Learning to shoot the bow is hard

I am glad that my classmates are so active and they are one of the reasons why I am active too. My classmate Delija has proposed that we join her in a bow shooting practice and learn to do it ourselves. I had wanted to do some sport’s activity for a while, thus I accepted her proposal and joined other classmates in this great introductory to archery.

                We went to the archery club Delija is going to, where we met her coaches and other students that are having practice at the same time. One of the coaches has explained to us all the basics of the right way to shoot the bow and gave us the equipment and we started our practice. For me it was really hard at the start and there was one compromise that made even harder. Since it’s indoors club (well of course it is, it is winter right now), the ceiling height is low and when you look at the track to the shooting target, as closer you get to the target, the height decreases. Since, I am a quite tall person and the tallest from my group I had the longest bow that was chosen to match my height (somehow the bows length is proportional to the person’s height and arm length). We were beginners and everyone went really close near the target, something like 5-6 meters near, so that they could actually hit something. It wasn’t the case for me since my height and the length of the bow meant that it was too narrow for me to shoot from that place, since I couldn’t extend my arm fully without hitting the ceiling. For that reason, I was shooting twice as far as others from the line that people who do this sport professionally shoot from. You could even imagine that my shoots were so off the target. However, after a few tries I tried to really focus and progressed a little. I learned that my accuracy could be off most of the times but if I really try, then I would actually hit the target. When I actually hit the center that one time, I couldn’t believe myself, but it was only for once. Too bad for me, but I liked the challenge. It really made me try my best and that’s why I learned something new and even developed some accuracy.

                This activity was great and everyone should try this. When you shoot the bow you feel really great and it just look badass. I will somehow try to organize a second practice and I hope that I will succeed.

Trying new activities: mind games!!!

                At the end of the last week, my friend offered me to participate in a competition called “Auksinis Protas” and I was quite interested about it. It can be translated as “Golden mind” and I thought that it will be like a competition between teams who answers tricky organizers questions. I quickly answered “Yes!” to my friend since CAS thought me to try anything new and exciting, and I am glad that I made the decision to participate in this activity.

                The whole competition was really fun and quite new for me. There were 5 rounds and on each round there were different tasks for every team. On the starting 2 rounds we were answering questions about a set theme in every round. Those questions were really tricky and I was amazed that other could answer them. I tried my best and focused, however I was able to answer only a few of the questions on my own. Next, on the third round there was a lighting round. There were 20 questions with 4 anwser showed and we needed to choose the right one. This round was easier for me, but still the fast pace was quite challenging, since you had 30 sec to write an answer and half of those 30 sec you actually read the question, thus I tried me best to keep up with time. The fourth round was a music one. There were 10 questions and they all relate to some song or track played and you need either to know the answer through your knowledge or find some clues in the song that would help you to answer. These questions were so interesting and creative. It’s amazing to think that somebody created them, since they were like a piece of art and also because of the originality they were the hardest ones. The final round was as same as the 2 first ones and it was really the most intense one, since at the end, when you still can do something for your score, you try your hardest to answer correctly.

                We finished 14^th between 25 teams, and I would say that a great achievement. I trained a lot of my skills in this competition such as critical thinking, creativity and for sure time management. Also, I learned to see questions from quite different perspective, always finding for something hidden, that would help me to answer the question. Overall, this experience was perfect for me.

                I will certainly try to compete again, since this is not a one time event and actually it’s a league. I hope my friends would invite my again and that I will experience it again.

Photo of my team: