The Sport of Archery

Heroes Remember

The Sport of Archery

Transcript

Interviewer: And I understand you have chosen the sport of archery and you know I as many other Canadians might say, how does he do that? We slowly started learning how and it’s been a lot of fun learning how to do archery because it was one thing I never did when I was a kid. I played many sports growing up but archery wasn’t one of them and learning how to do it with no vision, people would think that I would be a little crazy to think could pick archery with no vision but it’s been a lot of fun learning and showing people how good a blind guy can shoot the bow and shoot. I will pretend my cane is my bow but what happens is I have a, my holder in front of me with arrows in it and I have my bow in my hand and I will grab an arrow. I will feel it. I will put it back in place on the little holder there and I will hook it up to the string making sure the fletching’s are in the right part, the little feathers, the things that are on the arrow. And then once I have it all lined up I pull it forward and I have a stand I use and I line up my middle knuckle to a screw that’s on the stand, the head of the screw and then once the stand is lined up to the target I know I am lined up to the target so all I have to do is pull back, draw back to a certain spot on my face to know how far the arrow is going to go and it’s not going to, it’s going to go at a consistent rate the whole time and then I let go. And then once we got the stand lined up I should be on the target and hit the bull’s eye every time.

Description

The wonder of how a blind person chooses sport of archery, Aaron provides a detailed demonstration of his technique.

Aaron Boulanger

Mr. Aaron Boulanger was born in March 10, 1990 in Calgary, Alberta. As a child Aaron and family moved back to the Gagetown, New Brunswick. Coming from a military family with his dad and two brothers serving, Aaron realized he too would choose this career. After finishing high school Aaron joined the Navy and obtained his university degree at UNB under the support of the military. While training in Esquimalt, B.C. holding rank of Officer Cadet, Aaron became very ill and was diagnosed with a brain tumour which caused blindness. Now left to regain his independence Aaron moved back to Oromocto, NB to gain assistance from his family as well as tremendous support through CNIB. As time passed Aaron made the choice to get healthy and by doing so was selected as part of Team Canada 2018 Invictus Games Team. Being blind did not stop Aaron from choosing the sport of archery and with his father by his side achieved his personal best during the games in Australia, October 2018. Aaron will be medically discharged from the military and looks forward to finding a new career path. He now resides in Oromocto, New Brunswick with his family.

Meta Data

Medium:: Video
Owner:: Veterans Affairs Canada
Recorded:: September 27, 2018
Duration:: 1:36
Person Interviewed:: Aaron Boulanger
War, Conflict or Mission:: Canadian Armed Forces
Location/Theatre:: Canada
Branch:: Navy
Rank:: Officer Cadet
Occupation:: Officer Cadet

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Date modified:: 2019-04-03