Quick update

Well nothing too exciting has happened lately just the usual training.

Yesterday I shot a 1305 and today I shot Aim-Off gold game and finished in with 57%, my highest thus far. Training is going well although blank bale is getting REALLY boring....

I have found out that I will be going to the Easton Cup in LA this weekend. I will be shooting a FITA on saturday and an OR round on sunday. It should be a good starter to figure out what I need to work on for Arizona Cup. 

Also I will be going to Porec/Croatia in early May for the Second leg of the World Cup. I should be shooting in the team rounds. I think this will be a great event for me. My second major world event, my first being the AIS Invitational.

Well thanks for reading.

Jake

New Video

Here is a new video for your viewing pleasure. I will be putting a video up of myself shooting at the Mexican Grand Prix soon also.

Glasses

This is the first time I am doing this, but I wanted to put it out there. 

I am in need of a pair of sunglasses, maybe prescription sunglasses too. I have worn contacts for a few years now and still do not have a pair of glasses. I have come across a set of sunglasses that are RX able and can have clear lenses made for them to wear as regular glasses. 

Some days I just want to give my eyes a rest from contacts when my eyes are irritated or to wear them at night after I take them out. 

I was wondering if anyone out there would be an optometrist or know of a friend who is that could help me out on some lenses If you could please contact me at Jake.Kaminski@gmail.com It would be a great help on me as far as expenses go. I would love to put a link to their website from here and my website as a supporter/sponsor. 

Thanks for reading

Jake

Mexico

This last week, The Resident Athlete Team traveled down to Tijuana for the Mexican Grand Prix. We left on Wednesday morning the day of practice. The week went like this;

Wednesday travel to Mexico and Practice Day

Thursday 90M and 70M Ranking

Friday 50M and 30M Ranking 

Saturday Individual Elimination Rounds

Sunday Team Rounds

The field was nice to shoot on with great easy pulling targets. The Hardest thing about shooting on the field was the lack of lines painted on the ground dividing the targets. It was very easy to shoot other targets next to you. During practice I did this a few times, but not during the competition. We stayed on site at the Olympic Training Center down there. Their rooms were similar to ours here in the USA. They didn't have heaters or hot water there, so it made staying warm difficult at night. The food I felt just didn't suffice and provide enough nutrients. So its a very good thing we brought essential snack foods and some PB&J with us. 

Thursday started off the Ranking rounds, there was heavy wind during the whole tournament. During 90M I was aiming off the target butt which is over three feet in diameter for most of the 36 arrows shot there. I ended up shooting a 294 out of a possible 360 which put me in fourth place for that distance. We moved to 70M and began shooting there, the wind still howling. I shot pretty well for the wind conditions. I ended up with a 314 for the distance and ranked in 4th for the end of day one. Friday started off well with still windy conditions, shooting a 324 for the 36 arrow round. Which was the third highest round on the field, giving me a Bronze medal for that distance. 30M was un-bearable windy conditions rounding off with a score of 339, good enough to move me into Third with a final ranking FITA score of 1274. I received a Bronze for the FITA score as well.

Saturday was the Individual Head to Head match play competition. With the wind still blowing strong, I found myself shooting pretty decent for the conditions. I cruised through the 1/8th and 1/4th elimination rounds and then found myself pitted against Juan Serrano of Mexico in the Semi-Finals. The winner of this match would go on to the Gold Medal Match and the loser the Bronze Match. Serrano was the TQ at the Olympic Games this past year and finished up the Olympics in 4th place. I did not falter against him despite his proven success, defeating him in the Semi-Finals and moved on to the Finals. The match was shot by itself at the end of the day being the Finale of Gold Medal rounds. All the shooters of the day were watching the match, most were cheering for Mexico, I did hear a few cheers from the Latin 

crowd for the USA. 

Juan Serrano

I went into the match with a game plan of being very aggressive due to the windy conditions, not allowing myself to be beaten up by the wind. The only down-fall to this strategy was to be too aggressive shooting too far into the wind resulting in left shots. Being the higher ranked archer, I decided to shoot first. After the first end of 3 arrows I was up one point with. He shot first the next end, after six arrows I had fallen behind five points back. I continued with my aggressive shooting style going into the third end, myself shooting first I came back to 3 points down. With one end to go, I was determined to win. I opened with a 10 and a 9 the first two arrows, the other archer shooting an 8 and 7, this put me close I knew. I made a great shot the last arrow, but felt the fault of my aggressive shooting style, hitting further left, almost where I was aiming off for the wind. Mexico shoots a 10 and wins. I was very satisfied with my shooting the whole day. I stuck with my strategy and came out nearly on top. I will just have to go with a modified aggressive shooting style to monitor when I am being just a tad bit too aggressive. 

