Lesson 1 - Introduction and Coaches

Friday, 1 February 2013

It is almost a week since lesson 1 and I am writing this post at the departure gate at O'Hare airport, Chicago. I left the UK for a business trip the day after the first lesson and have it difficult to find the time and/or the inclination to start this post. Now that the work is over I have a few spare hours to make a start. I hope I can recall all of the information I was given.

The course runs for five Saturday mornings at the indoor venue used by the club during the winter months. There are eight students on the course, but only six at this Saturday session as two ladies had had to do a session the previous day due to prior commitments. We were welcomed by the three coaches and two of us allocated to each of them. B is a student and looked after the two boys; A was with father and daughter; myself and dad of one of the boys were with Martin. All three coaches are Archery GB Level 1 qualified, as well as being very good archers. They explained that aim of the course (pun intended) is not to produce the next batch of Olympian archers, but to send us away being safe and competent to a level approved by Archery GB. On completion of the course we will be awarded a certificate to be used as evidence of this competence at archery clubs throughout the UK.

The coaches outlined the plan for the morning, the most attractive part being the break for a hot drink (the building is unheated and the weather was very chilly). Although we had declared our handedness on the course application form, the coaches checked which is our dominant eye by getting us to look at them through our hands stretched at arms length and forming a small ring through which to look at the coach. We then brought our hands closer and the coach checked to see which eye we were using to look at them. People with dominant right eyes usually shoot right-handed, and left-eye dominant left-handed. It is not unusual for a right-handed student to be left eye dominant and they often find it easier to shoot left-handed. I found that I am right eye dominant as well as being right-handed, so I will shoot right-handed. This means I will hold the bow in my left hand and draw the string with my right. To make things easy (and to save typing) I will describe everything in this blog from the standpoint of a right-handed archer, so if you are left-handed you will need to make the appropriate adjustments.