Update:

Not the strong finish we were hoping for but she got through it. She ended up shooting a 262/300 and a 260/300 on the second day for 1063/1200 and 28th place out of 56 archers in her division nationally.

Didn't have the talk we were hoping for on the way home. She fell asleep on the way home in El Cajon and didn't wake up until Gila Bend. We did talk with her coach quite a bit on Sunday at the tournament and we've got an extended session scheduled with him tomorrow. Not viewing this tournament as a failure in any way, shape, matter or form. It's a huge learning experience for her with lessons to take forward into Arizona Cup next month. Everyone is going to have a bad performance at some point. It's not the bad performance that matters, it's the recovery from it that does.

As far as the rest of the archers on our team, there were some great performances. One of my personally coached archers shot his Junior Olympic Bronze during the opening round on Saturday. I absolutely loved the confidence and attitude he displayed. After the 3rd end he looked back at me and stated, "I'm shooting my bronze." Pretty damn cocky with 7 ends to go but he backed it up with his performance. One of our club's female bowman compound shooters earned a top 10 finish shooting in her first Nationals in San Dego. And Cooper French from our club shooting Nationals 3 weeks earlier at the Albuquerque venue is this year's national champion for male cadet compound.

Maya with her rose gold bow and sporting the PSE colors on the line.


Christopher, my student who earned his bronze this weekend. It's fun when I can catch an arrow in flight with my camera, and this one is really special.


This tournament weekend's been off to a rough start but it's steadily improving. Yesterday was Junior Olympic Indoor Nationals, today and tomorrow are US Indoor Nationals. Our daughter really struggled yesterday. She shot a 252/300 and a 260/300 with a miss during the first round. She usually averages 280/300. She had set goal of a top 10 finish, she's currently 41st out of 80 and still falling as some regions finish up.

Today was a new day and she's steadily improving to the point where she's shooting like herself again. This morning she shot a 267/300 and 274/300. Almost like clockwork she's improving 7 points per round. As a father I can't ask for more. She's not happy with her performance, she's not giving up, she's working on making improvements. No sense of me putting pressure on her, she's doing it on her own.

Why the poor start we really don't know, lots of ideas but nothing solid. We've got a long drive home tomorrow after the tournament to try and figure it out and go over some lessons learned. Learning experience for all of us about expectations and reality of performance.

On a more positive note, I could not be happier for one of my personally coached students. Shooting his first Nationals this weekend he earned his Junior Olympic Bronze. USA Archery has achievement pins for meeting certain scores. The top are bronze silver and gold. Bronze is shooting 285/300. He's had this as a goal for over a year now and finally made it.

Daughter on the line this morning.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: 2000Z-71,

I dont have anything to add, but i love these stories and hearing about her successes and frustrations and Just seeing her overall growth!! Thank you for all the updates and yall do such amazing things!

How did the US Indoor Nationals go for Maya and the kiddos you coach?

Update at top.