Archers at the ready!!

With most of our plans for doing stuff in the future, I was a little bit sick of not having much on over the weekend so I started to look on Group On to see if I could find some deals, and low and behold I spotted one. I had never dabbled with Archery before and the offer was so good only $19 bucks for a 2 hour lesson for both of us it seemed too good to miss.

On the morning of our booking we headed down Moorrabin Archery centre to find out if all those hours watching Game of Thrones and Lord of the Rings would pay off. It was only 45 mins out of town and we had a fantastic day with the sun beaming.

As we looked around the club we got to see the equipment we would be using and also the targets we would be shooting at. We had to wait for the other people to turn up and so we basked in the sunshine.

Before we started our lesson we got a chance to see some of the regulars square up and take aim. It was quite nice to see a mixture of people and ages and even some youngsters.

Check out this accuracy from some of the pros

This little girl was pretty good too.

It became obvious that a lot of people had taken advantage of the cheap cost to the lesson as there was about 40 people in the group when we stood for our first lesson about all the different types of bows that have been used in the past and that are used today for practice and in the Olympics.

The type of bow that is used by archers today for competition is Recurve bow which is also the exclusive bow of the Olympics. The name derives from the side profile of the bow. With these bows you would use aluminium made arrows rather than wooden.

There is also a longbow which is rarely used today accept by well trained archers who compete in specific events or chose to hunt. Its archery in it's simplest and most original form. A wooden, one-piece bow, a string, wooden arrows with feather fletchings.

There is also the Compound bow which is not too different to the recurve, except for pulleys that aid in efficiency and adjustable limbs. It is a modern bow that was developed in the USA in the late 60's, primarily as a hunting bow. The adjustable pulleys allow for far greater accuracy. We saw some of these with spirit levels and telescopic lenses on them, some high tec kit.

We would be using a type of compound bow called a Genesis bow which is good for beginners. After the history lesson we got kitted up with wrist guards, selected our bow and arrows and made our way to the practice area where we all lined up.

As there were many of us it was quite cramp but we managed to find a spot at the end together and fortunately we ended up being next to the assistant who was a bubbly old chap called Frank and was good at explaining how to position yourself.

A lot of the technique is built around the way you hold your stance and the slight angling of your arm or hand can change the direction that you shoot quite considerably.

When the whistle was blown to signal everyone was allowed to draw, safety is paramount on the field, we let loose!
It didn't take long after some tutoring from the old chap that both Sarah and I were getting pretty close to the centre target.

The moment Sarah hit Gold!!

There was a lot of talking in between the 5 arrows we were allowed to draw per tern which was a bit of a drag. However the instructor did explain important aspects of the etiquette around archery. It was also during this time we were given extra tips from Frank about relaxing our shoulders and like a Jedi trusting in the force!

On our next few goes we started to feel like Olympic pro's....well almost.

It was a nice way to spend the morning and I wouldn't mind given archery another go in the future. It is quite therapeutic in a way as you feel quite satisfied with getting the draw right and hitting the target it is also quite physically challenging as well.

Afterwards we headed off to St Kilda for brunch and tucked into what can only be described as bliss!

Smoked salmon and eggs in burger form!

Stay tuned for more tales.

Dan