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It’s 12:30 on a Saturday afternoon in Queens, and 24-year-old Antonella Castaldo is brandishing a crossbow with her raised left arm. With a look of utter determination, she draws an arrow from a steel-gray quiver that dangles from a belt loop on her jeans, hooking the weapon onto her bow. As she focuses her right eye through the bow’s sight window, she pulls back her other arm and, with a swift flick of her index finger, an arrow shoots off, whizzing through the air before hitting a blue-and-white target 30 feet away.
Bull’s-eye!
“I liked archery as a kid,” says Castaldo, a Morris Park, Bronx, resident, referencing her love for Robin Hood.
Castaldo, who runs a chemical engineering lab at Columbia University, is with three friends for their pal Eric’s bachelor party. The group has gathered outside Queens Archery, a brick building tucked away on a quiet Flushing street lined mostly by auto-repair shops.
They’re not the only ones rekindling their love for the once-forgotten activity. With archery making cameos in three flicks that recently shot to the top of the box office — “The Hunger Games,” “The Avengers” and “Snow White and the Huntsman” — and tomorrow’s release of the Pixar-animated “Brave,” there’s been a resurgence of the graceful sport.
Individual membership to USA Archery, the national governing body under the US Olympic Committee, has spiked nearly 20 percent since last December.
“There’s been a huge uptick in archery interest over the past year — particularly in the past two to four months, which is definitely reaching a fever pitch with ‘Hunger Games,’ ‘Brave,’ and the Olympic games,” says USA Archery spokeswoman Teresa Iaconi.
“[These] films are bringing the sport to the forefront of pop culture.”
Meanwhile, trend arbiters and shutterbugs are also taking note: In March, voluptuous “Mad Men” siren Christina Hendricks hit the bull’s-eye in a sexy archery photo shoot for V Magazine’s sports issue, which chose the theme partly due to the craze over quivers.
“[Archery] takes a lot of poise, and [Christina] certainly has that in spades,” says V editor Sarah Cristobal.
The piercing weapon, popularized by medieval folk hero Robin Hood and his band of Merry Men, declined with the development of firearms, but saw a resurgence thanks to an 18th-century revival among the English elite, who used it as a means of flirtation.
And now, New Yorkers hoping to channel their inner warrior are taking aim at the once-ancient art: Gothamites are making a straight shot to the city’s two ranges — Queens Archery and Pro Line in Ozone Park — that are trying to keep up with rapidly rising demand.
Al Lizzio, who runs Queens Archery with his wife Martha, says business has shot up by about 50 percent in the past year. Reservations for lessons (available weekends only) are booked solid into July.
By 11 a.m. last Saturday, all 20 lanes were abuzz with the sounds of arrows hitting targets, as groups of people milled around waiting for the next lesson.
“The increase is mind-boggling,” says Lizzio as he’s forced to turn away a group of four friends. “I never dreamed of ever seeing this much interest in archery — especially in the New York metro area.” He adds there’s been tremendous interest from the under-30 set, and women in particular are looking to channel their inner Katniss Everdeen, the rebellious heroine of “The Hunger Games.”
“Ninety percent of the calls I get are from women,” he says. “It’s something they feel they can do on an equal basis with a man, and . . . it’s something they can come to with a date or their husband.”
Leading lady Merida of “Brave” is an arch example of women taking a bow, and gals are following her lead. New York Sports Clubs is offering the “Brave: Change Your Fate Workout” at select gyms through the end of July. The 45-minute workout incorporates lunges while holding a green-and-black fitness bow set to pop music for female empowerment.
NYSC trainer Amira Lamb points to Merida’s feisty fighter spirit as inspiration for creating the female-friendly workout, which kicked off last week.
“People want to be superheroes,” says Lamb. “And this is more exciting because in normal classes you just use bars and dumbbells.” Last Wednesday, about a dozen women took part in the sweat-soaked session, which also includes heart-pumping dance moves and swift swordsmanship.
“I never thought of [the crossbow] as a workout tool,” says 29-year-old Astoria resident Diana Kelly, a magazine editor, after a recent class.
“But it’s a really great arm and shoulder workout.”
Even young’uns are getting in on the archery action: InJanuary, the city’s Department of Education green-lit a program offering public schools free archery equipment in an effort to popularize the Olympic-style sport.
DeWitt Clinton High School teacher Natasha Green is setting up an intramural league that will host monthly tournaments.
Since the initiative launched, three schools have applied to receive equipment for the 2012-2013 school year, and seven others have expressed interest. Longtime archer Larry Brown, a former Columbia University coach, is tasked with training city teachers, who will then coach students new to the program.
“It’s a sport you get hooked on quickly, especially if you’re not a basketball or baseball player . . . you don’t have to jump high, run fast,” says Brown, who also runs several youth archery programs around the Big Apple.
But parents need not fear that their kids will accidentally shoot each other: Everything is done in unison. Until a whistle is blown, nobody is allowed to shoot the arrows, which are made from lightweight aluminum — unlike carbon ones used on the professional level — and nobody is permitted to pick up their arrows until three consecutive whistles are blown.
Brown also points to self-improvement benefits: “If a team member makes a mistake the whole team suffers — but [in archery], if you make the error, the only person you look at is yourself.”