Hey gang, it's been a long time since I've been around. Life happens, as we all know. Just wanted to stop in and say hi.
Lately I've been doing a lot of teaching. I now run the archery program for an outdoor education center. This summer I taught an archery camp. All archery, all day, every day. The kids did fairly well, but I was a little optimistic in my goals for them.
I started them out with basic technique, then moved into a set of training targets that were used at a school where I used to train. We used to shoot each target twice- one round untimed, one round timed for 30 seconds. The targets were a vertical stripe, training for a column, a tiny bullseye, training for a group and a standard 5 color. This was really about as far as the kids could go in one week.
The plan was for one challenge shoot each day: poker, tic tac toe, balloons and 3-D moving targets. I was so excited about those 3-d targets. I built a 14" circle from a pool noodle, put it on a rope and planned to have them shoot through it. I also made a small log from pool noodles on a rope and planned to swing it and have them shoot that. All these challenges were too hard for them! We still had a good time, though.
Anyhoo, the final challenge of our camp was to walk a log, take a shot to one side, spin on the log and take a shot on the other side. The kids didn't do well at all with this hunter-style training shoot. I put the targets at random distances. There were trees to shoot around to some degree.
Finally they pestered me to demonstrate. One little girl started the pack to hollering that I needed to hit the little triangle in the middle. So I did.
Thought you might find this little story amusing. Hope all are well and ready for deer season, which is nearly here in my part of the world (piedmont of NC).
(https://www.flickr.com/photos/63959980@N00/14781926870/)
(https://www.flickr.com/photos/63959980@N00/14781987588/in/photostream/)
Great story Huntress.
:archer:
Archery all-day, every day sounds good to me! What range of ages were your young charges?
:thumbsup:
Huntress,
Nice post and good luck this season. I hope to see a pic or two of you with your bow and deer.
Bob.
Good job.... :notworthy: :archer:
I'm glad that everybody had a good time. I like to hear the stories that involve getting youngsters handling a bow.
:thumbsup: :thumbsup:
Excellent post! Like hearing about youngsters learning our sport. :notworthy:
:thumbsup: :clapper:
Hey Huntress,
I teach archery as well and am curious about a couple of things. What ages were your kids? I've found that while some kids can pick it up quickly when they are young, many need several sessions to get any kind of basic form down. The other is, did you break up archery with any other activities? It seems to me that they need breaks and maybe only an hour of archery at a time.
It sounds like you did a great job making it fun and interesting for them. Keep planting those seeds!
Kids and bows, changing lives one arrow at a time.
Welcome Back>>>
Sharing archery with the youth in and of itself may provide a covetted treasure to both you and the youth.
Thank you!!!!
Thanks, everyone!
The kids were teens, 13-16. We did break up the day with hikes, games and such. They did end up shooting for about an hour at a time. This particular group was really into video games, so getting them to focus on an actual activity using their bodies in REAL LIFE was hard.
Did the pictures show up in my post?
No, could not see the pics.
No pics. :(
Let's try this again! I don't know why it won't show images I have stored on Flickr.
(http://imgur.com/YmaoyB1)
(http://imgur.com/SZjZguT)
They still don't show up for me. Anybody else see them? I used imgur this time, just like the FAQ says!
Ok, here are the links to the photos!
Me shooting on the log - http://imgur.com/YmaoyB1
Bullseye - http://imgur.com/SZjZguT
Sissipahaw shoot is Saturday Jan. Hope you can make it.
(http://i.imgur.com/YmaoyB1.jpg?1)
(http://i.imgur.com/SZjZguT.jpg?1)
Gosh, thanks Bud! I'm so sad to have missed so many shoots with Sissipahaw! I will do my best, need to rearrange my schedule.
Huntress congrats on 2cnd place at Sissapahaw Saturday we hope you had a good time.LCH
Thanks LCH! I surely did. It's always a pleasure to shoot in the company of such fine archers.