archery range at the shoots that matter. We can beat these enemies.
This week told me a lot of things about myself, and I need to listen to those things. Unfortunately, I’m a stubborn individual and tend to pretend that I know more than the outside forces that are screaming at me.
When I woke up on Monday morning, my entire upper body ached. After all, it was the first day after shooting my first 900 round in 16 years. Although I shoot a lot of arrows in practice, I try not to shoot an extravagant amount of arrows due to the complications I sometimes encounter from my reconstructive shoulder surgery. When I was shooting the round, my body didn’t talk to me. However, my body was screaming at me on Monday morning and telling me to put my bow away for the week. The bad part about that little voice was that I knew I needed to get the issue with my pin fixed. The inability to see the pin on certain targets has cost me a lot of points in the last few weeks, especially last weekend at the last leg of the IBO National Triple Crown. If that shoot had been the World Championship, I would have missed the cut by a few places due to the 8s I shot when I couldn’t see the pin. I just felt like getting that issue fixed should be a priority.
So on Monday, I figured I would spend the afternoon trying to figure it out. I tried inserting a few different pins that I bought from the Lancaster trailer last weekend. I quickly noticed that the pin didn’t fit in the hole that comes in from the side. Instead, the pin fit nicely from the top slot and the bottom slot. Unfortunately, I have a hell of a time trying to shoot with my pin in those positions. It’s probably because I’ve had the pin coming in from the side since I’ve been shooting. The pin in the other places seems to make my sight picture feel very awkward and uncomfortable. After realizing the pin wouldn’t fit, I quickly called my buddy Aron Stevenson to see if he could machine it to fit. Luckily, he said he could take care of it right then. I drove to his machine shop, and he took care of my problem. It’s like someone told me a long time ago: if you treat people right, the return on investment comes back tenfold. I’ve always tried to live by that and help and support others in life and in archery when I can. Archery is such a small group of people in the big picture that I think it’s essential to support each other. Aron has never forgotten all of his trips when he was a little guy, and he believes in giving back. He has done his part. More people can learn from Aron. Be like Aron. :-)
I started with a red pin, and I haven’t used a red pin since 2003. Before that time, I never used anything but a red pin, so I figured the transition wouldn’t be a problem.
Well, I realized instantly why all of the Specialty Archery peep selections are available. The red pin no longer works with my almost-senior-class eyes. Since I could see a few different pins, I took out my lens and screwed in the lowest power verifier. I decided I would just shoot a pin.
Unbelievably, when I began shooting, I couldn’t miss. I pounded the center out of the 5-spot x-rings. The next night, the same thing happened, and I decided to stick with it.
During my adventure in getting the pin sighted in and feeling confident with it, I shot far too many arrows, and my shoulders hadn’t recovered yet from the 900 round. I could feel the knots in my neck, shoulders and top of my back.
On Wednesday afternoon, I decided to give the red pin the true test and shoot with it in my 3D league. When everything was done, I knew that the red pin wasn’t going to work. I had a lot of issues with it on 3D targets, and I decided I needed to try the green one again.
On Thursday, I scrambled to get the green pin back in, but my shoulders were shot. I shot enough arrows, which happened to be far too many arrows, to make sure the pin was close to where it needed to be. Although I tried to keep the number of arrows to a minimum, I failed my body’s request and shot way too many.
I decided to give my body a break on Friday to be fresh for Saturday. I knew I needed to stop shooting arrows. On Friday night, my dad asked if I wanted to go with him to shoot at a private 3D range about an hour from the house. Since Dad has done so much for me over the years, I knew it was right to go with him when he asked me to go. I also wanted to try the green pin on 3D targets. On our way home, we both talked about our performances and agreed we should have stayed home. The practice definitely didn’t help our confidence, and as we all know, confidence is everything in this game.
I didn’t get much sleep on Friday night since I went to bed at 11:45, and before I knew it, I was on the road at 4:30 Saturday morning. When I arrived in Williamson, N.Y., for the IBO State Championship, I was greeted with a whole lot of wind.
After warming up and getting on the course, I felt good about my start. I cruised along for the first handful of targets. My shot felt good, and the arrows were hitting behind the pin. I couldn’t ask for more than that, especially considering the windy conditions.
