Some questions for Bede (and interested)

Gianrico,
The training exercises in the Middle East were very similar to the Japanese makiwara practice where you shot into a close soft target with unfletched arrows from a weak bow until you had achieved perfect form and arrow flight. According to Murat the Turks also shot heavy bows in the same way. This allows you to practise without worrying about the target and aiming. You build the foundation of shooting without distraction.

Of course, you never achieve "perfect" form, but you do achieve a lot of control how you draw the bow and release the arrow. Watching how the arrow enters the target is an important way of checking your shooting. When you are shooting at normal targets, watching the arrow in flight also tells you about your shooting.

I try to concentrate on what I did right in the good shots and what I did wrong in the bad shots. I think that confuses me sometimes.

Despite occasional good shots, I am not a very good archer. Too many years of being interested in many different types of shooting have made it hard to become good at one.

I shoot mainly with some old laminated korean bows, a Gr?zer or two and a composite by Adam Karpowicz. I don't think the bows affect your shooting as much as technique. What they do is improve your self image and concentration. You focus much more carefully. Another thing the bows do is change where you aim. This is the difference between fast bows and slow bows. Heavy bows tire you more quickly and eventually expose weaknesses in your technique, but shoot well at first when you are fresh.

Bede wrote:

I try to concentrate on what I did right in the good shots and what I did wrong in the bad shots. I think that confuses me sometimes.

G: I'm just a beginner, training from a few months, but I've yet noted the importance of concentration. And experimented the "advanced feeling" of a right shot. When this feeling is there, the arrow is surely in the yellow circle, doesn't matter if you shoot at 15 or 30 meters. And follow through is also more natural and spontaneus.

Despite occasional good shots, I am not a very good archer. Too many years of being interested in many different types of shooting have made it hard to become good at one.

G: I think you're a very modest person, not quite sure you're right :wink:

What they do is improve your self image and concentration. You focus much more carefully. Another thing the bows do is change where you aim. This is the difference between fast bows and slow bows. Heavy bows tire you more quickly and eventually expose weaknesses in your technique, but shoot well at first when you are fresh.

I will keep it in mind. My program is to reach a 80# bow in two years from the 46# I actually shoot, with an "intermediate bow" of 65#. It will be useful to conserve the first bow for makiwara or technical refinements.

Thanks, best regards

Gianrico

I would suspect that the technique will differ for heavy bow and for lightweight bow.
What do you think Bede?

Jaroslav,
Strangely, there is only a minor variation. The tension in the little, ring and middle fingers, when drawing a light bow, is less than when drawing a strong bow.

There is a comment that the two-finger over the thumb lock (somewhat like the Japanese) was an alternative for very strong bows.

I have found increasing the pressure of the thumb on the middle segment of the middle finger is the best way to deal with heavy bows.

One rule of thumb :D I have is that I do not shoot a bow with a thumb guard unless I can draw it bare thumbed. There is no point to shooting a bow that is causing you pain.

I was thinking more about drawing movement of body and hands than to thumb position.

But as it appears the technique itself is made for considerably heavier bows than those used in sport today?

Jaroslav,
You are right: many of the discussions of drawing the bow hinge on keeping the shoulders and elbows on the same plane. This ensures a strong draw with the back doing most of the work.

"One rule of thumb I have is that I do not shoot a bow with a thumb guard unless I can draw it bare thumbed. There is no point to shooting a bow that is causing you pain."

Even with an 80lb bow? I could go up to 50lb bare thumbed, but after that the pain in the thumb's joint was too much, even though the flesh had toughened very nicely. I can not imagine pulling really heavy bows bare thumbed.

As you said, the tightly clenched drawing hand is necessary for pulling heavy bows. I find starting the draw with the bow hand extended and somewhat elevated is also helpful.

Adam

Adam,
To further qualify my comment, I particularly said draw and not shoot. My 80 pound bow leaves a red mark on the pad of my thumb for 5 minutes or more.

I don't have any callouses on my thumb though the skin feels a little rough on the left edge near the joint.

For the bow hand, I make sure I push the flesh between the thumb and the base of the forefinger towards the palm of the hand. I push forward with the web of skin between the thumb and forefinger and grip tightly with the middle, ring and little fingers. If I don't relax the bow hand thumb, I can have a bad shot or the arrow will sting the skin of the thumb.

When I become tired and slacken my grip on a small handled bow with a heavy draw weight, I get a blister on the palm at the base of the little finger.

