I really worked hard those days, enjoyed it a lot and did improve a lot. Happy about improvements but tired. Training like that for months and months can take a toll on you. It doesn't matter how tough you think you are, eventually you'll need some rest, otherwise your body will fail you. I needed a holiday, I needed to go somewhere where I would be disconnected from my daily life and rest for a few weeks. I thought about what to do, where to go, how to spend my holiday. . . there wasn't anything that did it all for me.
Hiking, however, was something lovely which I fell in love with very quickly. It was during these hikes that I would have time to relax, think about whatever is going on and most importantly rest. It is a bit counter intuitive to think that you rest during your hike, but for me it was a very restful activity. My archery season and training took a toll on me, not only physically but also psychologically. I was tired psychologically, I needed to stop for a little bit or else I was afraid I would stop loving the sport all together.
When you walk the mountains, that's when you see what true freedom looks like. Every cell in your body starts breathing fresh air, your brain can finally say I'm glad we're doing this, I needed it! The trees talk to you, you feel pure and that pureness you don't want to lose.
The floating rivers, the strong whistling winds, the sound of birds on the background, that's how I imagine a perfect world, and there I was actually living it. Some of the better scenery I've seen in my life I saw during those few months I took of practice. I have no idea whether it was a good or a bad idea, I did it anyways and I have absolutely no regrets about it.
Few months went by and I had to come back to reality, went back to my studies and training again. One important lesson that I learned during those long and beautiful holidays was that the world is an amazing place, all you need to do is to explore it.
I have to say that I wasn't all that interested into my studies, being as focused as I was in sports sometimes I didn't feel right sitting in a library and studying books (probably should have paid more attention into my lectures and read a lot more but that's a discussion for another time) but I had to do it anyways. I always found time for distractions, though! A big distraction from my studies was the European Championship in Bulgaria, a competition where I wanted to show my skills and everything that I learned for the past 2 years of my involvement with the sport of archery.
- The unexpected happened
I was convinced that I would do very good in this competition because I trained very hard for months (the off days that I took were probably to long but I didn't think it mattered that much), I though everything was good and all I needed was to concentrate and shoot good.
The competition day came rather quickly, we would travel to Bulgaria by car since it's not to far away (375 km which is around a 5-6h drive taking into consideration border stops and everything else). We traveled there as a team of 5, 4 archers and 1 official. We were setup quite good, the hotel was good, everything was setup very nicely for us to do good, except one thing that I didn't really foresee and I wasn't any good at. The rain killed my hopes! You're probably thinking, well what did you expect, it can rain in the Spring and you should have been prepared for that. . .I definitely know that, however I didn't train in the rain at all (on of the reasons was the straw targets which we used back at the time) and that backfired on me in a big way. I failed miserably! Score isn't something I was really concerned with, technique, however was and is a big thing. I don't care about my scores (I do a lot but not as much as the rest of the shooting sequence) as long as my technique was good but this was the case where I didn't use my training at all, I just went out there and shot like a complete beginner. Everybody knows the target frustration and I was getting a ton of that. Frequently I would mess up my shots, I would do weird things with my release, I wasn't myself on that competition and I paid the price ranking very low.
You win or you learn!
I didn't go so good but it was a huge learning experience, whenever you fail at anything but you learn a lot it is worth it and I believe that every moment of that tournament was worth it!
Hiking, however, was something lovely which I fell in love with very quickly. It was during these hikes that I would have time to relax, think about whatever is going on and most importantly rest. It is a bit counter intuitive to think that you rest during your hike, but for me it was a very restful activity. My archery season and training took a toll on me, not only physically but also psychologically. I was tired psychologically, I needed to stop for a little bit or else I was afraid I would stop loving the sport all together.
When you walk the mountains, that's when you see what true freedom looks like. Every cell in your body starts breathing fresh air, your brain can finally say I'm glad we're doing this, I needed it! The trees talk to you, you feel pure and that pureness you don't want to lose.
The floating rivers, the strong whistling winds, the sound of birds on the background, that's how I imagine a perfect world, and there I was actually living it. Some of the better scenery I've seen in my life I saw during those few months I took of practice. I have no idea whether it was a good or a bad idea, I did it anyways and I have absolutely no regrets about it.
Few months went by and I had to come back to reality, went back to my studies and training again. One important lesson that I learned during those long and beautiful holidays was that the world is an amazing place, all you need to do is to explore it.
I have to say that I wasn't all that interested into my studies, being as focused as I was in sports sometimes I didn't feel right sitting in a library and studying books (probably should have paid more attention into my lectures and read a lot more but that's a discussion for another time) but I had to do it anyways. I always found time for distractions, though! A big distraction from my studies was the European Championship in Bulgaria, a competition where I wanted to show my skills and everything that I learned for the past 2 years of my involvement with the sport of archery.
- The unexpected happened
I was convinced that I would do very good in this competition because I trained very hard for months (the off days that I took were probably to long but I didn't think it mattered that much), I though everything was good and all I needed was to concentrate and shoot good.
The competition day came rather quickly, we would travel to Bulgaria by car since it's not to far away (375 km which is around a 5-6h drive taking into consideration border stops and everything else). We traveled there as a team of 5, 4 archers and 1 official. We were setup quite good, the hotel was good, everything was setup very nicely for us to do good, except one thing that I didn't really foresee and I wasn't any good at. The rain killed my hopes! You're probably thinking, well what did you expect, it can rain in the Spring and you should have been prepared for that. . .I definitely know that, however I didn't train in the rain at all (on of the reasons was the straw targets which we used back at the time) and that backfired on me in a big way. I failed miserably! Score isn't something I was really concerned with, technique, however was and is a big thing. I don't care about my scores (I do a lot but not as much as the rest of the shooting sequence) as long as my technique was good but this was the case where I didn't use my training at all, I just went out there and shot like a complete beginner. Everybody knows the target frustration and I was getting a ton of that. Frequently I would mess up my shots, I would do weird things with my release, I wasn't myself on that competition and I paid the price ranking very low.
You win or you learn!
I didn't go so good but it was a huge learning experience, whenever you fail at anything but you learn a lot it is worth it and I believe that every moment of that tournament was worth it!
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