Anyone who has read this in the past has heard this before, so I’ll start by telling you that this really isn’t a regular issue in my regular day-to-day life. Being a Type 1 diabetic brings many challenges with it, challenges that nobody truly knows unless he or she has lived the life. Although I seem “normal” from the outside, my life is drastically different than most people’s lives. I’ve never used it as an excuse and won’t start doing that today. I’ll just tell you that I didn’t shoot well this weekend. I had a brief period, which started somewhere near the 10thtarget, give or take a few, and continued the rest of the day. My blood sugar levels would not come back up, no matter what I did. It created issues with my steadiness and vision, but I tried to grab the bull by the horns and pretend to be “normal,” because from the outside looking in, it doesn’t appear that anything is any different unless I get to the stage in which a diabetic appears to be inebriated.
When I got smashed in the head with those issues, I never really recovered. A relatively good start turned into a pretty tough day. I guess I would compare it to falling asleep and drifting into a gentle dream. As the dream progresses, you are surrounded my really cool things, almost like you’re in a fantasy land, then you take a step or two and that gentle dream is inundated with severe winds, pounding rain, and you are jarred awake by an unexpected jolt of darkness. Although the round didn’t turn to the nightmare status, it definitely didn’t continue down the easygoing path it was on.
One of my best archery buddies (and I have many) is Sean Roberts. He always listens to my endless babble. He’s one of the few guys whom I am friends with, and I’ve never shot a good round while shooting with him. Sometimes it makes me wonder what he thinks when we’re shooting. It’s odd how we shoot well with some people, and we don’t shoot well with others. I’ll just keep plugging, and eventually I’ll shoot well when I’m shooting with Sean. I enjoy his company, and he’s all in about my improvement and that means a lot to me. I’ll get it buddy…………I will get it. I’m not a quitter, and I know I still have some really good rounds left inside of me. I’ve actually shot a few this year.
As I plodded along through the day, I got a lot of really good insight from John Vozzy. You wouldn’t think a guy who has been at it as long as him would have tension issues, but he told me he fights it, just like the rest of us. I don’t know why but this surprised me……..a lot.
When we started the second half, I was cruising along and shot a few 10s. I felt great about my shot. I was finally relaxing my hand, and my shot was breaking smoothly. Then, the tension bandit jumped out of the bush, grabbed my release hand and wouldn’t let go. He set his talons into my index finger, bit my forearm and jammed his beak into my shoulders. He held firm and tried his hardest to keep everything in the top of my shoulder instead of letting it fall into my back, and he succeeded. I let him win the battle. He kicked my ass. I’m going to toss his ass head over teakettle back into the bushes, even if it’s the last thing I ever do in this game of archery. I’m going to win this battle with him. I’ve beat his ass a few times in the past, and when I beat him, I found myself in some special places, places that many others can only dream about.
During the ass kicking, Vozzy noticed that my wrist turned before the shot broke, and he questioned me about it, or more like notified me about it. I told him I knew that it happened, and I explained to him that it’s a battle I face at some point in almost every tournament. Sometimes I put a dagger through the little beast’s chest, and other times, he crawls all over me. That’s when we discussed the tension deal that people face. He gave me a few pointers, and I’m going to incorporate them into practice. Hopefully, I can implement the changes as I work toward the indoor season this winter. I have a long way to go, but I must remember that I’ve come an awful long way in the last six months. I know I’ll get there. I work too hard at it to succumb to the average-type results I’m getting.
I don’t have a lot to offer you this week, except that I overdid it. I shot my bow way too much, and I paid the price for it. It affected my execution and hold. I wasn’t rested enough. Yes, my name is Todd Mead, and I am addicted to shooting my bow. I have a problem. Sometimes I wish I didn’t like shooting so much. I don’t envy the guys who don’t put much into it and always shoot well, and that’s because I love shooting. I wouldn’t want to be that way. I’m also sure that some of these guys would probably shoot worse if they shot more often. Vozzy told me that he’s like me: he shoots all of the time. I’m glad that he told me that, because many people tell me that they don’t shoot that much.
Good days and bad days, it’s like I always tell other people, especially after days like today: it’s better to be a has been than a never was. Many days this year, I’ve felt like I will never return to the level I was once at, but other times, I’ve felt like I am better than I used to be. One thing is for certain: I am still awesome in my backyard. I also need to keep working to eliminate the tension and perform on all of the stages I step onto. Backyard Todd has found his way out a few times this summer, and I need him to jump out of the lawn and realize that it’s okay for him to follow me wherever I go from week to week. I need to build his confidence and tug at his collar a few times. He’s getting sick of being Roger Stabauch in his own backyard.
I’m not doing a shooter profile this week because I’ve been tied up at the IBO State Championship all weekend and didn’t get home until late.
