It was a tiebreaker for second place. AJ Allen, 6, held up his bow and tried to shoot his arrow at several balloons. He managed to get one. Chai Cherkasski, 15, did as well.
When Chai hit a purple balloon, it deflated not with a pop, but with a slow release of air. The two did a second tiebreaker that ended with Chai, of Pikesville, winning the title of second place.
AJ became involved in archery when Andrew Allen, his dad, saw an ad for Heads or Tails Archery Range and Retail in Westminster, Andrew said. He enrolled AJ and his other son, Ty, 7, in lessons.
"I wanted to get them involved in something real, in the real world. Get them away from inside, playing video games," Andrew, of Westminster, said.
It was exactly that sentiment that motivated Olga Pach, an employee at Heads or Tails Archery, to have an archery competition for kids and adults alike Sunday.
"We would like to get the kids unglued from the computers," Pach said.
A 2010 study from the Kaiser Family Foundation found that kids between 8 to 18 years old spend an average of seven hours and 38 minutes using a form of media in a typical day. Media can mean anything from cellphones to televisions to computer screens, which inevitably means less time doing physical activities.
Most of the 10 or so children participating in the event Sunday were taking archery lessons from Heads or Tails Archery, Pach said. They played a round where the kids had to shoot moving obstacles, called "Hi, Zombie" - almost like a video game.
Pach said she fell in love with archery after years of "shooting just everything," she said. Her father was in the military, which gave her the training before learning archery. She discovered it through Tim Berezovsky, the owner of Heads or Tails Archery, and since then has taken over teaching some lessons, she said.
In a world that's constantly moving, Jay Gelsinger, an adult competitor in the later portion of the archery tournament, said the sport is a stress reliever. Gelsinger, of Eldersburg, started archery in September, he said.
"You have to focus all your attention," Gelsinger said.
Gelsinger and a few friends competed against each other using traditional bows, or a recurve bow. Pach said recurve bows can be more difficult than compound bows, or the kind that are often used for hunting.
"Everything depends on you," she said. "The way you stand, the way you breathe, the way you let the arrow go."
As Gelsinger loaded his recurve bow to shoot a target of cut-out boats, his arrow made one sound - a swoosh, and then a thwack hitting the target.
