Our last shot—a dead-on bullseye. Our first shot, not so much. But in 15 minutes, our instructor at Extreme Archery had us feeling ready for the Olympics, or at least a little friendly competition. You don’t quite expect what you see inside of this Mamaroneck bow-and-arrow range. Next to a pretty expansive hunting store, there’s a long room with multiple targets at the end and an elk’s rack that holds a number of arrows split down the middle by other arrows. Archers from age 10 on up (it’s very popular with kids) spend half-hour sessions honing their skills for between 10 and 30 dollars, depending on age. After a brief lesson, we lined up, feet squared, only inches away from our friend Mike who had accompanied us for the adventure. “A quarter for every arrow closer than the other guy’s,” we were challenged. We accepted, loaded an arrow, pulled back with three fingers as we were just taught, our heart pounding a bit as we lined up our shot, and—whoosh!—the arrow went flying. Definitely exhilarating—in a primal sort of way. But a very different sound came from next door: “Ouch!” The string had slapped our buddy’s bare arm reddening it, and instantly invoking the man-code rule that he not rub it (he succeeded rather impressively). “Bend your elbow,” our instructor suggested, having forgotten that little tidbit in training. We were injury-free from there on out. Well, except for Mike’s ego. We took three bucks off him in the final round. Like we said, bulls-eye.
We left saying: “I so could compete at this.”
Bring a friend: Yes.
Fear factor: None. Just bend your elbow.
Just do it: extreme-archery.com, (914) 777-7500
PlusÂ
â–º Hang Glide
â–º Paintball
â–º Fight Club
â–º Fly an Airplane
â–º Drive a racecar
â–º Rock Climb
â–º For more from 914INC’s Q2 2013 Issue, click here.
