What Happens After the Beginners Course?

Graduation ... Now what?

Congratulations — you’ve survived the beginners course. You’ve got your certificate, you know etiquette, you can now chant the safety rules like they were handed down on stone tablets by a very tired Moses. And you’ve joined a club (maybe even Glasgow Archers, in which case… welcome to the madhouse).

So what happens now?

This is where your archery journey actually begins. A journey that will take you to strange fields at ungodly hours, in weather that would make a penguin complain. You’ll learn ballistics, physics, sports psychology, and a surprising amount of meteorology. Your posture and health, both physical and mental, will improve. Your patience will not. You’ll also acquire a working vocabulary that would make a docker complain to HR about the bad language.

Welcome aboard. Let’s get you vaguely pointed at the targets.

First Steps: Becoming Slightly Less Breakable

We do have a few club bows ...

During the course you probably used an 18, 20, or 22lb bow — perfect for learning, but not ideal for becoming the steely‑eyed archer you imagine your potential to be when you are brushing your teeth. Now we need to start building strength. Clubs like GA have a variety of heavier bows you can borrow, so you can increase draw weight gradually rather than immediately detonating your shoulders.

Your aim is to work up to at least 28lbs on the club bows if you’re a bloke. 26lbs if you’re a lady or junior. Not tomorrow. Not next week. Over the next three to four months. If you finish an end feeling like you’ve completed two of Hercules’ labours, congratulations — you’re overbowed. Stop that. We don’t do heroics here. We do consistency, shot cycles, and not injuring ourselves before the sausages are on. The early proficiency badges are a good introduction to the badge hunt so get stuck in.

This is also the point where you start learning what a shot cycle actually is, and why doing the same thing every time is the secret to not spraying arrows across three targets and a passing dog walker. If you ever want to see the consequences of not having a shot cycle, ask someone to tell you about “that Wednesday night when John forgot how his sight worked”. Bring popcorn.

Window Shopping: The Descent Begins

You don’t need to buy kit yet. Clubs have plenty you can borrow while you build strength and consistency. But this is the perfect time to start browsing archery shop websites like a caffeinated raccoon in a bin full of shiny things.

There are four main bow styles — traditional, barebow, recurve, and compound — and hopefully one of them is already whispering to you. If none of them are whispering yet, scroll archery websites until something colourful and expensive catches your eye. This is the way. Look at risers with their colours and shapes. Quivers, arm guards, tabs, all the accessories that say “I am a serious athlete” while you still shoot like a baby giraffe on roller skates.

Take your time. You’re going to spend real money eventually, so enjoy the fantasy shopping phase while everything is still free. And if you find yourself thinking “I wonder if this comes in gold?”, congratulations — you’re already halfway to fitting in. If you're wondering "Does it come in black?" ... you might be Batman.

First Purchases: The Safe Zone

New archer ... but badges already being collected.

At this point you’ll feel the urge to buy everything immediately. We know. We’ve seen the look. Heck, we've had the look! But hold your horses — and your debit card. The big purchases can wait. What you can start picking up are the personal bits: a quiver you like, that bracer that looks like a carbon spiderweb, an arrow puller that stops you wrestling with the boss like it owes you money, and a tab or glove to protect those piggies.

These things let you get comfortable with the bits around the bow without committing to the expensive hardware. Then bring your wish list to a coach or experienced archer. We love stopping people from buying terrible kit. It’s practically a club pastime. If you want to see a grown adult age ten years in ten seconds, show kit guru Geo a £5 sight from Amazon and say “I thought this would do”.

Buying Your Bow: The Big One

We’ve written a whole article about buying kit. Go read it. We’ll wait … ... ... ... ... ... OK .. make sense? Right. Lets crack on ...

One of us .. One of us .. One of us

Once you’ve got your list and someone sensible has checked it, you’ve got two options. You can go the mail‑order route, click a few buttons, and wait for a suspiciously large box to arrive. Or you can head to Merlin Archery in Glenrothes or in Bishops Auckland - the closest shops to us. If you choose to visit Merlin, phone them 10–14 days ahead so they can order in what you want, and book a slot so the staff can give you their full attention. Turning up unannounced is how you end up sitting on a stool for two hours while someone else gets fitted for a compound that costs more than your car.

And check to see if anyone experienced from the club is going over and look to be there at the same time. Preferably someone who won’t let you walk out with a 45lb recurve “because it felt 'fine' in the shop”.

Now What? Becoming a Real Archer

You’ve got kit. You’re a club member. You’re shooting regularly. And no, once a month does not count as “regularly”. Once a week is the bare minimum. More if the weather isn’t actively trying to do a Captain Oats on you.

Keep working on that shot cycle — making every shot the same. This is the magic. The thing that separates archers from people who occasionally fling sticks at things. As you improve, you’ll start seriously collecting badges. Then more badges. As you start to run out of badges, start entering competitions. You can represent the club at the Glasgow League and travel around Scotland to shoot in fields filled with what looks like a medieval army that had access to Decathlon for their tents.

The banter that once sounded like nonsense will suddenly make sense. You’ll learn to fletch arrows, tune bows, make strings, and complain about the wind like a seasoned professional. You’ll also develop the uncanny ability to identify which coach is behind you purely by the sound of their sigh.

And then — without realizing it — you’re now one of those experienced archers you saw during the beginners course. The ones you wondered if you could ever be like them. Welcome to the obsession.