Life skills offers fun for all

In her second-ever try at archery, Iola High School senior Cierra Mock made a bull’s eye. Though she made it look easy, the swoosh of arrows missing targets around her proved the truth.
“The aiming is hard,” said junior Emily Clark.
“Not smacking your arm with the string is the hardest thing,” countered senior Mercedes Jones.
Indeed, in his instructions to the class, coach Steve Taylor warns the students to watch out for “string slap,” a painful sting that can occur when the string recoils after an arrow has been let fly.
This is Taylor’s first year teaching Lifetime Welllness at IHS. It is his second year at the school, where he also coaches boys basketball.
Before that, “I was two years at Circle High School and 13 at Heartford High School, a 1A school between Emporia and Burlington,” Taylor said.
Like Mock, most of the students in Lifetime Wellness had never shot an arrow before.
Behind her, cries of “Oh my God, I hit it!” and “I’m getting better at this!” cheerfully rang out.
The class fulfills the physical education requirement for the high schoolers. Unlike a stereotypical gym class, though, all the kids were laughing and having fun. No one was dodging balls aimed straight at them, or feeling the chagrin of not being able to make a basket. Even those whose arrows flew far from the target “seem to be enjoying it,” Taylor said.
“We’re learning a lot of games,” said junior Travail Pulley. “We are training to be ninjas,” he joked.
The mixed-grade class has already played volley ball and speed ball, a variant of basketball, said Clark.
Plans include Frisbee, flag football and bowling. Come spring, Taylor will set up a nine-hole disc golf course, probably on the school’s nearby practice fields.
“We got a set of goals for nine holes,” he said. The holes are really giant hoops that the discs must fly through, Taylor said.
For Lifetime Wellness, Taylor said, “they told me to do things (the students) could do after high school and later in life.”
So he developed a list of physical activities that don’t require age-specific skills. On tap are also lawn golf and floor hockey and team handball when the weather forces activities indoors.
“It’s a semester long class, but most students sign up for the full year,” Taylor noted.
Sophomore Chris Bolle plans to put his new skills to use, he said.
“I’m hoping when I get older to earn enough money to buy a cross bow,” he said.
So taken is he by his new talents, he added, “If I’d known it was this much fun I would have signed up before.”