Pebble Bow Archery Restarts in Beijing

A little extreme but the stance that your little logo is taking.

thanks for the picture and some base

i can said it is ture that stance is taken straight out of Chinese acrobatic performance, the picture show the archer right elbow joint is high than his right shoulder，the rigth hand also and near eyes, the left arm not straight，the thumb not straight push the middle finger， may be it is japanese archery， i never see this stance on link at atarn chinese archery ，or i am still wrong from my limited knowledge

i guess the chinese archery's base need more years practice（only the stance not allow you shoot), the stance of leg need more force，i shoot the arrow often 3 hours or 6 hours, if less time i am not happy for it , so if leg as the stance picture about 3 hours.......i think it is good way i learn the qigong , i can said i can pay 10 years for the base if it is real need (i am sure my knee joint suffer for my 100kg body weight and not need add heaviness for help training , i hope i can get the more base training from stephen

on picture if the arm/shoulder/hands as a straight line , the bow will come into contact with land? the special bow string add the weight will slowy and keep the energy to the bow when the shoot, when i bind a small wood wand(about 1cm long and diametric ） as a thumb ring to string and add draw length ，bede not advice i do it , how can i think?

thanks

The draw hand position is traditional. The pebble bow draw anchors at the corner of the eye because an aiming technique of eye-thumb-target was used. The difficultly is always to have enough energy in the release to get the pellet traveling in a roughly straight line, but at the same time to twist the grip aside in the very short time between the release and the pellet passing the grip.

The actual technique involves strongly twisting the grip before release. Over time, that distorts the limb, so pellet bows are designed so that you can string them either way up and thus alternate the way the limb is twisted between each session of shooting. Different animal heads (nowadays pig and monkey, after 'Monkey King') are carved on the tips of the limbs to help you remember which way round to use next time around.

http://v.youku.com/v_show/id_XNzQ3NTc0ODA=.html
maybe same Beijing Sports University team show on the video, on the video the 门惠丰（the famous wushu mentor) said 30 degree hold the bow and when the hold string hand release ,the forefinger and middle finger(the hold bow hand) also release and hold, so the pebble not hit the handle, i has saw stephen show me use the pebble bow shoot the door but can not know why and which is important i need notice
and in the video , after 门惠丰 show a bow style stand pose (弓箭步），some young pebble bow team show the pose like the picture ,and i notice they are do a pose go down the shoulder joint(沉肩锁肩？）, it seemed the line of two shoulder joint and two foot as x style form top view is well,


there are a story of chinese the bow evolvement form the pebble bow (弓生于弹），is the technique same of shoot in chinese ?

the pebble bow technique also help the arrows pass the handel?

I am not sure whether I can understand your question, Jiao. You would not need a special technique like that to shoot arrows as long as the arrow head is not drawn back behind the grip.

A Ming period writer described a 'scary' technique in which the arrow is drawn beyond the grip (presumably not using an arrow guide.) This might have been done using pebble bow technique. Very dangerous, though. Don't try it.

S

I'm rather new to Asian archery and I know nothing about a pebble bow. Could you tell me a little about their history and use?

Thank You,

Gail

I think there may be some articles on ATARN. I'll try for some references.

Basically, the bow is constructed like a conventional archery bow, but specially adapted to shoot a pebble or clay pellet from a pouch. There are also crossbow versions.

The device is recorded in writings from the Shang Dynasty in China, around 1200BCE. It was used for sport or shooting small animals with a view to keeping them alive rather than killing them.

The technique is quite different from other archery because of the problem of stopping the pellet for hitting the grip of the bow at release. It's quite easy at low power but very difficult with a stronger bow.

To: Stephen Shelby

Thank you for your response. Any additional information on ATARN that

you may be able to direct me to, would be greatly appreciated.

Thank you again, Gail.

To Stephen Selby:

Please accept my apology for mis-spelling your last name in my previous

post.

Gail

You'd probably be best served by looking at this page:

http://www.atarn.org/letters/ltr_oct00.htm

and maybe the picture archive:

http://www.atarn.org/images/picture_archive.htm

It'd also probably be a very good idea to look at the summaries of ATARN newsletters here:

http://www.atarn.org/letters/letter_summaries.htm

(warning: the last page is big and image-intensive. Make sure you have a fast connection for best effect).

What Hyarmendacil quoted above is about it. Doug Elmey wrote about it in the Journal of the Society of Archery Antiquaries in the 1980s, I think.

