Timeline: September 16, 2021 – November 11, 2021
Archery was an after-school activity and the goal of this new sport in our school was to teach students how to play archery. Throughout the season, we worked on different skills: such as aiming, focusing, learning about the correct body stance, and hitting the bullseye. I was always very interested in archery and since it was newly introduced to our school, I joined the activity. During this CAS experience, I demonstrated the following Learning Outcomes:
Learning Outcome 1: Identify your own strengths and develop areas for personal growth
Being a part of this activity helped me to discover a new strength of mine: archery. By the end of the season, my goal was to hit 2/3 arrows on the magpie circle or the bullseye. But, astonishingly, I was able to hit all 3 of my shots on the magpie circle or the bullseye. An area that I feel like I developed during this activity was my focus. In the beginning, I was distracted quite easily and would respond to any little noise around me or listen to what someone is talking about. But, I realized that by the end of this activity, I was able to zone myself out, when I needed to focus on getting something done. This skill helped me when I had to study for tests or assignments. I was just able to turn on some music and finish a task in 1 hour, which would have otherwise taken 4 hours. This helped me in my personal growth ever since.
Learning Outcome 2: Demonstrate that challenges have been undertaken, developing new skills in the process
One particular challenge that I overcame was my arm strength. In archery, holding up the bow in the precise position is very important, and finding that position could take a bit of time. Due to this time lag, my arm used to hurt after every shot. Therefore, I decided to work on this weakness. I used to go to the gym to strengthen my upper body and especially did a lot of bicep curls to help with my arm strength. Our teacher, as well, used to make us do a warm-up stretching using the bows to increase our arm strengths. Having overcome this challenge, I feel very proud of myself and feel like this challenge helped me to go beyond myself to be stronger. I think it was important for me to undertake new challenges as it helped me to learn more about myself.
Learning Outcome 4: Show commitment to and perseverance in CAS experiences
First of all, this activity was an after-school activity. So, it took time away from me that I could have spent studying. It had happened a lot of times that I had a test next Friday, and I had archery on Thursday. However, archery was becoming more fun as the weeks were passing by and I felt like I just couldn’t miss it for anything else. I also felt like I could just stay up for a few hours at the night to study (since the next day was Friday, and I could relax then if I had to.) I feel like it’s important to show commitment and perseverance because life won’t always be easy, and will be constantly throwing challenges at us. So, if we knew how to persist through all of those things, life might turn out to be easier for us.
In this photo, you can see me aiming for the target. The target was placed exactly 35° to the left of me, and after so many lessons on body stance, I perfectly angled my body to hit the bullseye.
Link to a video of me shooting an arrow: https://youtube.com/shorts/j4uxiz1OCIU?feature=share