Straight shooters, take note.
For some good, clean fun in a family-oriented setting, enjoy a day at Robin Hood Archery in Indio.
In business locally for the past two decades (operating at their current facility since 2011), Robin Hood Archery pairs safety and simplicity as a means to extend the sport to a wide spectrum of clientele.
Archery helps kids with eye focus and discipline.
Lessons, range use and functions are all on target, ranging from one-on-one private study, lessons for beginners and experienced, birthday parties, hunter safety and prep, and their Junior Olympic Archery Division (ages 7-17).
"We offer a variety of options for the novice as well as the accomplished archer. It's a great sport for young, old, intermediate – it doesn't matter," says Karla Jaime, assistant manager at Robin Hood Archery. "You don’t have to be 5 years old to start; you can be 40, 50, 60 years old."
Writer Judd Spicer takes aim during a lesson from Kena Brown.
Start your study with a one-hour Beginners Group Lesson at the (air conditioned) range. Replete with taxidermy, myriad medals of archer accomplishment, posters and (of course) bows and arrows in abundance – the Robin Hood memorabilia and accolades are matched with clear and concise instruction. You’re firing away within 20 minutes.
Diversity of patronage is indeed overt at Robin Hood, where shooters of all ages come for a variety of reasons. A range replete with generations finds Jaime's 85-year-old grandmother coming as a means to conduct body-to-mind coordination, while the sport has also proven a sound form of therapy for physical rehabilitation.
Jaime also sees archery as a means to target life skills to children with tendencies for vivacity.
Age does not control who is a novice archery participant.
"It helps kids with eye focus and discipline in themselves," adds Jaime. "We have a lot of kids who come in and their parents say, 'Thank you,' and we say, 'For what?' and they tell us their child was all over the place and bouncing up-and-down before, but that archery has helped them with concentration, time management, and also has had a calming effect."
Additionally, archery offers accessibility to those who may not find opportunities in other sports. Robin Hood teaches children with disabilities and counts several wheelchair customers among its client base.
"A lot of other sports – soccer, basketball, baseball – you're running and catching. So, if you're a parent with a child in a wheelchair, you want to see that activity with other kids," Jaime says. "The kids that come here, it helps them develop and we see them come outside their shell a little bit."
Robin Hood Archery, 44901 Golf Center Parkway, Suite 1, Indio, 760-347-8828, www.robinhoodarchery.com
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