I have some material in Chinese that I have not translated because it is long and full of technical jargon . Frankly, it's not necessary to study it in theory. The practice of it is quite simple. An old man in Beijing said he could show it to me in 15 minutes and I would need 15 years to perfect it.

S

TO: Hyarmendacil

Thank you for the great links. What a wealth of information. I truly

appreciate your response.

Thanks again,

Gail

To: Stephen Selby

This is really a great web site. Thank you for all of your effort to make it

what it is. The information available here is a real education.

I liked the way the old man from Beijing put everything into a nut shell.

Gail

can these bow be modefied to shoot arrows ,using standard string, or that the max draw whight will not allow it?

bekN wrote:

can these bow be modified to shoot arrows ,using standard string, or that the max draw weight will not allow it?

Although you can do informal experiments with different types of bow shooting pellets/arrows, the real pellet bow will not shoot arrows and a real arrow bow will do a poor job of shooting pellets. The pellet bow is designed for a shorter draw length. The strings are specially designed for shooting pellets. Pellet bows have to be symmetrical above and below the grip. For these reasons they are not suitable for shooting arrows.

Gail wrote:

To: Stephen Shelby

Thank you for your response. Any additional information on ATARN that you may be able to direct me to, would be greatly appreciated.
Thank you again, Gail.

Looking through notes, I see that there is Arthur. G. Credland: "Pellet Bow in Europe and the East". Journal of the Society of Archer-Antiquaries, Vol. 18. 1975.

Pebble bow in Tadjikistan. I read artickle in russian site about rusian tourist , who see in Tadjikistan village near Afganistan border , how old man shooting vith high virtuosity birds in your fruits garden vith strange tipe of bow -vith stones. Old man told him that its old tradition here , and some Afgans can shooting people cros the border river (about 80-100 m) vith this stone bows.

[external image]

Pebble bow in a Ming dynasty painting:

Erlang and his soldiers driving out animal spirits
Former Title: Exorcising spirits from the mountains (搜山圖)
Chinese, Ming dynasty, 15th century
Unidentified artist
61 x 806 cm (24 x 317 5/16 in.)
Ink and color on silk.
Museum of Fine Arts, Boston.

[external image]

Pebble bow in a Yuan dynasty painting:

A Ride in Spring &#36249;&#38605; <&#26149;&#36938;&#22294;>
Zhao Yong 1289-1360
National Palace Museum, Taipei.

[external image]

I'm guessing that the pebble bows in the previous two pictures are unstrung.

The pebble bows may appear unstrung, but they seemed to be ready for use within the context of the paintings.

Here are some more paintings.

Yuan/Ming dynasty:

[external image]

[external image]

Another painting by Zhao Yong of the same subject:
Leisurely Rider with a Pebble Bow &#36249;&#38605; <&#25406;&#24392;&#36938;&#39438;&#22294;>
Yuan Dynasty
109 x 46.3 cm
Palace Museum, Beijing.

[external image]


[external image]

Leisurely Riders <&#36938;&#39438;&#22294;>
Tang dynasty
Unknown artist
22.7 x 94.8 cm
Palace Museum, Beijing.

[external image]

Aside from the obvious ones with strings in place, most of the others are strung too. Sometimes copyists miss the strings. These bows would come into the class of reflex/deflex construction which is the exact opposite to the deflex/reflex construction of the modern fibreglass composite. You see similar construction in some self bows where low string tension is intended at brace height. In those bows, the purpose is to keep a self bow strung for a long period without string follow.

I don't know what the advantage would be in stone bows. They seem to be laminated from two layers of bamboo at least.

Only the little boy in the upper pic has a pouch for carrying his ammo; a necessary piece of equipment for this sport. He has a pellet/pebble in hand ready to load and launch. The bow tips would seem backwards for a strung bow. The pouch is in a convenient location for quickly grabbing a pellet.

I wonder why three adults on horseback all wear red cloaks? is this part of a story?

I "found" this pellet bow in the Moschee-Magoki Attari Textile Museum in Bukhara, Uzbekistan last year. The label said early 18th Century. The cross section is round throughout, 1" greatest diameter, 56 1/2" nock to nock. Double string is twisted sinew or intestine. String is repaired with wire above.

Leather grip. The bow would appear to be upside down..

Sewn cloth pouch

Thank you Jack , good pics.

I admit that this looks like str8ng ready for shooting.

[external image]

The grip looks set back a little. The profile of the tips suggest that it's correctly strung for shooting.

Stephen; The only difference between this and all the other bows is the direction which the nocks are facing. Bend is same, fistmele is same. -j-