Archery is one of many outdoor activities endorsed and practiced by the Boy Scouts of America. By learning how to shoot a bow and arrow correctly, kids learn the importance of safety, as well as control and concentration. They must also learn how to master the balance and discipline of power!

Archery is a great outdoor activity, which requires concentration, discipline and strength to excel at the sport. It's also a lot of fun to try once  just to say you have done it, too!

GettingOutside.com is enthusiastic about the sport and wishes to see it grow in popularity and support from sponsors in the upcoming near term. We hope that kids and adults can both find themselves outside, practicing archery in a safe and responsible way. The fun will take care of itself. Hit that bulls-eye for the first time and you'll know exactly what we're talking about!

To get involved with the sport, you can join the Boy Scouts of America. Or go to an Official Archery Range, like the Stanford Archery Range or the New Castle 100 Archers Club, where you can even take lessons from a real pro! (They usually offer group as well as private lessons.) Stanford Archery even offers a summer camp so kids can get lots of practice.

Birthday parties are available at many Archery Clubs! Get all the details below...

To ensure both safety AND fun, they usually have a session on each of the following

• an instructional archery shooting session happens first. 
• So expert or certified instructors teach younsters
• then the all-important safety class; after this, as a group you will head off to the range for some
• instructional shooting lessons. And then, finally, (they'll be itching) it's time to let
• the group have their turn... the birthday boy or girl gets to decide who goes first!

And it should be made extremely clear:

Safety needs to be monitored and stressed throughout any bout of shooting with a bow an arrow!

This is why it's such a great idea to go outside to one of these ranges so youngsters can learn from professionals. Or at least make sure you are supervising your kids if they are out in the back yard with a bow, until they reach an age level and maturity when they can handle it on their own.

Many Local and State Competitions are Held All Over The Country

If you get good at archery, you might even be able to make a buck--or bag a buck, (if hunting is your thing)-- with your talents. You will be able to sign up as either an amateur or a professional and compete to win first prize.

Archery is an outdoor activity which has existed since shortly after humans began to make their own tools. There is no exact date as to when the first bows we're constructed... but early bows and arrow heads date back more than 12000 years: ALL the way back to the Paleolithic era, circa. 10,000 BC!

So, to us, at least, it's pretty neat that the sport has endured a career of more than 12 millennia! And we're getting pretty darn good at it now! (See compound bow which utilizes a pulley system to generate extra force with less energy needed to draw the bow back - it's a simple machine that we should be putting to good use more often!)

Archery survives to this day! Get outside and give it a try - you will be glad you did - bull's eye!!