At the end of a practice session, or for a dedicated fun session consider trying some of the following ideas.

Alternate Stances

Shoot from various non-standard stances such as seated, facing the target directly, facing away from the target (twisting to shoot behind you), kneeling, standing on one foot, or with feet together, standing on a chair, shooting with your bow canted, etc. 

Balloons

Buy a packet of balloons and pin them to the target face with target face pins. Add a tablespoon of flour for an extra puff when the balloon bursts. Or for a bigger shoot, consider buying a Helium Balloon Kit.

Blackjack

Archers shoot as many arrows as they choose to achieve a score of 21 or lower. Ten zone scoring with "X" counting as an ace (worth 1 point or 11, archer’s choice). The archer with the highest score not exceeding 21 wins the end. They receive points from the opposing archer(s) equal to the difference(s) between their score and their opponents. The game continues until one player has won all of the points, or for an agreed number of ends or amount of time with the winner being the player with the most points at the end. 

Bowling

Can be played by any number of archers, individually or in teams (where the individuals scores are simply combined at the end to determine the winning team). Ten ends of two arrows. Or eleven or twelve ends, if the tenth end is a spare or a stike.If your first arrow is a ten that is a strike: your score for the end is ten plus the scores for your next two arrows. Otherwise you shoot a second arrow. If your combined score is ten that is a spare--your score for the end is ten plus your score for the next arrow. If your combined score is less than ten your score is your combined score. If your combined score is more than ten your score is your score for the first arrow. The winner is the archer with the highest score (out of a maximum 300) after ten ends. 

Curling

Played on a single face by two teams of four archers with each archer shooting two arrows per end. [Alternatively, teams of two archers shooting four arrows or one archer shooting six arrows.] The team with the arrow closest to the "+" wins the end. They receive one point for each arrow lying closer to the "+" than the opposing team's closest arrow. The game consists of eight ends. The winner is the team having the highest number of accumulated points. 

Handicap Shoot

Archers shoot the distances they are currently shooting per their Stretch Programme scoresheets. Loser buys ice creams from the dairy across the road.

Lucky Dip

Best at a longer distances (with wider arrow spreads) Each archer shoots six arrows and then, before scoring, a piece of paper with scoring instructions is pulled out of the bag containing several different slips of paper. This means that an archer has no idea what their score will be when they are shooting. Scoring instructions might be:

  • Normal scoring applies 
  • Reverse scoring applies: 1/2 for a gold, 3/4 for a red,...
  • Negative scoring applies: you lose the number of points you have scored
  • Ignore all golds 
  • Scores are swapped: you score the number of points your opponent scored and vice versa
  • Whites score 20 
  • Two or more arrows in the same color score nothing for those arrows 
  • Missing the target scores 10 
  • Odds (or evens) score double 
  • Negative scoring (you lose the number of points that you have scored) 
  • etc. 

Photos

A piece of A4 paper is approximately the size of the gold on a 122 cm target face. Print pictures of your bosses face, your teachers, your fellow archers, etc. and shoot at those.

Reverse Scoring

Reverse the point values making the gold worth the least and the white ring the most. You will be surprised at how hard it is to hit the outer ring intentionally.The game consists of a pre-agreed number of ends. The winner is the archer with the highest score.Alternatively, a target score can be agreed and the winner is the first archer to reach the target.

Shooting Blind

Played by teams of two over an agreed even number of three-arrow ends.Archers position themselves on the line, look backwards, close their eyes, face forwards, draw and open their eyes to check their aim. They come down and may realign their feet if necessary. Then a blindfold is put on and they shoot three arrows. Their team-mate is allowed to vocally coach but not touch them.Team-mates alternate between ends.The winner is the team with the highest score at the end of the agreed number of ends.

Speed Shooting

Archers shoot as many arrows as they can within thirty seconds. The score for the end is the total score made multiplied by the number of arrows shot (regardless of whether they scored or not).