I’ll leave you with a few thoughts about this weekend. We had our annual IBO meeting for New York State. There are a lot of us on the team that makes the decisions. All of us have great ideas to improve archery and grow it in our state. We might not all agree on certain things, but we know it is our responsibility to give people an enjoyable experience when they shoot our events. As with any group of people, people have different opinions. At times we can be at each other’s throats, but it doesn’t mean we don’t like each other. We treat each other like brothers and sisters. It just means that we are passionate about our beliefs, and I like being a part of that. I like to have a lot of ideas on the table and putting them up for a vote. We all do this for the shooters. We do not do this for ourselves. The only vested interest I have in any of it is that I love to shoot my bow, and I love having the ability to go to nicely run events in which people are polite and try to help me grow the sport I love. I enjoy when people welcome me into their events and treat me as if I’m in a family, not like I’m an outcast. If you approach any of us with well thought out ideas, I can guarantee you that all of us will listen and bank your ideas. I know it’s hard to understand at times, but we really do this for you. I want archery to grow and be around long after I’m gone. I want to bring the phenomenal shoots with huge crowds back to our state and region. Imagine going to a shoot every year in your region that is similar to the Winter Cam Classic or a competitive shoot that gets the number of people that some of the Rinehart 100s get? People come from miles to go to that shoot. I had never experienced it until this year, and now I know why people travel to go to it. I shot with two guys who traveled for 10 hours to attend it. Even a few top level pros attended, with arguably the best professional dot shooter of all time. I saw others from Virginia who came to it. We need to all stand together and help each other instead of having our personal interests interfere with growth. I don’t got to events to support people. I could care less whether I like the people hosting it or dislike them. I go to support archery in my region to make sure that I will always have good tournaments to go to. I also try to give constructive criticism when it is necessary and praise all of the time to show how thankful I am for the people who put these shoots on.
I feel pretty good about my fellow New York State reps. I’m sure there are people who don’t like some of us, me included, yet we all have people who respect what we do. I’d like to see all of you who participated this year to bring a friend to one of our shoots next year. We had approximately 150 new shooters come to our events this year. Let’s try to build on that number and increase it next year. Introduce new people to the sport. If anyone who missed out this year wants to get involved again, we would love to see you. Let’s keep listening to each other and grow our events to get larger and larger crowds. I love the competition. When I compete, I go because I want to compete against the best people out there. It’s awesome when you walk away from a competition like that and know that you beat the best in a region. Competition breeds great shooters and great shoots draw great shooters.
Keep bringing the good ideas to us. I think you’re going to see some changes next year, and we are hoping that anything we do will increase participation and make things easier to get to the shoots. We do listen, even if it doesn’t seem like it at times. Since we do this for you, feel free to approach any of us with different ideas. Some people feel more comfortable approaching different people and that’s what makes it good, because we have a number of people to approach. Let’s work together and make the IBO in our state what you all want it to be. We have our team, and you the shooters are your team. If our teams work together, we can achieve great things. There is no I in team. It’s not about personal interests, it’s about carrying on a tradition that has been in this region for many years. I cut my teeth here and went on to win state, regional, national and world titles. I was able to achieve this because of the people who volunteered and put on the great tournaments. I’ll be forever thankful for the people in front of me who paved the path, including Denise and Bian Nystrom, Bruce Smith, Bob Rowe, Stanley Parker and Bruce Lemelin, among many others. I also know it’s important to listen to what you all want, and that’s why we listen to you and try to improve what we have. We want many more state, national and world champions to come out of New York State and the entire region around us. We want our unmarked yardage shoots to prepare you for the national events and world championship. If you guys succeed at the highest level, we know we have accomplished our goals, which is helping the shooters.
Until next week --------------àshoot straight and have fun. Let’s build the greatest tournaments in the region, marked and unmarked, together. Lessons are available from Shawn Couture, Jason VanHillo, Sean Roberts and all of the New England IBO reps: These guys get it and can offer a lot of insight on how to make everyone happy. It’s all about supporting archery and growing our numbers at all events.
And please remember as you think about the future of archery in our state. I do this volunteer job, just like my fellow reps, for the future, so the smile shown below will be remembered for years to come, so this child who loves archery will be able to compete in great events until he is my job. Great job Zane Stevenson. Way to go. I think you did this because of the new stabilizer that Gramp got for you, or maybe it was because of all of the nice ladies you got to shoot with today. Congratulations little buddy.
And please remember as you think about the future of archery in our state. I do this volunteer job, just like my fellow reps, for the future, so the smile shown below will be remembered for years to come, so this child who loves archery will be able to compete in great events until he is my job. Great job Zane Stevenson. Way to go. I think you did this because of the new stabilizer that Gramp got for you, or maybe it was because of all of the nice ladies you got to shoot with today. Congratulations little buddy.
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