learn archery

I’m 16 and a Girl Scout of about eight years. Each summer at camp, one of the activities was archery. I was always the best. A natural, they said. I loved hitting the bullseye and making jaws drop. I was just about ten.

Then, when I was 13, I became a camp counselor and had to stand to the side as I watched my own troop of girls try desperately to hold the bows up with their skinny little arms. Just this last summer I could take it no longer. I asked the older, rounder man (who had been directing the archery station for as long as I could remember) where I could go to learn some real skills.

He handed me his card and told me he was from a place called Archers Afield. I looked it up and, in no time, was at my first class. It was by sheer luck that a girl I knew from school was there, also. I assume she wanted to win over Legolas with her mad bow talent.

In any case, I attended an entire beginners session, about a weeks worth of practice, and then did the whole thing again. There was nowhere to go from there but to join a team, and I hadn’t the time for that, so I sort of fell out of the loop.

I want to start again, though, and I hope that over the summer I can get ahold of my Grandfather’s old bow and practice shooting bales of hay out in his field.