Granada Hills Charter (GHC) hosts a wide variety of sports teams. From basketball, to tennis, to golf, and even to equestrian, there’s a lot of choices for our school’s student population. However, a few students engage in a unique sport with an ancient history; something GHC likely wouldn’t create a team for, due to safety concerns: recreational archery.
When most think of archery, they envision ancient practices of hunting down wildlife with a bow and arrow or medieval style castle archers, shooting down knights through flaws in their armor. Modern recreational archery, however, has advanced somewhat.
The sport has three different types: barebow, recurve, and compound.
Barebow is closer to the typical envisionment of old-school archery. It utilizes bows with little modification, other than the occasional metal counterweight at the front to absorb vibrations. This type of archery is usually used for shorter distances, as it is less accurate.
Barebow’s cousin is recurve; the traditional bow shape with more weights, modifications, and tools to improve accuracy. Recurve bows typically have metal risers (the main body of the bow), with long bars on the front and sides for stability during the shot. Most importantly, recurve bows have a sight to aim with, greatly improving arrow accuracy. Recurve is also the typical Olympic type of shooting, making it a much more popular choice for competition.
Compound is the most mechanically advanced type of archery. It doesn’t utilize traditional bow shapes. Rather, compound bows tend to look more blocky and complex, with large mechanical axles and a thick riser shape helping with draw smoothness and accuracy. This type of archery is most used in the real world, as a hunter’s tool.
Senior Daniel Marron, who’s tried all types of archery, is a big fan of the sport.
“I’ve been shooting for about a year and a couple months now,” Marron said. “I really like archery because you don’t have to be super athletic. Archery is easy to pick up, and you can do it whenever, as long as you have the space.”
Marron practices at the Woodley Park Archery Range. A 17 minute drive from GHC, instructional classes are held every week at the range’s shortest distance practice area. Barebow and recurve practice bows, arrows, quivers, and protective equipment are all provided to students. The program even offers different bow weights to try out.
Anyone can register for Woodley’s five-dollar lessons; an amazingly good deal for an hour and a half beginner’s session, and even more so for a Wednesday two-hour returnee one.
The Woodley Park Archers’ classes are led by a core group of volunteers who work tirelessly every week as archery instructors. A fun group of mostly young adults united by their love for the sport, they try to introduce others to the fun side of archery. Every few months, the group hosts special events during lessons, such as themed dress-up days, and special pumpkin-shaped cutouts taped onto the targets for an extra challenge during the fall.
“The instructors at the range are very kind and helpful,” junior Sadman Muntasir said. “They’re great for learning the sport.”