Further Gator Cup 2020 Prep

 Prior to Gator Cup prep, I had a bit of fun pretending to be Avatar Korra at the CrossFit Iron Legion Samhain / Halloween party. I'm not a particularly effective bender outside of maybe some Firebending and Earthbending, but it was fun getting into character for a bit.  I have been referred to as an "Air Ruiner", but that's a whole different story.  Now if I could gain the power of true flight like Zaheer in Season 3 of Legend of Korra, that would be impressive, although it would involve detaching myself from all attachments to the mortal / material world. Even though I have an early season outfit, I'm definitely more like early/mid Season 4 Korra without the immense physical strength and raw bending power!

And now to the real fun... Apparently doing Chief wasn't the brightest of ideas yesterday. 

And now, to the real fun. I had a bit of trouble with my form, but I think I figured out what was going on. What was weird was that I actually heard much more of Coach J's voice in my head than Coach T's voice, and Coach J isn't even an archer, while Coach T has competed in the Olympics and holds national and world records in Olympic archery!  It does make sense though because much of what I have learned in Olympic weightlifting also holds for Olympic archery with the concepts of keeping the core engaged, maintaining a steady squeeze throughout, and knowing how/when to move smoothly and when to move swiftly, decisively, and aggressively.  

Prepping for Gator Cup Continued...

 Gator Cup is less than two weeks away!

Yesterday at Easton-Newberry, I began to break in a new finger tab after realizing that my trusty Black Mamba tab had seen better days and probably needs to be replaced soon. This was mostly focusing on 70 meters, and it was quite the day with a mixture of random weird luck, although one of my great mastermind friends also reassured me that all would be well in the long run.  

And then today was at Gator Bowmen, where I focused on consistency of form and got relief from being around too many other humans. I stayed at the 20 yard target, where it was close enough so I didn't have to worry about needing binoculars but far enough not to have any concerns about pass-throughs or destroying any shafts.  

I don't know what kind of shelf fungus this is, but I have tentatively called it Mortalis emeticus-defecatus. I will leave it as an exercise for the reader to figure out what THAT means.  

Even though I have an AMAZING archery coach working with me in archery, it was the voices of a mad genius weightlifting coach and of a chemist with a passion for dancing I kept hearing throughout the day.  And of course, more mosquitoes than I could shake a full case of Raid at!

Gator Cup Boot Camp

 It was a long, very long day at Easton-Newberry, but it was very much worth it in building up my confidence in potentially awkward scenarios during elimination or even qualification matches.

I was one of two archers who shot the full Olympic 70 meters, while the rest shot 60 meters. Can you find the other one who shot the full 70 meters with me?

Spider Cup 720 Round

 I took a silver medal against a rather formidable opponent.  I was able to keep up with her through most of the shoot, although I did make a fair number of rookie errors with my sight and even lost the elimination match because I forgot to check to make sure my arrow was sitting on my rest and NOT the plunger button (whoops!) - I probably could have taken that end and pushed it to a single arrow shoot-off. She had the accuracy on me, even if I had a slight edge in precision on her.

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I also have some gratuitous Olympic weightlifting drills given to me by the mad genius himself to  help me develop my balance, core strength, and mobility to become an even stronger archer. Muscle squat snatches, while light, seem to really help me develop both sports as well as provide me with something relaxing to help keep me sane when I can't shoot.

And then there were also some clips from today: practice round, second to last end, and an elimination end, although the production quality was a little questionable.