Gold Medal Match

The team rounds went well, I shot pretty well in the yet again windy conditions. My team ended up 4th, just a spot out of the medals. All-in-all this was a good tournament for me. I fell like I only shot 2 bad shots the entire tournament. 

I am very glad to be back in the USA in my own warm bed eating good food. I had a good event and cant wait for the next tournament. 

Team USA

Jake

Back on track

Well today I shot 20yds at someones house today, my first time shooting by myself in probably over 4 months. 

I'll tell ya, shooting with other people is no doubt better for you then shooting by yourself especially for extended periods of time. But there is just some days and times that you need to be by yourself and work on just shooting, nothing else. I have been struggling with shooting indoor distances just for an unknown reason until today. I worked on my bow hand changing it to almost being as completely relaxed as possible. I think my hand was just way too tense on the bow trying to force it to be in the right position instead of just allowing it to happen. 

Its almost like its awkward keeping my hand more relaxed. Its no doubt a way better position and state of intensity, but its just so different then what I have been doing for some reason that Its just odd. Im really glad I got the time to shoot by myself and get to feel what has been going on in my body without distractions. 

Anyhow I shot a 293 today and just finally enjoyed myself shooting for the first time indoors since before Christmas.

Well take it easy,

Jake

New and Improved

I finally figured out how to upload my website to my server online. Check it out at www.JakeKaminski.com and post a comment on here and let me know what you think. 

Today I got up at 4:15 to go to Balboa Park in San Diego for Fox 5 News here that was doing a bit on the San Diego Archery Group at www.sandiegoarchers.com I was invited to attend so I decided to head up there. We started around 5:40 with the first showing and did clips on and off till about 8:00. We basically just shot for the cameras and had a good time. Here is one of the clips they put up on the internet today. http://www.fox5sandiego.com/pages/video/?autoStart=true&topVideoCatNo=default&clipId=3484995

I have a few new videos to upload to youtube, but I am going to do the progression through the technique again so everyone can see how dramatic the past few months have changed as far as the beauty and control of each and every shot. I will also do each step of the technique and see how that goes. 

So shooting wise I have been working on using my back to come from the set position to the set-up position. For those of you who don't know what Set and Set-Up is, Set is when you have the bow down at your sides and the set-up is when the bow is raised up just before the drawing occurs. I have been having issues on and off with problems in my shoulder right near or in the joint. I have or have-had, deltoid bursitis, deltoid tendonitis, biceps tendonitis, teres tendonitis and inferspinatus tendonitis. The pain has been more on then off lately. I haven't been making progress in sportsmed in the pain department so I figured I would look at my form. Basically i was using my right arm to lift the bow instead of my left arm in the bow grip, and then using my right shoulder to initially pull the bow back, as opposed to my hand and then shoulder. So it is going pretty well for only two days with this form. I have a video a day old that I will get up in my newest youtube video so you will see.

Thanks for the read, let me know your opinion on the website and any criticism is welcome.

More new personal bests

Well it seems that just about every week I am setting more new personal bests. I would estimate that every personal best I have set in the past has been broken in the last month with the exception of a few. 

This week I shot another FITA on tuesday morning with variable wind during the long distances and about 7MPH wind at 50M but at 30 there was 20MPH gusts and rain that was putting a challenge up for me. Had it not been windy at 30M I would have broken a 1320. 

This weeks score was:

313 at 90M (personal best)

327 at 70M

331 at 50M (personal best)

346 at 30M

1317 fita (personal best)

Yesterday I shot some indoor rounds. I have been struggling with my shoulder on and off for the past 2 years with tendonitis and other over use injures. Somedays it doesn't hurt at all and others it just aches to the point of me giving up on shooting that day. Yesterday was one of those days. I started off shooting well with a 294 and 10X's but after that it just spiraled down hill. But I know that todays' rest will prove to be a great help with this next weeks shooting. 

I have been working on my Macbook on the iWeb program to produce my website and make it semi-professional looking. It is coming along quite well and hopefully should be up by the end of the week. 

For those of you who have been asking about tips on how to shoot. I will try to make a video of some recent shots with steps on how to shoot. I have some further plans of helping people with their technique  and critiquing them showing where they can improve. I have not yet had time to do so but I hope to in the near future.

Thanks for reading,

Jake