Long time no Blog

Well its been a long time since I've blogged, so here is what has been happening in my life recently. 

I went to AZ cup in Phoenix a week or so ago. I ended up ranking 7th, finishing OR's 6th and winning both the international and open team rounds. During the FITA I shot a new personal best in competition at 90M with a score of 308, the third highest score on the field. 70M was A 311, 50M 315 and 30M 340. It was not as windy as I figured it would be as the last two years were really windy so that was good. 

The OR's were the next day and I had my best Rolling Rank tournaments since moving out to the training center. I shot a 107, 109, 107 I got nocked out in the 1/4 rounds by the #2 ranked seed, Nesting from Norway. 

On Friday, Brady Ellison, Tyler Domenech and myself shot in the Open Team Round beating all the other teams including another team from the Resident Athlete program taking the cash prize of $120. The three of us also shot in the National Team Round on Easter Sunday against Norway and Great Britain. We were again successful and took the Gold. 

From Drop Box

From Drop Box

From Drop Box

Me in AZ cup

The next interesting thing that has happened since my last update is that TaxMasters invited myself and a few of my teammates up to Long Beach to see their sponsored GT Race car run in the Speed World Challenge. Their team name was Brass Monkey Racing. The driver ended up piloting the porsche to 7th place during the 50 minute race. 

The track was on the streets of long beach over 2.5 miles long. The cars were turning 1:26 lap times averaging over 70 MPH. In the long front stretch the cars were moving at over 150 MPH. 

From Drop Box

Brass Monkey Racing's Porsche 

Overall everything has been going really well, scores are increasing and I'm having more fun. 

Video from mexican grand prix

I pulled this from youtube, I uploaded my own but it seemed to have disappeared.

I will re-upload my own soon.

Easton Cup and other things

Well last weekend was the Easton Cup. It went pretty well I tried out some different vanes again, Ambo Spiraflex. They are not as forgiving as Spin-Wings but do group well when you shoot great shots. Here is how the weekend went;

Friday was Practice, Saturday was a one-day FITA I shot;

290 at 90M

323 at 70M

311 at 50M

340 at 30M 

1264 Total for FITA

I ended up ranking 4th, one point from third. Then sunday was Round Robins in the morning and a OR round in the afternoon. A combination of the Round Robins and the Fita gave you your final ranking. After the RR's I moved into Third for the OR's. 

The OR's went well I made it to the Semi-Finals and tied with a 108 and shot a 9 to win against the competitor's 4 for the 1 arrow shoot of. This pitted me against my roommate Brady Ellison for the Gold Medal Finals. I executed good shots with slight flaws in the wind but the Ambo Spiraflex were just not up to snuff and prevented me from shooting a good enough score to win, so I ended up with a Silver Medal for the Weekend. 

Since then I have been shooting really well with Spin-Wings again just plugging away. Since switching back I have been averaging into the 330's at 70M so not too shabby.

Today's Training was Or's in the morning and Round Robins in the afternoon. I took 2nd in the Or's and won the Round robins. I averaged a 108.5 for the day shooting 112, 106, 103, 112, 106, 112 for my matches. Which is a little less consistent then I want to be but I was battling with 20+ MPH gusting winds. 

Tuesday we Leave for Arizona Cup which is the first major outdoor tournament in the USA for the outdoor season. 

Well thanks for reading.

Jake

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