By Jessica Skaggs
While music serenades from a student’s phone and the wind howls, students take aim each Tuesday and Thursday morning on the soccer field near the baseball fields. The college has offered its students a one hour physical education credit that meets the general education requirement, through archery for the last 26 years.
This is the first year the college has offered two sessions, as interest has grown in the last few years and students were struggling to get in. Student Nicki Joy Karstens is just one of the 49 students who has taken archery this semester alone.
“Archery was really fun when I was a kid and I wanted to get better at it,” Karstens said. “I used to do it with my dad, and then I did it in Girls Scouts too.”
Adjunct professor Charles Carter has been teaching students the fundamentals of archery at the college since the course was first introduced.
“It’s geared to instruct the basics of archery, and attempt to develop a possible lifetime leisure interest,” Carter said. “It’s my hope that a number of students will continue in archery. Archery is a sport that you can do for your whole life, the main thing is to keep learning and have fun.”
Carter not only teaches students how to hit their targets, he also demonstrates the applicability of archery to everyday life, as well as incorporating an understanding of its history and influence on the world.
“I think there’s many lessons in archery that apply to other areas of life,” he said. “One of the things I do that I think is very enjoyable and is pretty cool is to try to look back at history and bring items in archery forward that affect our culture today.”
For example, Carter said archery has influenced certain terms that people still use today.
“The term to play ‘fast and loose’ is from the middle ages and it refers to an unreliable or deceptive person in archery. Our word for ‘sin’ comes from the Greeks originally in archery in terms of them and it refers to failure to hit your mark, missing your mark. So we talk about those kind of things.”
Students in the class appear to enjoy themselves while they gather their equipment and line up to take aim.
“It’s pretty self-explanatory and pretty fun,” said Karstens.
Zach Luchies, student, agrees with Karstens and finds the class not only enjoyable, but also a way to relax while being outside.
“A big part of the class is learning how to focus and block out all the distractions so that you can hit your target,” he said.
Contact Jessica Skaggs, managing editor, at jskaggs4@jccc.edu.