FORT BELVOIR, Va. - Every Monday night, Outdoor Recreation's archery center comes to life with a handful of dedicated professionals and eager students ready to take on a new challenge.
"I love having the opportunity to teach people something new and fun," Rob Farmer, a Belvoir archery coach, explained. "People sometimes have a negative association with archery, because people think of it along with hunting. The truth is, it's a very skilled sport. It takes concentration and skill to do it."
Each class begins with a safety briefing and some simple archery basics.
Belvoir Bowhunters President Rick Atchison offered most of the details, including the storied history of the Belvoir archery program, which has seen several national and international champions and boasts two of the four master coaches in the state of Virginia.
"We are very serious about what we do," he explained.
Hank McGee, who has taught at Belvoir since the mid-1980s, feels he and his fellow coaches are all about teaching things the right way. "If you want to learn to do things right - I mean, not just shoot an arrow, but really do things the right way - you should give this a shot. We'll teach you what's right."
Interestingly, Farmer said he learned a great deal when he first took the instructor's course - including how to shoot with his non-dominant hand. "Rick told all the left-handers to shoot right, and right-handers to shoot left," he said.
The reason' "How can you teach someone to shoot in a way that you don't even know how to do yourself'" Farmer said.
Of course, the class was far from limited to lecture and instruction. Atchison lined everyone up at the ready line and demonstrated proper stance and how to correctly hold both recurve and compound bows.
It wasn't long before students were lining up to take shots at their targets.
Farmer began shooting at age 12 on a hunting trip - in which everyone had a bow and arrow, but he'd brought a gun. He was given a bow and a quick tutorial, and killed his first deer that evening.
The most important lesson he picked up, he said, was the importance of safety.
"It's critical to get an early understanding about what a bow can do and what it can't," he said. "Safety is key. This is not a toy."
While bows and arrows certainly aren't toys, there was still plenty of fun and smiles to go around at the lesson.
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