Archery is alive!

I was walking in a forest when I saw an arrow fly through the air and into a tree. That’s when I found out that there’s an archery range near my home, in the Arroyo Seco in Pasadena. It’s owned by the Pasadena Roving Archers, which is 75 years old this year. But the sport of archery is a lot older than that.

People started using bows and arrows to hunt for animals and to fight each other 12,000 years ago. The oldest bows ever come from Holmegaard in Denmark and were made from elm. The oldest arrows were made from pine and had really pointy ends. People stopped using bows and arrows when they got better weapons like guns, and archery didn’t become popular again until the 1900s.

Today many people do archery for fun, mostly in the US and Europe. The people at the Pasadena range use arrows with blunt ends to shoot at things. Some of them are really good! They told me that actors from the new film Avatar went to their range to train – because they use bows and arrows in the film. And the club has classes every Saturday where anyone can go and try the sport for free. How cool is that?!