Lisa Barbelin, who has just won the very first Olympic medal in French women’s individual archery, explains to us how she trained mentally to be 100% focused on the decisive arrows.

Lisa Barbelin during the individual archery event at the Olympic Games at Les Invalides, August 3, 2024. PUNIT PARANJPE / AFP

By Michel Bezbakh

Published on August 4, 2024 at 8:55 a.m.

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“Socrates paid great attention to this, that we can be conquered by ourselves, and that we can conquer ourselves.”recalls the philosopher Alain, in this book called neither more nor less The gods. “It is always the whole body that weighs on the fingers, that knots them, that makes them rebellious. The contracted and stiffened state is what maintains in us the fear of ourselves; and it is madness to envy the virtue of the horse, when one does not have only oneself all his strength as a man.” That’s a lot of neurons to start a paper, but the fact is that to do archery, you need a lot of them. 80, 85, 90%, it varies depending on the people you’re talking to, but the mental part is considerable in this exercise of precision, as Alain and Socrates suggest.

“We all have a technique that allows us to perform and get 10s.”that is to say, reaching the center of the target, Lisa Barbelin explained to us on June 26, at Insep. “But what will make the difference is to make 10s when it is necessary.” Yes, you were absolutely right Lisa, and on Saturday, August 3, 2024, at around 2:46 p.m., you rolled a 10 exactly when you needed to, to win a bronze medal, the very first in the history of French women’s individual archery.

Piano to relax your fingers

We exploded with joy. Because in the space of those ten or fifteen minutes that she had granted us last month, we had had time to realize that this woman was not quite like the others. When your eyes shine that much, when you smile that much, when you give your time with such generosity at such an important moment in your life, you are simply a good person, who deserves a medal.

Okay, back to the point. Back to our arrows. Lisa was telling us that it’s not rocket science to hit the 10, when we’ve shot about 90,000 arrows since September 15, or 300 to 600 per day. And we love the piano. “I’ve been doing it since I was little and it’s a bit like archery: you have to not think about your fingers and keep playing if you make a mistake. The piano also helps me to desynchronize my fingers from each other, make them independent, and to be relaxed. Because in archery, what’s really important is to have the extremities relaxed. If they’re tense, the arrows go too far.”

Sophrology to relax “the sinusoids of the heart”

Since the technique is so easy, the most important thing is concentration. And concentration is first and foremost physical. A question of heart rate. “Someone who is at 70 or 80 beats per minute at rest can be at 150 at the Olympics.”also explained to us the National Technical Director, Benoit Binon. “And it doesn’t end there, your heart rate increases throughout the day. Which leads to fatigue, an energy expenditure linked to stress. You wouldn’t think so, but archery causes a large expenditure of calories.”

We can see it, in fact, on Lisa Barbelin’s face after her eighth-final match on Saturday morning. She is all red, she looks like she just came out of a 5,000 meters, while she only shot a few arrows against the number 19 seed (she herself is number 30), winning 6-2 (3 sets to 1, because a set is worth 2 points). For this story of calories and cardio, a good tip is sophrology. “This helps me with cardiac coherence: having the heart’s sinusoids as flexible as possible, regardless of the number of beats per minute. The important thing is that the variations are smooth. If the curves are too abrupt, we lose lucidity.” READ FULL STORY HERE>>>CLICK HERE TO CONTINUE READING>>>

A shrink to do “great things” with your emotions

And then you mustn’t spread yourself too thin, of course, over the course of the four matches of an Olympic day. After the eighth, in the mixed zone, she apologizes to TeleramaRTL, and an American media: “No, sorry, I prefer to stay focused, we’ll talk later, with the medal around my neck, okay? Thanks!” It’s rare to give off so many positive vibes. Each time, Lisa entered the arena with a jaw-dropping smile and big greetings for the 9,000 people in the stands. Light years away from those failed team matches in recent days, where the French archers were “entered the arena as if into the slaughterhouse”in his own words. But is it really a help, the flags, the applause, all these « Lisa ! Lisa ! »in this sport where you have to empty your mind? “In the thirty-second and sixteenth finals on Tuesday, I really relied on the energy of the crowd, and today it was the opposite. I listened, but I remained very focused on myself. I managed to switch well. My psychologist, Émilie Thienot, taught me to accept my emotions, and to do great things thanks to them.”

