Christian Lockwood, a student at WHBHS, has recently been rising through the local archery ranks. He has been shooting for two years now and has been juggling his two hobbies, archery and tennis, throughout high school. His passion lies within the bow and arrow and to him, shooting is the key to the future.

It all started 2 years ago. “I was really interested in pursuing an ‘old world’ skill,” he says, so he bought a bow at a local sporting goods store and started shooting, guided by his intuition and the occasional YouTube video. “I couldn’t spend much time on archery at first,” he said, “The indoor practice range is a full hour’s drive away and shooting in my backyard is troublesome, as the weather has to comply.” In addition, he says, his bow’s sights require a target height and distance that often makes his backyard space too restrictive.

Slowly, his skills have developed with the his family’s support and long hours of practice. “After achieving the basic skills, archery is mostly just practice, practice, and more practice,” he adds. Lockwood has even managed to learn some archery tricks, like shooting with his eyes closed and ricocheting an arrow off the floor to hit the target. “I’ve even managed to punch a hole in a quarter from thirty yards away,” he boasts.

The only issue that could present itself for Lockwood through high school is an overlap between his tennis and his archery practice. Mr. Ski, Lockwood’s tennis coach, weighed in on the issue. “I’m very supportive of Lockwood, even though I’m not sure why archery is an Olympic sport,” he explains, “But if archery ever interfered with tennis, I definitely wouldn’t cut him any slack.” According to Ski, tennis is of paramount importance and must be at the top of his list of priorities.

Ski doesn’t fear that Lockwood’s archery will be detrimental to his tennis skills, though: “There’s the same amount of pressure in archery as in tennis, and both use the same kinetics and target practice.” However, Ski does admit that if Lockwood had a concealable mini-bow and arrow set, he would fear for his life: “If he had one of those I’d probably move him from fourth singles up to third singles on the team, just to keep myself safe from any revenge motives.”

“Although I haven’t made it to any bigger tournaments yet,” Lockwood adds, “I have proceeded considerably in local ones.” He is looking forward to entering statewide competitions in the future. “I have great faith in him as an archer,” says senior John Tocco, “I think it’s important to keep the old Norse arts alive.”