Photo Courtesy of Cherri Yuan

Junior Cherri Yuan gets ready to participate in archery

Luna Lu ‘27

REPORTER

For many people, archery seems like an untouchable and distant sport that is only seen on television and the Olympics every four years. For junior Cherri Yuan, however, the sport has unexpectedly become a significant part of her daily life.

Back in freshman year, a friend of Yuan’s had asked her to go to archery practice together, to which she agreed.

“I remembered that the first time I tried to shoot a recurve bow, I was very nervous and kind of embarrassed... Rather than shooting tight groups, my arrows were very scattered,” Yuan remarked.

Although the first practice was anything but smooth, Yuan quickly found herself developing an unequivocal passion for the sport. A “one-time” archery practice became two, three... and now Yuan finds herself practicing archery up to three times every week.

As she evolved as an archer, Yuan realized that archery was more than just shooting the bullseye. Instead, it’s all about consistency – training her muscle memory to make the same movements repeatedly with precision. The sport isn’t just about being good with a bow and arrow either. Contrary to its light appearance, a standard competition bow weighs a hefty 25 lbs, with the lighter bows weighing 16 lbs.

“Outside of practice, I build my arm strength by carrying grocery bags and doing strength workouts like bicep curls and lateral raises,” said Yuan.

The practices are all to prepare Yuan for her archery competitions, which she attends regularly throughout the year. During these competitions, Yuan is expected to shoot consistently every round for 3-4 hours straight. To shoot for that long requires regular strength and conditioning workouts to not only increase her arm strength but also build up her back muscles, which are responsible for holding up the bow.

Yuan cannot imagine life without archery – but the discipline is not without its hardships.

“[Sometimes] it [can be] hard to balance [archery] with school. There were some moments when I needed to finish every homework [assignment] the day prior in order to go to practice,” said Yuan.

But indeed, “sow the seeds of hard work and you will reap the fruits of success” (Israelmore Ayivor). Through sheer dedication to her craft, Yuan is now a talented archer who is performing some amazing feats.

“I [was able to] shoot an end of 10-10-10, a score of perfect 30, during a competition. That particular moment made me realize that even though I’m a slow learner and nervous at the time, as long as I focus on my process I will get somewhere,” said Yuan. “I was [also] very proud of the time when I learned how to ‘jump’ my bow... it took me 4 months to finally get the hang of it.”

To anyone who wants to try out archery for the first time, Yuan simply suggests to “just pick up a bow and shoot!” Maybe all it takes to go to the Olympics starts from going to that one archery practice with your friend.