• last year
Meet the woman who is travelling the world performing as an archer - shooting a flaming bow and arrow with her FEET.

Orissa Kelly, 28, began learning gymnastics at the age of three - advancing to performing circus acts and stunts in her teenage years.

She honed her skills on aerial hoops hanging from ceilings, but still wanted to push herself further.

So she kept trying new things - until she discovered a bow and arrow.

Orissa, from Watford, Herts., said: "Out of every weapon I’ve ever worked with, archery bows just felt the coolest.

"At one point I even tried doing a handstand with a sword! It definitely wasn’t the best idea!"

"I wanted to be so different that no one else could even compare to me - so I came up with an act that no one else was doing.

"When I left school, I knew I wanted to perform and I gave it my all, I never got a second job or had a plan B.

"I’ve never had any other job than being a performer.

"I’ve never handed in a CV, never attended an interview and only found out what HR was a few years ago.

“I’ve performed on every continent in the world and have seen some amazing places and also a lot of really crazy places too.

“I get to see these extravagant lives and stay in cool villas in the Maldives but then I get to come home back to my loving family, so it’s the best of both worlds."

Orissa visited a local hunting shop in February 2015 and purchased a bow and arrow, with the motive of creating an act that no one else had done before.

She said: "I loved action films, and was always obsessed with Mulan or Kill Bill.

"I remember watching them and thinking, what if these cool stunts were actually real, and I think this is where I really got the inspiration from."

Alongside a bow, she also tried wielding various other weapons including swords, but found archery to be her calling.

She started practicing foot archery for six hours a day for six months in an open cricket field - braving all types of weather.

She said: "I learnt to shoot with my feet before I could shoot with my hands.

"I still consider myself more accurate with my feet.

Orissa said her training was sometimes "excruciating."

She said: "My most common injury was from the bow string on my calf, the string would repeatedly hit it, causing it to bruise, swell, and bleed.

"I would also get cuts and bruises in between my toes from gripping the bow with my feet.

"The worst pain was actually from the cramps in my feet through - this is something I still get if I take some time off of foot archery. It’s my body’s way of telling me I’m not training enough."

And she added: “Sometimes my toes would go numb so I would go back to my car and sit in front of the heater for 10 minutes before going back out again."

But her persistence paid off with Orissa going on to compete on Britain’s Got Talent in 2016 - where she was described as “brilliant” by judge Alesha Dixon.

Category

🥇
Sports
Transcript
00:00 My name is Arissa Kelly and I'm a professional foot archer and my very
00:08 unusual career began in this cricket field. I started back in 2015 and I had
00:14 no archery experience. I literally bought a bow and arrow from a local hunting
00:20 shop and I came to this cricket field and I taught myself. I practiced every
00:26 single day, six hours a day, for six months until I could shoot the bow with
00:31 my feet and shortly after that I went on Britain's Got Talent and my act got
00:37 picked up and now I travel the world full-time performing for events and on
00:42 TV and I love my job.
00:47 My friends and family think it's quite crazy but I guess now we're all so used
00:54 to it but I'm definitely like the person with the weirdest job out of all of my
00:59 friends. For me I was someone that always wanted to be different I mean even with
01:05 the name Arissa I knew I was I was happy to do different things, be different and
01:10 I thought one day like why be the best in the world when you could be the only
01:15 one doing something, be so different that no one else even compares to you. So I
01:20 came up with this crazy idea and I didn't even know if it was possible
01:23 actually when I started. I didn't have a teacher or a video to learn from I just
01:29 came up with this crazy trick and thought let me see how far I can push
01:33 the boundaries of what's possible and so it's really amazing to see that one
01:38 trick could turn into a whole career and now I do other archery trick shots I do
01:44 with my leg, I can shoot with my teeth, I can shoot backwards and spinning and
01:48 it's just become this whole show now which is never what I thought it would
01:53 be. So I do tricks with fire and fortunately I haven't had any crazy
01:59 accidents but my gosh I've burnt my toes so many times that I actually, this is
02:05 crazy, but I can't feel the heat of the fire anymore so I don't always know if
02:10 the fire is on my toes and I'll come down and my toes will be pretty crispy
02:16 but amazingly I still have all ten toes.
02:21 During my career I've been really lucky to work with some amazing people. I've
02:31 performed for the Queen of England twice which was an honour. I've performed in
02:36 Wonder Woman, the Hollywood blockbuster, of course I was on Britain's Got Talent
02:40 and now I work for some of the world's super wealthy. Since doing this, actually
02:46 since about 2020, I put more effort into my social media and I grew over two
02:52 million followers of people that really somehow enjoy my content and I get to
02:57 show them all the places I go and and all these different trick shots that I
03:01 create and I've been very blessed actually online, like people are really
03:05 nice but obviously you always get one or two comments that aren't super pleasant
03:09 but I would say for the most part I'm really lucky I've got amazing followers
03:14 that are really really kind.
03:17 [BLANK_AUDIO]

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