His other training is both physical and psychological. “I do yoga twice a week, and seven minutes of meditation a day. Anytime I feel like it. I go into a room, I take my heartbeat, and I align my exhalations with my inhalations, I exhale five times, I inhale five times. I just focus on that. If a stray thought comes in, I chase it away, and I refocus on my breathing. It’s an exercise I also do just before entering the arena.”

The wind has turned

And so before this quarter-final, against the Indonesian Diananda Choirunisa, seeded number 6. A big machine, that one, in Hunger Games she survives with one hand behind her back. Always making 10s to catch up with Lisa who also shows herself to be simply remarkable in her precision. Several ties lead to a multiplication of sets, until this “match arrow” for the Indonesian. An 8 is enough for her to win, which is to say that it is over since she has only managed almost 9s and 10s until now, and she has proven that her mind is not made of cardboard. Then… then something happens that we will perhaps explain one day, when science has made progress, or when an extraterrestrial intelligence has come down to earth to give us explanations: the Indonesian hits the 5.

“This is impossible! This is unheard of!” exclaims the CNN-Turkey journalist next to me. Apparently there was wind. Behind, Choirunisa scores 8 and Lisa 10. We are in the semi-finals.

Lisa raises her bow (three kilos five) towards the audience and towards the sky, the Sky, thank you for this miracle. But maybe miracles are like luck, they have to be provoked. Maybe also that after bringing bad luck to the French during the first few days, Telerama has become their lucky charm (all those articles on Marchand, Lebrun, Riner…). In any case the wind has turned, and thanks to God, or someone else, this is also to be understood literally.

“The only arrow where I wasn’t quite in the present”

Now, Lisa is in the last four with three Koreans around her. And if the Arena de Bercy, for the gym, resembled Los Angeles 2028, the Invalides for archery, it’s Seoul 88. Yes, Vincent Duluc wanted to devote his column, in The Team of the day, to the feat of having gotten up for archery while “that we see nothing”but it should be noted that quite a few people are prepared to travel 8,000 kilometres with their families for these matches which last no more than ten minutes and which are a little less spectacular, it’s true, than a floor exercise by Simone Biles.

All this to say that the French, for once, are not in the minority but almost, despite the Invalides on the left, the Eiffel Tower in front, the Grand Palais on the right. No miracle in the semi-final. On neutral ground, Lisa loses dryly 6-0 against the number 2.

Then comes this little finale that has all the makings of a big one. How can you stay calm at this moment? “How do they manage to silence the little Iago voice of the ‘me’?”the great athletes, asks David Foster Wallace in Considerations on Lobster II ? “How do they manage to bypass the brain and act with simplicity and superbness? How can they, at the critical moment, invoke, personally, a cliché as hackneyed as “One ball at a time” or “I have to concentrate” and believe it, then do it? Perhaps because, for these outstanding athletes, these clichés are not hackneyed but true, pure and simple; or perhaps they present themselves not as declarative expressions […] but as mere imperatives which are either useful or not; and if they are, it is fitting to invoke them and obey them, and that is all.”

In any case, Lisa shot like a queen, or like Robin Hood, since we have to mention him, in an article on archery. At two sets all against Jeon Hunyoung, Lisa shoots last. 8: she loses. 9: she goes to overtime. 10: she wins. “It’s the only arrow where I wasn’t completely in the present, where I thought about what could happen next. I had my finger on the string, I said to myself “This is your destiny Lisa, you have to take it in hand”, and I did well!” At least: 10. In the stands, his mother, father, brother and two sisters have never been so moved by a good score.

2024-08-04 06:55:08
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