Post by smj on Apr 11, 2008 22:12:33 GMT -5
It can be argued that every individual who ever shoots a bow is an archer. Simply put, I disagree. In fact, I think that you can shoot a bow for a lot of years and never really become an archer at all. For example, the person who only picks up a bow a week or two before archery hunting season starts, and then puts it away for the rest of year – is not an archer by my definition. Rather, they are someone who uses archery equipment during the archery hunting season. Brothers, for sure, but not kindred spirits! (You could draw a lot more conclusions from this thought, but that is not the purpose of this thread. Sorry if I have bent anyone’s nose a bit!) So, what is the difference, you ask??? Simple, really, an archer is a year round kind of individual. They go out and shoot arrows, simply because they enjoy doing so! They fuss over equipment endlessly, hone skills, they develop attitudes of preference to the type of gear they choose (which some defend rabidly!), and think about archery nearly every day of the year. Hunting may, or may not, be a part of the equation. If they don’t shoot, they just feel like a part of them is missing. Archery is a joy, a passion, at times a stress relief, at other times a tremendous frustration!
Whether you choose to shoot traditional or compound, archery is a great sport! However, if you choose to shoot traditional, the road to success can be a bit longer journey indeed! From my own observations, I can get away with a lot of sloppy habits when I shoot my compound. While it is a soothing balm for the ego to hit plum sized targets at 80 yards, as a hunter all you really have to do is hit a pie plate at 20 yards, and hold your shots to that 20 yard limit. A lot of folks can do that after about an hour with a compound. However, not many folks can repeat such a feat with a bare naked traditional bow!
So why is traditional gear so much harder than a nicely set up compound? My take is that it is mostly the sights, and the forgiving nature of current compound bows. The bows are designed to have next to nothing in hand shock, they are designed with risers that reduce if not eliminate the chance of twist and have next to zero flex in them, the bows shoot very fast so there is little height adjustment to be made between 20 and 30 yards, a cool rest that allows for perfect center shot and zero molestation of the arrow as it passes off the rest, nice stiff arrows that tune to bullet holes with ease, most of us look through a peep so we are looking right over the arrow, and draw length is set to a fraction of an inch with stellar accuracy and repeatability! All of this, and more, reduces error. It takes a lot of the shooter, whether true archer or operator, out of the equation and allows us to be much more sloppy about our shooting than we used to have to be. Form was everything just to get on the target, much less shoot a plum at 80 yards! Now, the equipment itself is almost a self-help guide to shooting a bow. You do everything to line up the equipment, hold still, release the trigger while holding still, and the arrow will be close to where you want it to be. All you need is a shop technician to make sure it is all set up correctly for you (Yes, I know, if you want to shoot that plum at 80 yards, you still have to work at it – and probably won’t get it starting two weeks before season!). With a traditional bow, you get a stick and a string, depending on the bow design, you might get a center shot. The bow materials used in traditional bows have changed a lot, mostly towards synthetics. Nature allows for to many variations in materials. These variations make it difficult to create the bow for starters, and then break down over time with stress. (This is one of the reasons why England needed so many staves of yew from Spain to make bows out of – because the design they used only allowed a very finite life for the bow and they had to be replaced periodically.) Modern materials get away from all that! Also, modern materials shoot faster. How much so, you might ask, for the same weight bow, same basic design, maybe 30 fps from what I have seen. It is not as huge as some folks would have you believe, and some bowyers claim that a good sinew backed bow gives up nothing to the modern materials so far as speed, or cast go. I don’t think speed is the big advantage for modern traditional bows, rather, you don’t have to worry about the materials breaking down. You can draw it to what ever length you want – up until the bow starts to stack – and you can leave it strung for months without worrying about string follow. The limbs don’t absorb humidity nearly as much, so they don’t slow down due to water gain in the limbs like the natural materials can do if not cared for correctly. Less fuss, lots of reliability!
