STLCC-Meramec offers many classes to meet the P.E. requirements to graduate. Archery class meets Monday through Friday from 11-11:50 a.m. behind the power house building.
Steven Duncan
– Staff Writer –
Arrows fly behind STLCC-Meramec’s powerhouse weekdays from 11 a.m. to 11:50 a.m., as Teddy Farias, doctor of chiropractic, and his archery students take aim at targets set in front of the building’s south-facing wall.
Farias, co-founder of Premiere Chiropractic and Acupuncture in Crestwood, Mo., has been teaching archery at Meramec for five years.
“I’m a chiropractor, which is about aligning your body,” Farias said. “Archery requires similar form.”
Farias has been practicing archery since he was a child. He was teaching weight training at Meramec when the position for an archery instructor opened up.
“I thought, ‘I’ve got experience in that’,” Farias said.
He’s been teaching it ever since.
Archery students meet inside the south entrance of the physical education building, just outside a closet door where the archery equipment is stored. When Farias arrives, they file into the closet to grab their bow and arrows, then walk to the outdoor range.
There, Farias opens the pad-locked door of a storage shed and the students wheel out four-foot round bull’s-eye targets on dollies into their positions, while others set up the shooting stations 30 yards away.
“Today, we’ll shoot from 30 yards, then move back to 40 yards,” Farias said. “Tomorrow, we’ll also shoot from 50 yards.”
Farias blows his whistle and the first round of archers place, or “nock,” the arrow onto the bowstring and draw back the recurve bows.
Recurve bows, as opposed to straight bows, have ends that curve away from the archer where the bowstring is attached.
These curves store potential energy. When drawn back, the curves stretch out and produce energy to thrust the bowstring and launch the arrow forward. This design allows the bow to be built shorter than a straight bow of equal stored energy.
After a round of four shots, the archers walk toward their target to retrieve the arrows and the next round of archers set into position. When all are safely behind the shooters, Farias blows his whistle and a new round begins.
Smiles and chatter abound among Farias and the students in between rounds.
“It’s a lot of fun,” said Ben Kennedy, a student taking the archery class for a second time.
“At Meramec, if you take a class twice, the new grade wipes out the old grade, but I don’t take it for the grade,” Kennedy said. “I take it because I like it.”
Archery is a sport that anyone can participate in and statics show that students participating in archery programs improve in the classroom, according to the National Archery in the Schools Program (NASP).
“It relieves a lot of stress to focus in on the target and get your mind off of other classes,” Farias said. “The ‘thwack’ of the arrow hitting the target can be pretty cathartic.”
Farias will teach PE 104 Archery on Saturdays from 8:30 a.m. to 11: 30 a.m. during the fall 2011 semester.
