Meet Kevin Ikegami of American Archery Academy

Today we’d like to introduce you to Kevin Ikegami.

Thanks for sharing your story with us Kevin. So, let’s start at the beginning, and we can move on from there.
I started shooting archery when I was seven years old, and it consumed my youth. I won my first National Championships in 1998. I went on to win several more and set a few records that stand to this day.

In 2010, I joined the Peace Corps and left for Ukraine. At that time, archery was a relatively obscure sport with only a handful of small clubs in the Phoenix metropolitan area. When I returned in 2013, I was surprised to find that popularity and interest in the sport had exploded exponentially due to the Hunger Games film.

All of this newfound popularity created a demand vacuum for experienced coaching. I created the American Archery Academy and started coaching full time in the hopes of creating the next generation of competitive archers.

Today, I run several archery programs all over the Phoenix Metropolitan Area. I also contract with charter schools to run after-school archery programs, offer private lessons for the serious competitive archers, and sell archery equipment retail.

Overall, has it been relatively smooth? If not, what were some of the struggles along the way?
By far the biggest struggle for me was monetizing my passion. Initially, it was very hard for me to charge for my services. Even though I was spending my time teaching, it felt odd to me to get paid for doing what I loved and sharing my passion with my students.

Over time, I grew to understand that the only way to continue to spend my time coaching archery (and avoid getting a “real” job), was to make a business out of it. Once I understood that the road was relatively smooth. Of course, there are challenges every single day, but I have excellent employees, family, and friends that support me through the journey. If I ever get too stressed, I just remind myself that I get to play with bows and arrows every day. 🙂

American Archery Academy – what should we know? What do you guys do best? What sets you apart from the competition?
I mainly focus on competitive Olympic archery at all levels. I do a lot of outreach programs to introduce archery to new shooters, but I specialize in building individual competitive archers with Olympic aspirations.

What sets myself apart from most other coaches in the valley is my extensive competitive experience combined with my use of archery as a life coaching tool. I teach my students the skills required to be a competitive archer, then help them apply the same skills to succeed in other areas of their life.

What is “success” or “successful” for you?
I consider myself successful when my students successfully define and achieve their goals. I’m very careful not to make goals for my students or pressure them into being the competitive archer that I was. All of my students are shooting for different reasons, and my job is to help them accomplish whatever it is that they want within the sport.

For most of my archers, the obvious metric of winning competitions applies, and we are very successful on that front. However, I’m also very successful with my students that have never competed, but instead are shooting to build their confidence, strengthen their focus, help their scoliosis, or better themselves in any number of ways.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.americanarcheryacademy.com
• Phone: 480-280-9663
• Email: info@americanarcheryacademy.com
• Instagram: @AmericanArcheryAcademy
• Facebook: facebook.com/AmericanArcheryAcademy

Image Credit:
Robert G Photography

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