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My first sukie post, and I have to admit I didn’t think it would happen at my weekend job. I work at a Renaissance Festival in VA and actually have a friend/owner/manager of the booth who has the god send of a spine. My husband and I work on the pay to shoot archery range. We’re working with English long bows and will give you enough instruction so that you don’t hurt yourself, but that’s about it. If you want more one on one, hold your hand instruction you need to pay for instruction. So this weekend I got to deal with-
BUT I’S KNOW HOW TO SHOOT A BOW!
Theis are people who if we’re lucky know how to shoot a compound, if we’re really lucky a recurve bow. Both have different ways of handling the bow, and knocking the arrow. Most of the time it’s from people that have watched to many movies and think anything they see in Hollywood is correct. You try to tell them not to hold the string with their whole fist and they don’t listen and then wonder why their shot goes off. The real buggers want to shot with out a glove, because their MEN. Never mind that if the feathers come off there going into their hand, or that you wear the glove because of safety and thoughts are the rules. Or that our insurance for shooting is ungodly and demands that people wear them.
Marshmallow Children
This is a term I’ve coined at our range. Surprisingly most of them are boys. What is a marshmallow child you ask? it’s a kid from the age of 7-13 with no muscles to speak of except for in their thumbs due to to many hours on video games. They are incapable of pulling back a 30lb bow and have trouble with the children’s 10lb bow. Mind you their 5 year old sister can pull back the adult bow with very little problem.
But he’s scared
I actually had one mother who must have had her husbands testacies in a box, and she was just waiting for her six year olds to drop. This kid looked like he was 8, actually had some muscle tone, so he got an adult bow and could not follow instructions to save his life. This isn’t hard instructions, hold your arm out straight, stop sucking it into your body, hold the arrow on the string with three fingers, not your fist. Your going to hurt your self sucking everything into your body, so long as you do it the right way I’m showing you you’ll be fine. I’m pretty much giving him a lesson for free with all of the demonstration of how to shot and correcting his body position. He just didn’t get it.
His mom wanted me to give him a child’s bow. Kept saying he wasn’t capable of pulling back the “big” one. When I pointed out he had muscle tone, she then said she didn’t think he would pull even the child’s bow because he was to “timid”. Her husband actually tried to get him to follow the instructions and she rebuffed him saying it was to much for him. I told her point blank, the child’s bow is to small for him, he could break it, and she would be stuck paying for it. Mind you their about 200-300 apiece. It would be of no help to the kid to give him something smaller and have him do it incorrectly, because he could still hurt himself with it. She kept spewing that he was timid and wouldn’t pull it back enough to break it so it would be ok.
I then went and got the owner of the booth, M. She went through the same thing with the kid, the same thing with the Mom. Mom tried again to push her boy as being timid. M told her he was scared, not timid and until he stopped being scared she couldn’t have him shot on the range, and gave her the money back. I love having a person in charge who’s got a spine and backs up her workers.
BUT I’S KNOW HOW TO SHOOT A BOW!
Theis are people who if we’re lucky know how to shoot a compound, if we’re really lucky a recurve bow. Both have different ways of handling the bow, and knocking the arrow. Most of the time it’s from people that have watched to many movies and think anything they see in Hollywood is correct. You try to tell them not to hold the string with their whole fist and they don’t listen and then wonder why their shot goes off. The real buggers want to shot with out a glove, because their MEN. Never mind that if the feathers come off there going into their hand, or that you wear the glove because of safety and thoughts are the rules. Or that our insurance for shooting is ungodly and demands that people wear them.
Marshmallow Children
This is a term I’ve coined at our range. Surprisingly most of them are boys. What is a marshmallow child you ask? it’s a kid from the age of 7-13 with no muscles to speak of except for in their thumbs due to to many hours on video games. They are incapable of pulling back a 30lb bow and have trouble with the children’s 10lb bow. Mind you their 5 year old sister can pull back the adult bow with very little problem.
But he’s scared
I actually had one mother who must have had her husbands testacies in a box, and she was just waiting for her six year olds to drop. This kid looked like he was 8, actually had some muscle tone, so he got an adult bow and could not follow instructions to save his life. This isn’t hard instructions, hold your arm out straight, stop sucking it into your body, hold the arrow on the string with three fingers, not your fist. Your going to hurt your self sucking everything into your body, so long as you do it the right way I’m showing you you’ll be fine. I’m pretty much giving him a lesson for free with all of the demonstration of how to shot and correcting his body position. He just didn’t get it.
His mom wanted me to give him a child’s bow. Kept saying he wasn’t capable of pulling back the “big” one. When I pointed out he had muscle tone, she then said she didn’t think he would pull even the child’s bow because he was to “timid”. Her husband actually tried to get him to follow the instructions and she rebuffed him saying it was to much for him. I told her point blank, the child’s bow is to small for him, he could break it, and she would be stuck paying for it. Mind you their about 200-300 apiece. It would be of no help to the kid to give him something smaller and have him do it incorrectly, because he could still hurt himself with it. She kept spewing that he was timid and wouldn’t pull it back enough to break it so it would be ok.
I then went and got the owner of the booth, M. She went through the same thing with the kid, the same thing with the Mom. Mom tried again to push her boy as being timid. M told her he was scared, not timid and until he stopped being scared she couldn’t have him shot on the range, and gave her the money back. I love having a person in charge who’s got a spine and backs up her workers.
When I finished I could bench... 80 lbs. 
It's not just the nightmare headache they give me on my job- as a camp staffer, it's part of my job to create a comfortable environment to encourage kids to try new, sometimes risky, things. I understand some parents need a bit more info, esp first timers, but I know this type......... she is the last one to leave camp opening day and is the topic of discussion with the Ad Staff (though most likely they encountered her, too) so they get a heads-up in case she calls. 
I'm pretty good at pulling the string back and releasing. My aim... is another story. 
I've had people look at me like I had three eyes in my head for yelling at them to point the arrow down range. Last year I wasn't so paranoid, but after hearing two different instances of very close thunks about 12 inches to my head fixed that. Both were by small kids, and don't get me wrong I'm not screaming profanities at them, the usual "PLEASE POINT THE ARROW AND BOW DOWN RANGE GOOD SIR/MADAM" pretty well works.
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