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How to Choose a Coach

USA Archery content

June 26, 2024 | 1 minute, 51 seconds read

Archer and coach high fiving.

Archery is one of those individual activities that anyone can pick up and do. That is, it’s pretty easy to grasp the process of nocking an arrow on the string, drawing back and releasing the arrow toward a target.

But just completing that process doesn’t mean you’re shooting the bow correctly or in the most efficient manner. Or maybe you’re already an experienced archer and you’ve found you’ve hit a ceiling with your success. You shoot and shoot, but you just can’t seem to improve beyond a certain point.

In both instances, an archery coach could be what you need to achieve your archery goals. 

“The benefit is, if you have goals in archery, it’s nice to have a second set of eyes on what you’re doing to help you achieve what you want to achieve,” said Heather Pfeil, who is director of the Lancaster Archery Academy in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, and is also a Level 4 USA Archery certified instructor.

The first step in deciding whether to go with an archery coach is to be realistic with what you want from archery. For beginners, it’s easy to wing it on your own and try to figure things out as you go. That can work, but it can also lead to injury and frustration.

Be honest with yourself. Recognize archery is a game where you could injure yourself and others. It’s a game where if you don’t know what you’re doing, it’s probably going to frustrate the daylights out of you trying to hit the bull’s-eye.

Advanced archers have to recognize when they are not getting any better. If others are better than you, and you want to achieve their level of success, you should consider getting a coach to help you figure out how to improve.