Archery for 4 Year-olds

[fox_sejant]

This evening in Archery for 4 Year Olds the lesson was "The bow is not a toy and it will hurt you if you're not careful".
The string slapped his arm (above the armguard of course) and left a small bleeding spot.
Cruel daddy that I am I made him shoot the next arrow anyway.
    Then we went for a bandaid.

Comments

[eliskimo]

Did you get him a bow like Alexander's?

[fox_sejant]

I don't recall what kind of bow Alexander has. We got Cian a fiberglass longbow from Bear Archery. Its called a 1st Shot and has a draw weight of 8 to 12 pounds at 14 to 16 inches. Is that similar to Lex's
This came with two 26 inch arrows. That seemed too few to me so I also bought three more (they only came in three packs) 26 inch arrows.

Cian did really well with the bow. I showed him the correct form and technique and he did his best to copy me. After a few rounds I just had to say "show me your technique" and he would correct whatever mistake he was making. He found getting the nock onto the string to be the hardest part. His other big problem was holding the string with his entire fist instead of with just the tips of his fingers. That is what caused him to slap the inside of his arm with the bow string.

[eliskimo]

Yes, a 1st Shot. That's what I bought for Alexander. It also came with two arrows, which he declared was too few. The Bow Shop in Waterloo, only had a couple singles in the 26" length. So I bought him one. Three was good enough for practice.

Those, of course, are carbon arrows and they can't be used at SCA events. When I took him to Late Winter Shoot in Petrea Thule, Aurelia lent him six of Tatiana's arrows, which he could shoot, but which seemed long to me. At Lilies, Elk Ridge Archery has some small children's arrows and I bought them. They are only 21" long (including point), and smaller in diameter than the standard "youth" arrows (I think 1/4" as opposed to 5/16"). It was amazing what a difference the smaller, lighter arrows had on Alexander's ability to hit the target ... when he so choose. I got really frustrated that another kid made a big deal of shooting into the trees and Alexander choose to copy him. We lost two of his new arrows that way.

[fox_sejant]

Only wooden arrows are allowed at SCA events?
Cian might benefit from smaller arrows too. Hard to say without trying it first.
We were not target shooting. The hay bales here at the farm are all gone. We just stood next to the garage and launched arrows down range towards the barn.