One of the main goals of this website is to promote archery to a worldwide audience but also, via our outreach program, to bring archery to the young generation through school demonstrations. Thus, on December 16, 2012, I accepted the invitation made by the KPIS Student Council to do an archery demonstration at their international school located in Bangkok.
The event was well organized, the students having prepared “good” targets for me to shoot at. The demonstration started after the flag ceremony with the MC, a teacher from KPIS, talking about the safety rules that needed to be followed during the demo. He then moved on to explaining the different kinds of equipment an archer uses during a competition.
After this brief introduction, the “real” demonstration started. To make sure the arrows didn’t go through the target, thus damaging them, I brought my own archery target from my club in Bangkok. The target was set at a distance of 18 meters.
The first things I had to shoot at were three balloons, followed by two apples on the head of a teacher and a student (of course, these were apples drawn on the pictures of these people and not the real thing). Needles to say, the balloons went pop with each arrow and the two apples were what you would call a bull’s eye. The last target I shot at was a series of paper fruits hanging from a string. From a fairly big pineapple, I then moved on to shooting an apple, a pear, a banana and, lastly, a very small orange. The orange required more than one arrow; the first one barely missing its target while the second was a hit. Just for the fun of it, I then shot another arrow in the orange.
The audience consisted of about 100 students and teachers from the primary and secondary school (plus a few parents) and the demonstration took place on the school’s grass football field. After about 25 minutes, we wrapped up the event and waited for the kindergarten students to come out on the field and enjoy the archery demonstration too.
From the feedback I’d received that day from the students and teachers who witnessed the demonstration, the event was considered a success. One funny thing that more than one person told me was that I made it look too easy when, actually, they were aware that shooting an apple off the head of a person (even if it’s a picture) was not as easy as it seemed.
This kind of event is something that I’d like to do more in the future. I think it’s a great way to promote sport in general and archery in particular to the young generation. So, if you would like to invite me to your school for an archery demonstration, contact me at mihnea_voicu[at]yahoo[dot]com. Also, if you would like to sponsor such an event for your community, check out our outreach sponsorship program.
Below you can see me having fun with the organizing committee after the official event was over. They had quite a few more targets they wanted me to shoot at!
Photography by Regin Reyno