So how do we shoot these things? This is the topic of this thread, all are welcomed and encouraged to add comments – and corrections when needed! We will start with the feet and hips, then look at the bow hand, release hand, shoulders, torso, and drawing the bow. Then we will talk about aiming the bow… Along the way, you will find that there are a number of variations to choose from for some of these steps. Different things work for different folks, so with all of our inputs combined all of us should be able to learn a whole bunch!
Hope you don’t mind the windy/wordy intro, I’ll be more brief from here on! Right now I have to walk the dog, but I will try to add to this every day.
Whether you choose to shoot traditional or compound, archery is a great sport! However, if you choose to shoot traditional, the road to success can be a bit longer journey indeed! From my own observations, I can get away with a lot of sloppy habits when I shoot my compound. While it is a soothing balm for the ego to hit plum sized targets at 80 yards, as a hunter all you really have to do is hit a pie plate at 20 yards, and hold your shots to that 20 yard limit. A lot of folks can do that after about an hour with a compound. However, not many folks can repeat such a feat with a bare naked traditional bow!
So why is traditional gear so much harder than a nicely set up compound? My take is that it is mostly the sights, and the forgiving nature of current compound bows. The bows are designed to have next to nothing in hand shock, they are designed with risers that reduce if not eliminate the chance of twist and have next to zero flex in them, the bows shoot very fast so there is little height adjustment to be made between 20 and 30 yards, a cool rest that allows for perfect center shot and zero molestation of the arrow as it passes off the rest, nice stiff arrows that tune to bullet holes with ease, most of us look through a peep so we are looking right over the arrow, and draw length is set to a fraction of an inch with stellar accuracy and repeatability! All of this, and more, reduces error. It takes a lot of the shooter, whether true archer or operator, out of the equation and allows us to be much more sloppy about our shooting than we used to have to be. Form was everything just to get on the target, much less shoot a plum at 80 yards! Now, the equipment itself is almost a self-help guide to shooting a bow. You do everything to line up the equipment, hold still, release the trigger while holding still, and the arrow will be close to where you want it to be. All you need is a shop technician to make sure it is all set up correctly for you (Yes, I know, if you want to shoot that plum at 80 yards, you still have to work at it – and probably won’t get it starting two weeks before season!). With a traditional bow, you get a stick and a string, depending on the bow design, you might get a center shot. The bow materials used in traditional bows have changed a lot, mostly towards synthetics. Nature allows for to many variations in materials. These variations make it difficult to create the bow for starters, and then break down over time with stress. (This is one of the reasons why England needed so many staves of yew from Spain to make bows out of – because the design they used only allowed a very finite life for the bow and they had to be replaced periodically.) Modern materials get away from all that! Also, modern materials shoot faster. How much so, you might ask, for the same weight bow, same basic design, maybe 30 fps from what I have seen. It is not as huge as some folks would have you believe, and some bowyers claim that a good sinew backed bow gives up nothing to the modern materials so far as speed, or cast go. I don’t think speed is the big advantage for modern traditional bows, rather, you don’t have to worry about the materials breaking down. You can draw it to what ever length you want – up until the bow starts to stack – and you can leave it strung for months without worrying about string follow. The limbs don’t absorb humidity nearly as much, so they don’t slow down due to water gain in the limbs like the natural materials can do if not cared for correctly. Less fuss, lots of reliability!
So how do we shoot these things? This is the topic of this thread, all are welcomed and encouraged to add comments – and corrections when needed! We will start with the feet and hips, then look at the bow hand, release hand, shoulders, torso, and drawing the bow. Then we will talk about aiming the bow… Along the way, you will find that there are a number of variations to choose from for some of these steps. Different things work for different folks, so with all of our inputs combined all of us should be able to learn a whole bunch!
Hope you don’t mind the windy/wordy intro, I’ll be more brief from here on! Right now I have to walk the dog, but I will try to add to this every day.
However, I have to respectfully disagree with the definition of archer as stated here. I think that anyone who uses a bow for whatever period of time that they desire whether to hunt or just for recreation can call themselves an archer just as the person who perhaps only occasionally goes golfing calls them self a golfer. Wikipedia offers this definition of archery; 
