His eyes never left his target.
As he reached for his arrow he took note of his surroundings and all that could interfere with his skill. He pulled the string back, took a deep breath, and let the tension build in the arrow before he released, and then relaxed. The arrow’s flight path was already forming in his head. Between the branches, over the rocks, and straight toward the target. The string snapped forward and the arrow took off.
Senior Randi Brigance has been doing archery for five years and it all began with his dad. He said one day his dad pulled him outside and said, “Try this,” and ever since then he has been shooting arrows. He said archery is taken too serious by people when it’s just meant to have fun.
He not only shoots in his free time for fun but also joins archery tournaments where he decides to join the older age group. “The guys are just old and they just make it fun for me.”
Brigance mentions that one of his tournaments was located in the mountains. Out of 100 competitors he took fifth place. At a point he describes one of his tournaments as “Jurassic Park — the mist right above tree line.”
“You just have to focus,” Brigance said. “You can’t think about everything.”
Senior Christian Morgan is another archer. However, he has been shooting since the sixth grade. He said, “I grew up around it, so it’s kind of like a given.”
Morgan said there isn’t really anyone who inspired him because his family always did it, so shooting arrows just became a daily thing to do.
Reminiscing back to the first time he held a bow in his arms he said, “I was little, so the bow was the same height as me and it was weird.”

Morgan said his arm got hit a lot with the string because he had an improper grip on the bow. He described it as one of his most painful experiences of shooting.
He also said he had an awkward stance at first. He said, “I didn’t have the right form.” Not having the correct stance in archery led Morgan to not be able to shoot accurately.
“It was really uncomfortable,” he said. It took him at least six months to master the right form. However, Morgan said that in the end it’s all how the person feels. “There’s no one way.”
As he improved his dad took him out into the woods and Morgan said, “The first thing I’ve ever killed was a squirrel. It was small and far away.” And he was proud of that.
Morgan said focusing is the way to shoot well.
Even Brigance said, “Clear your mind and you shoot well. You just stop worrying and relax.”
Morgan said that the first time he tried archery he told himself this: “If I did good today it was going to decide if I did it in the future.”