These 2 young archers from SLO County are among the best in the nation
San Luis Obispo County has two of the nation’s top female archery athletes for their age group — both teenagers excelling in their respective shooting events.
Judith Gottlieb, 19, of SLO, was ranked the ninth-best recurve archer in the United States (among those 14 through 17) before enrolling at Columbia University’s Barnard College, where she’s now a freshman.
In July, Gottlieb will head off to the Maccabi Games in Israel, sometimes referred to as the Jewish Olympics, to represent the United States after her first full year at the all-women’s college. Her family is currently fundraising for her trip.
And Bella Otter, an 18-year-old Atascadero resident and Cuesta College student, is a compound archer who has won state and national tournaments and is a member of the United States Archery Cadet Team.
At a mid-October youth tournament in Tulare, she set four state records previously held by Paige Pierce, a medalist in the 2019 World Archery Championships.
Recurve bow archery, an Olympic sport, resembles the type of equipment a hunter shoots, with limbs curving away from the archer and increasing tension as the archer draws the arrow back.
Compound bow shooting is not yet an Olympic event and uses a levering system of cables and pulleys to bend the limbs. The draw tension is comparably light and easy.
Indoor events involve shooting at 18 meters with outdoor distances at up to 50 (compound) or 70 meters (recurve).
“Judith and Bella both shoot on a high national level,” said Chris Garcia, a coach who represents Central Coast Archery as a bow-sponsored staff shooter. “These are two girls that are potentially among the best in the nation.”
SLO girl rises to top ranks of sport
While a young teenager homeschooled by her parents Szaja Gottlieb and his Korean-born wife, Myung “Ko” Bun, Judith was an avid recreational basketball player, regularly competing with older players at Kennedy Club Fitness at 12 and 13 years old.
Szaja Gottlieb, a SLO rolfer (a form of alternative medicine involving deep tissue massage), surmised his daughter, of shorter and strong stature, had the right build and mental focus for archery.
“I knew she was clearly a good athlete from her activities, including swimming and jujitsu,” Szaja Gottlieb said. “Because I work with bodies as a rolfer, I thought to myself that she might be a good archer.”
At 13, Judith took a few lessons at the indoor Central Coast Archery (CCA) on Los Osos Valley Road in SLO.
“A few months later, Scott Wilson, the owner of CCA, asked me if she might be interested in competing,” Szaja Gottlieb said.
Judith immersed herself in archery YouTube videos, and her interest helped launch the family’s commitment to a sport that took her to Korea multiple times to train with Kim Hyung Tak, a former Olympic coach who has led Korea to gold medals.
At the first encounter, Kim knew the SLO girl had talent.
“(Kim) looked at how I drew the bow and asked me, ‘Who taught you how to how to draw?’” Judith said. “I said, ‘I just taught myself.’ He said ‘Cool, cool.’ I think that’s when I first initially thought that I might have a good future with this sport.”
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Intensive training
Gottlieb’s mother Ko also studied up on the sport and coached her as well. They trained at Central Coast Archery and outdoors in SLO at a family friend’s property who volunteered yard space.
Gottlieb trained between four and six days per week, letting fly 150 to 200 arrows each session, spending four to five hours a day. She rose to a national ranking of No. 9 in her sport for those ages 14 to 17.
“There is a feeling that you want to do better with the next arrow and even better on the next,” Gottlieb said. “Going to tournaments and meeting other archers is fun as well. Tournaments always feel like a reward after I’ve worked hard in practice.”
Gottlieb speaks fluent English and Korean, and has made friends from around the world training under Coach Kim. Sometimes she even translates for those who don’t speak Korean.
“Through archery, there have been so many fun and rewarding experiences,” she said.
Her Columbia coach Derek Davis complimented her “strength, commitment and joy of the sport.”
“Personality is my No. 1 criteria,” Davis said. “I had a good sense she would fit in nicely from the first time I met her.”
Davis added: “Especially in college when training time is limited, Judith is totally committed. She practices the required minimum and then exceeds this by voluntarily training as much as her schedule permits.”
As to why she loves it, Gottlieb said: “The sound of the bow when I release, the flight of the arrow, and the sound of the arrow hitting the target. Archery is the most enjoyable for me when my form synchronizes with the result of those three things.”
Otter earns national recognition
Atascadero resident Bella Otter took up shooting when she was 9 years old, competing for the past six years.
Otter, 18, first started shooting after attending a Girl Scout camp.
“I shot this cheap little bow and they had these big massive balloons tied to the hay bales,” Otter said. “I remember being the first one in my troop to pop the balloon and my super immature 9-year-old self was like, ‘Oh my gosh, I’m really good at this.”
Otter started shooting at Central Coast Archery, where her father, Nate, took up the sport with her.
“Bella was just somebody who picked up a bow, and just immediately got it,” said Garcia, her coach when she was younger. “It was raw natural talent. I thought, ‘This how it’s supposed to be, the form, everything’s already perfect.”
Bella’s success has included several state championships and an indoor national championship in February 2020 in Sacramento en route to making the U.S. team later that year, competing on a circuit of tournaments nationwide to earn the nation’s No. 3 ranking.
“Being able to represent the (Team USA) jersey let’s others know that it’s something that you’ve really worked for and you’ve done it alongside some cool people,” Otter said.
Otter said her success comes back to her Atascadero supporters and Central Coast Archery’s guidance and technical and emotional support.
In archery, she said, “you get that kind of immediate reward of seeing where the arrow is.”
“Hopefully if it feels like a really good shot, and it’s right smack dab in the middle,” Otter said.
Training for success
Both athletes say mental training is part of the sport.
“The foundation is very, very process-oriented,” Otter said. “The mental management is key, and helping to build this relationship between your conscious mind and your subconscious mind, and your overall self image and what you feel like you are capable of.”
Gottlieb worked with sports psychologist Jeff Troesch, who has previously worked with former Major League Baseball players, NBA and USA Soccer athletes, as well as Cal Poly student athletes, to improve their mental preparation for competition.
“Psychology really changed my life, not just in archery. Itt changed my life,” Gottlieb said. “It helps deal with pressure, social anxiety, and just having a process to deal with mental stress.”
Troesch said Gottlieb had a natural drive and ability to focus intently on her sport, but also was overly focused on results.
“She is an extraordinarily disciplined young woman with her physical habits, but she had not yet learned how to be disciplined with mental habits, and that’s essentially what we worked on,” Troesch said. “I think that was of value to her was helping her get her point of emphasis more on her daily growth and development as an athlete, rather than being so fixated on the outcomes of her competitions.”
Troesch and Garcia both encourage athletes to strive to improve every day to advance toward mastery.
“You definitely need to spend a lot of time just perfecting your shot, getting more consistent, and obviously the more consistent you are, the more accurate you can be,” Garcia said. “It’s really just discipline and focusing on really small details to get to a high level, and volume of arrows shot in a day.”
As for Olympic dreams, Gottlieb said, “My motto is just going from one step at a time with one arrow at a time.”
“If my journey gets me there, of course I’d love to do that and of course I’ll try to get on the team,” Gottlieb said. “The journey is still long, wherever it shall take me.”
Gottlieb’s GoFundMe website is gofundme.com/f/help-send-judith-to-the-maccabi-games-next-july.
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