While Katniss Everdeen of The Hunger Games displays her finesse with a bow and arrow on the big screen, students at the Upper School participate in archery in the real world, both for recreation and competition.

Brian Tuan (10), Christophe Pellissier (12), and Katherine Woodruff (11) are each experienced with a bow and arrow. They believe that archery has a unique appeal, different from any other sport.

“It’s not only just a physical sport, but there’s also a lot of mental game to it. The more you actually learn about the mental game, the more interesting the sport is,” Brian said.

Brian has been doing archery competitively for nearly two years. As a dedicated archer, he competes in state and national tournaments and plans to start participating in international competitions. In the 2012 Indoor Nationals and JOAD Nationals, Brian placed 15th among the “Male Cadet Recurve” division. His favorite event is called a “team round,” in which an archer teams up with a partner and shoots against other teams.

“There’s a lot of cheering and fanfare in the background, so it’s really fun,” Brian said.

Ever since his mother took him to an archery shooting range on a summer excursion, archery has become one of Brian’s top interests. He takes instruction from a coach in San Diego and flies down for lessons about once every one or two months. In addition, Brian shoots at the Palomo Archery range in Palo Alto four or five times a week.

Currently, Brian has reached what he calls a “performance plateau.”

“It’s really just a frustrating moment where you don’t see any marked improvement no matter how much you do,” he said. “I think one of the biggest challenges [in archery] is actually breaking through that plateau.”

Unlike Brian, Christophe and Katherine only shoot recreationally. For Katherine, archery is more of a social activity. Originally, a few of her friends introduced her to archery as a fun way to hang out. After the friends moved to England, Katherine continued to shoot in the summertime with her family or another friend.

“Whenever I go there, I just kind of remember them, and if they ever come back to America, I’ll take them again, and we can do some archery together,” she said.
For Katherine, archery is also somewhat of a family thing. Most often, she shoots with her dad or her sister.

“I think it’s something they can do together and there’s some competition involved. [It’s] outside and in the trees, [and] they can have a good time together,” Katherine’s mother, Toni Woodruff said.

Christophe became familiar with the sport when he attended the Lower School’s summer camp in third or fourth grade. Later, he also discovered that his father used to be a semi-professional archer, and he has remained interested since.

Christophe disagrees with the notion that archery may require less exercise than other sports.

“There’s a repetitive motion that is completely exercise in archery,” he said. “Small variations in your form can change the entire shot, so it really does bring attention to detail in your entire body.”

Both Christophe and Katherine visit the Stevens Creek Archery Range, a site that includes a conventional indoor target setup as well as a range that winds along outdoor trails.

“It’s nice [because] you get to shoot uphill, downhill, […] and it’s very nature-oriented; you feel very part of it,” Katherine said.

Because of his busy schedule and other commitments, Christophe is unable to do archery on a regular basis. He hopes to shoot more on weekends and during the summer once he graduates.

Like Christophe, Brian finds it difficult to weigh his other activities with his interest in archery.

“[Archery is] one of those sports where if you don’t shoot for a few weeks or so, you pretty much lose everything, and so you have to balance,” he said.

The equipment required for archery is also expensive as various components besides the bow are required to improve the accuracy of the shot.

“[When] getting my bow, the base cross was $200 which isn’t much, [but] once you add the whisker biscuit which holds the arrow, peephole, sights, all kinds of things, […] that’s another $200 of add-ons,” Christophe said.

Although time and price may be inconveniences, all three students expressed that archery is a fun and unique way to spend time. While Brian hopes to start competing in world tournaments sometime during the end of the year, Christophe and Katherine simply wish for more free time to allow them to get to the range.