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It takes an arrow only an instant to reach its target. For Columbia archer Tina Jung, that instant represents hundreds of hours of physical and mental conditioning.
Jung, CC'00, had never shot an arrow before her sophomore year, when she joined Columbia's intercollegiate team. But she progressed so quickly that she became Columbia's best shooter and earned All-America honors last year as a junior. She is currently ranked 10th nationally in the Collegiate Division of the National Archery Association.
"You learn to be in the present, both in mind and body," says the California native. "Archery develops a huge sense of concentration and a greater awareness of what you're doing."
Though the team playfully advertises archery as "the only varsity sport that doesn't require running," the Columbia archers take their competition seriously and achieve big-league results. Led by Jung's strong scores, the team placed third in the country last year at the Indoor Nationals in Harrisonburg, Va., behind Texas A&M (a school that offers archery scholarships) and Michigan State.
"We have such a sense of humor about ourselves," Jung says. "We compete hard, but we have a great time."
Archery head coach Alex Rodriguez notes that Jung's rapid progress is in part the result of her ability to implement the instruction she has received from the coaching staff.
"You can tell she picks things up quickly," Rodriguez says. "As soon as she learns something, she can almost immediately help out her teammates who have the same problem."
Her tactic for resolving a problem in practice is simple: "I break it down into pieces and figure out which individual piece isn't working," Jung says. "It's a matter of teaching your body to memorize what you're doing." Once you've done that, she explains, the last challenge is "trusting what you've learned."
Rodriguez is confident that if Jung maintains her present level of shooting, she will have a good chance at repeating as an All-American.
Jung says she is only starting to pursue the philosophical ideas about the sport, such as those made popular in the book Zen in the Art of Archery, by Eugen Herrigel. However, she can clearly see how the lessons of archery apply to life.
"It's not about beating someone else," she says. "It's about concentrating and being relaxed. I used to be a very stressed person."
Through concentration, she has achieved a balance. "You learn how far you can push yourself to be productive," Jung says, "and how far past that point what you're doing becomes non-productive."
Her introduction to the sport was somewhat uncalculated. "I had a friend who was going [to shoot]," she says, "so I tagged along." What kept Jung returning was the convivial atmosphere she found at practice and the camaraderie among fellow archers, which includes a collective penchant for "80s music."
Besides archery, Jung is also a seasonal club volleyball player and the editor-in-chief of Columbia's Asian Journal, a literary magazine that she calls "a forum of expression" for the Asian-American community at Columbia. The journal publishes 1,500 copies twice a year, and as editor, Jung enjoys the creative process of working on articles and other submissions.
An urban studies major concentrating in religion, Jung sees law school on her horizon. She hopes her "overly analytical mind" that benefits her in archery will serve just as well in examining the legal process.
Though Jung is not sure to what extent she will pursue the sport after graduation, she is quite certain she will be shooting for a long time. "Once you do archery and get to a certain level, you never leave the sport," she says.
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