We’re the youth archery team at Lower Providence Rod and Gun Club. We practice every Thursday evening, we travel to compete as a team, and our archers come up through the club’s own youth programs.
A national program, with a real path to follow
Scholastic 3-D Archery is a nationwide youth archery organization. Its mission is to foster, educate and guide young people in 3D, indoor target and outdoor target archery, along with safe, ethical bowhunting practices.
What that means in practice is that S3DA gives our archers somewhere to go. They sanction competitions at local, regional, state and national level throughout the year, so wherever an archer is in their development there is always a next event to train toward. Older archers can carry it further still — S3DA works with college programs and scholarship opportunities for archers who want to keep competing after high school.
Indoor Target
The winter discipline. Fixed distance, small faces, and a lot of attention to making the same shot over and over.
Outdoor Target
Longer distances in real weather. Wind and light become part of the shot.
Vegas
A three-spot indoor round used at some of the biggest tournaments in the sport.
3D
Life-sized foam animal targets set out on a course. In S3DA the distances are known — archers use a rangefinder — and everyone shoots the same course, with each age group shooting from its own stake.
What a practice actually looks like
We practice every week, all year. What we work on follows the season — indoor target through the winter, outdoor target and 3D once the weather turns — so archers are always training for whatever is coming up next.
Practices are not a lecture. Archers shoot, coaches walk the line, and the coaching is individual: one archer is working on anchor point, the one next to them is tuning a sight, and the one after that is learning to read wind. Everyone works on their own thing, at their own pace, on the same line.
We compete as a team. Archers are encouraged to enter events and to turn up for them together — traveling as a group, shooting as a group, and backing each other up on the line is a big part of what makes this work.
Start here
No experience needed. Our 8-week intro class takes a brand new archer from never having held a bow to shooting a scored round. It’s based on USA Archery’s Explore Archery program, one skill per week, in one-hour classes — and it’s the usual way onto the S3DA team.
- Wk 1Range safety, stance and grip — and first arrows on day one.
- Wk 2The parts of the bow, nocking an arrow, and building a pre-shot routine.
- Wk 3–4Draw, anchor, equipment care, and the first real form checks.
- Wk 5–6Aiming, a relaxed release, and following through.
- Wk 7Putting it together — scoring a round and tournament etiquette.
- Wk 8Balloon Bonanza. Balloon targets, team challenges, and certificates.
Along the way archers earn five achievement awards — Safety, Equipment, Shooting Form, Shot Execution and Scoring — so there’s something to take home well before there’s anything to win.
Finish an intro class, and if you’d like to keep going, email us and say so. That’s how most of our archers end up on the team.
Intro class dates and details: Youth Intro to Archery
Out competing
Practice and how to join
The S3DA team is invitation only. Invitations go to archers already in one of the club’s youth programs — JOAD or our intro classes. If you’ve finished an intro class and want to keep going, email us and let us know you’re interested.
- Joining
- By invitation, through JOAD or our intro classes
- When
- Thursdays, 6:30–8:00 pm
- Where
- The Archery Center at Lower Providence Rod and Gun Club
- Ages
- 8 to 18
- Cost
- Currently free to all Jr club members. S3DA membership, equipment and event entry fees are extra.
- Equipment
- Archers provide their own equipment
- Coaches
- S3DA certified — most hold several coaching and instructing certifications
Email lprgcyoutharchery@gmail.com
Not a club member yet? Start with membership information, or just email us and we’ll point you the right way.