There were three instructors. Various forms of nerds. Fat smoking nerd, introverted Asian guy and slightly off but super nice white guy. They exchanged nerdy boy knowledge on all manner of weaponry while we waited in the drizzle for the rest of the students to arrive. My kids were going to love this. They too are obsessed with weapons. Not in a Columbine-building-explosives-in-the-garage kind of way. In a history kind of way. They construct weapons - of the bladed variety - out of cardboard, wood, electrical tape and silver paint; these Katanas, longswords, rapiers and daggers are harmless. They rarely even play fight with them. But they do learn all about history in the process of obsessively crafting them. They can tell you which side used what kind of blade (single, double, long, short, blah blah blah) in every battle up until the point where blades weren't used in battles anymore. Nerds.
They've incorporated bows into their lexicon of weaponry of late. Not least of all because of Katniss Everdeen, the star archer of the "Hunger Games". Love Katniss. And yes I let them read these books. True they're a bit violent. But the kids want to read. So I say, have at it boys. Certainly no worse than "Lord of the Flies" which we all read as kids.
The lesson lasted 2 hours. They start by learning basic form utilizing a short circle of red surgical tubing. They place their feet at a slight angle, pull the tubing taught towards the ground, raise it up to aim, release. They are taught to aim low because we automatically aim high (our eyes being above the target or some such thing... I missed some, didn't want to hover). After about 20 minutes of tubing shot into the bushes they graduate to real bows and arrows, aiming at a not too distant target.
They were wobbly at first. But they got the hang of it pretty quickly, hitting the target (not the bullseye) most every time. There were about 20 people there all together. Mostly adults, only four children including my two. Everyone shoots their 10 or so arrows, the targets at varying distances depending on the skill of the archer. Then a whistle is blown twice by the lead instructor and the archers collect their arrows. They return them to their designated orange cones, the whistle is blown again, indicating that it is time to resume your place behind the line and begin shooting again. It also means, don't wander around out by the targets anymore or you'll get hit. Time to shoot.
They shot (is it even called that?) for about 90 minutes. They would have kept going. I was amazed by their focused diligence. Each listened to the instructor provide helpful tips, each hit the bullseye a few times. Neither got frustrated. Wyatt didn't cry if Virgil did a bit better. He stayed in his own world, trying only to do a bit better each time than he did the one before. Given that he is prone to frustration if he isn't perfect and especially prone to frustration when he perceives his brother to be better at anything, I found this to be a small triumph.
We'll be going back.
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