Up until this year I was a national podium level archer, then it all changed. I started competing on the national archery scene in 2018 at the age of 10. From the repetitive motion of drawing back my bow around a hundred times nearly every single day, I now have an arm injury. Back in my motocross years my parents had me doing a workout and stretching every morning to improve my strength, flexibility, and mobility so I could lift up and control my dirt bike. That workout carried over to archery so I would not only be able to pull a higher poundage, but as well to keep from getting injured which didn't work.
From the beginning of the 2022 season I was experiencing issues with my arm, shortly after the 2nd Leg of the IBO National Triple Crown Series event in June 2022 I finally went to see an orthopedic since the pain was too extreme. I was told that I needed to give my body a rest for several months from archery, and start rehab. Up until that point I basically have shot 6 straight years without any breaks. I didn’t stop completely like I was told to do right away, I did stop my daily practicing but I had a couple more events I needed to compete in before I took that break. I should of just stopped completely when I was told since you are not going to finish good on the national level if you are not practicing at all.
At the end of 2022 I was still not practicing with my bow, but I joined a weekly indoor archery league at McCormic Archery to be myweekly practice. I wanted to slowly get back into practice but wanted to make it count, which is why I decided to go this route. I was very rusty, but for not practicing at all for months and now only shooting once a week in a league I was doing better than I thought I would be. I then competed in a couple Ohio NFAA events, but I didn’t finish well at all since I was still only shooting once a week. In February 2023 I was shooting a very competitive game through 30 targets at the IBO National Winter Nat ionals, but during the last 10 targets the pain was unbearable and I started dropping points and only finished mid-pack. I decided to take the next month off and then I went to the Ohio NFAA State Indoor 300 Championships and halfway through the shoot I had to leave because my arm was hurting so bad, and well I was shooting like crap because of it. I took another month off, tried again and I was still in pain and from that point on I realized that I needed to take a bigger break from archery. So that is what I am doing now, I won’t pick up my bow for the rest of the 2023 and will now just focus on pistol competitions.
Where did pistol competitions come from since I said I shoot archery? Let me tell you.
From a very young age my dad took me and my brother to firearm ranges a couple times a year to shoot firearms so we would know gun safety, learn to shoot them correctly and be knowledgeable about them. He did this because he was in the 82nd Airborne and is very knowledgeable with firearms. Also, when he was younger his grandfather would take him hunting and shooting and he wanted to pass that down to me and my brother so we can teach our kids one day.
When I was practicing archery at the Parma Armory Shooting Center the winter before my arm injury, my dad would have me take breaks from their archery range by going to the firearms range and shoot pistols for a little bit. This was so I wouldn’t get burnt out from just focusing on archery all the time. Since I was a pretty good shot, we both entered the PASC winter pistol league so I could see how I ranked against others. Since neither of us ever did competitive shooting, we didn’t have any target pistols and I used a compact Smith & Wesson 22 pistol. The youth class shot the same scenarios as the adults, but just 10 feet closer. My dad is a pretty good shot and finished like 6th out of 30. I won the youth division and was only 1 or 2 points behind my dad. At that point my dad and I realized I was more than just pretty good at shooting pistols.
After that league ended my dad bought us a Glock 44 rimfire, and we started shooting that during my breaks from archery. I didn’t know, but in a few months I was going to shoot my first real firearms competition. It was an Outdoor GSSF match that was the same weekend and about 45 minutes from the 3rd Leg of the IBO National Triple Crown Series that I was competing in around southeastern Ohio. So after I shot the IBO Unknown 3D and Known Field events, we went to that GSSF match. At the GSSF outdoor match I shotthe Glock 44 and shot it very well. I finished 6th out of 18 against the amateur adults. Then a month later I went to my second outdoor GSSF match, this one was in New York. I again shot the Glock 44 great, then my dad signed me up in a division to shoot his 9mm Glock 17. I had never shot it before and since I was not holding it strong enough I was having issues with it cycling without jamming, but by the end of the match I corrected my hold and I was able to shoot it very well.
Since I now had a lot more free time, I decided to really start practicing more with pistols and I slowly started getting better and better.I am now shooting a Glock 34 MOS, which is the largest frame 9mm that Glock makes. I got this because I made the high honor roll all of 8th grade. My dad took me to some Indoor GSSF matches, it turned out that I was really good at Indoor GSSF matches since I was placing in the top 25% against adults that have been shooting a lot longer than me. After seeing this my dad kept taking me to more and more Indoor GSSF matches, I kept shooting better and better scores and placing very high against the adults. Since most of the matches were a few hours from us, my dad would let me enter every division to make the drive more worth it. I was impressing my dad and other people shooting around me. In only my 4th time shooting the Pocket Glock class with a borrowed Glock 43, I earned my 250 patch. That means I shot the max score of 250 points for the class. My dad took me to an outlaw action shoot at a range near us which I was really excited for since I’ve seen videos of USPSA events where people are running around courses shooting targets and doing it really fast and I wanted to try it. My dad ordered me a tactical style holster rig since I didn’t have one, and since I had never donethis before and for what we were doing it worked for me. I had a lot of fun shooting that event, I was just a little nervous at first since I never ran with a loaded pistol before.
In addition to Indoor and Outdoor GSSF matches I have now competed in precision pistol, bothindoors and outdoors. I struggled with this at first since I wasn't use to shooting only one handed. I’ve also tried steel challenges, steel plate and more action shooting events which by far is my favorite because I’m moving around shooting through different obstacles. It is a lot more fun than standing at a line shooting straight in front of yourself at paper targets. It is fun to run through a course trying to move fast but still shoot good shots and not mess up reloads or get procedural penalties. But this year I am shooting a lot of GSSF – Glock Sport Shooting.