Up and coming 10-year-old archer Levi Harrison is turning heads after his recent success at a local archery tournament.

His coach and grandfather Kirk Lawry is proud of his grandson, saying he has a natural talent for the sport.

“He’s only been shooting in the club for six months now. He’s really just a natural archer which is a big thing,” Mr Lawry said.

He said Levi is the perfect age to start learning archery as he hasn’t developed any bad habits.

There are two types of bows used for archery: recurve and compound.

Levi uses a recurve bow and is a “bare bow”, which means he does not use any attachments like sights.

He competed in the Southland Indoor Challenge in the bare bow category where he faced opponents of all ages, including an archer in his early 70s and mid 50s.

Both had been shooting for years and Levi managed to beat them, only losing his last match by a small margin.

The following day he competed in the teams tournament and Mr Lawry said he had archers coming up to him saying they were nervous to face Levi.

“Archery is a mental game. When you look at archers on the line, they’re all fighting demons in their head . . . Levi hasn’t got any of those problems,” Mr Lawry said.

Levi won gold in the teams tournament, Mr Lawry crediting that win mostly to Levi’s performance.

“It was really Levi’s score that actually got the team the gold.”

He said considering that Levi had only been shooting for six months and was not using any attachments, his scores were “pretty good”.

“I was impressed, I’m quite proud of him . . . the other guys couldn’t believe how well he could shoot.”

Mr Lawry has been in archery since 1991 and is a New Zealand representative for the sport.

“I played a lot of sport when I was younger, I was in the under-21 Southland rugby team and got picked for the All Blacks training squad.”

However, two weeks prior he had broken his left femur in a motorbike accident, so contact sport “went out the door”.

Soon after, he found archery, which is a sport relying primarily on upper body strength.

The first tournament he competed in he came dead last, the same one his grandson excelled at.

In the following years’ tournament he won, and from there continued to excel in the sport.

“I’ve been to the Australian Nationals; still currently have some New Zealand records that haven’t been broken since 2009.”

He had previously coached another young archer that represented New Zealand at an Australian competition, something he hoped for Levi as well.

Levi hoped to be a national champion someday, with his granddad saying he would be capable of taking it as far as the Olympics if he continues to stick at it.

“He is really disciplined; doesn’t miss a beat . . . pretty unbelievable for a 10-year-old,” said Mr Lawry.