With the eighty pound bow I shake at full draw. I am not very fit at the moment.

hi,
last year I started to teach the children within our archery community.Even I was used to introduce kids into archery for years while making selfbows in schools,it was and is a challenge for me to advise the same group of boys and girls for a longer time and to see their advancements.Very soon it turned out that the kids started to teach me in advising me how to start with archery.
Don?t start with anything that makes you pain,keep your elbow and shoulder in the same plane and let the back do the work.Start with a little target shooting,shoot one arrow and try to place the other arrows as close as possible to it(very popular for kids and adult beginners),try to shoot across a river or a little lake,or shoot the arrow between two trees......
I would advise for targetshooting to start with little marks like the haybundles used by the Native Americans,for developing accuracy the usual targets a too big.As soon as target shooting makes you tired or you realize that you have a bad day stop it and go roving or make some flight shots.
But for to become a good archer you have to develop your will to hit the target every day and this turns out to be the greatest obstacle.
If I realize that I have a lazy day I appoint not to stop till I?ve hit my marks 4 or 10 times.
To develop accuracy I found it necessary to pratice some of the Asian yoga-and meditation-exercises,for archery I found the so called "5 Tibetans" very,very useful,cause they are based on stretching and releasing your body according to your breath.Kids like them too.
There is a lot to say and to share on archery,shooting-styles......
but the best is to shot your bow as often as possible and to become the pilot of your arrows.

Redhawk,
What you said makes sense. When I started to learn to shoot composite bows, the person who taught me said that the smaller the target we used, the easier it would be to hit. We used a bottle top on a string at 10 yards. He hit it first time. I took his advice very seriously after that.

Self confidence is very important, but so is consistency. All the old books advocate the type of teaching which would make shooting an unconscious process and then tell you to clear your mind so you won't be distracted by anything else.

The mental state seems to be much more important than we can state. Not only the concentration prior to the shot but the learning process was strongly related to some mental processes.

The conventional Asian education system was based on a "spiritual" guidence rather than an intellectual knowledge transfer.

The stereotypical application of the technique, like makiwara training in Karate or Kyudo (and probably the Turkish torba training that Bede mentioned) made the student physically and mentally so exhausted that he can not have any conscious thoughts related to what he's actually doing. In this state of mind the body behaves the way it has to be: natural and correct. The result is the perfect performance.

The teacher/master's role should have been very important and hard to play because he was taught the same way and probably had no "analytic description" of the technique and no knowledge to transfer this "ability" in an intellectual or/and verbal method. He was only a guide who had walked the same path years ago (The old, wise-looking, charismatic masters might have been thinking that they had been cursed to be there to teach them... Simply because they didn't know how) .

It's difficult to understand that for us, whose minds are under the pressure of rationalism and positive science. Sometimes I think that we're thinking and talking too much about how we can perfect our form, hold the string, increasing our draw weight, etc.

Still, I will appreciate any advice to help me correcting my arrow's exagrated fishtailing...

Cheers.

M

While I agree the ancients had the more "spiritual" approach to teaching archery, I would rather think this was more common in the Far East.

There is no shortage of detailed technical instructions in Kani's treatise also in Taybugha and in Arab Archery, all based on earlier work by "masters". These instructions, although sometimes ambiguous due to the imprecise nature of the language, still make sense for a student. In my opinion the Islamic world was probably the most "rational" and "analytical", see the achievements in science at the time. People used the tools they had in a rational way.

Murat, it seems to me the fishtailing may be a bad release? Or a widely uderspined arrow.

Adam

I am by no means a good archer (at twenty feet, I can't even keep my quiver on a sheet of paper -- though I do try to hit a much smaller target than that)... but every time I get a bad fishtail, it's either because my release was bad, or because I let my bow hand wobble when I shot...

but I'm drawing to the chest, and for lack of training, not using a thumb release (I can't seem to get a decent release, my groups are awful. Too dangerous for backyard shooting when you nearly put a shaft over the fence...), so your mileage may vary.

Adam,

I agree that the "Golden Age" of Islam arose on rational and scientific bases. But archery, like many other martial arts, was based on mystical aspect of the religion. The esotheric face of Islam, sufism was quiet different and "heterodox" than the original or "orthodox" Islam.

The scripts describing the early dervishes indicate that they looked much more like Shamans with "illegal" (in point of Islamic view) clothing, unconventional hair styles and some primitive musical instruments. They were spiritual leaders of mystic warriors who came to Anatolia in the early 12th century. These leaders' political and social influence was so remarkable that the governments mostly promote Sunni Islam (the orthodox aspect) to maintain a balance and keep up their political power, while still co-operating with the dervish leaders. The father-in law of Osman, the founder of the Empire was a sufi leader. So was the most important teacher of Mehmet the 2nd.

It sounds logical that the warriors were practical and pragmatic men who were trying to survive on the battle field. Like the Japanese samurai who have had the benefits of Zen, just because the Zen practice made them act faster and with no doubts (mercy, hesitation, etc.) in killing the enemy. In fact, their offical religion was Shinto.

Janissaries were following the Bektashi order, another heterodox approach to Islam, for example. But many authors agree that it became "folkloric" in time and lost its real meaning. The moral values related to this spiritual teaching got somehow lost (It's maybe like the Bushido that was not strictly followed by all samurai).

The more liberal interpretation of all Islamic rules in Ottoman social life (even now in Turkey) was the result of this Asiatic life style. That must have an effect on the transfer of knowledge anyway. In Kani's book many details are not given because he thought "they're very common and already known by anybody" (Klopsteg stated that too). Something that may be an argument for the non-analytic approach to teaching.

Thanks for the tips for correcting the fishtailing. I tried both 50 pound spined wood shafts and 40 pound spined aluminums (spine value for a center shot bows). Both fishtails. I'm sure I got to work out till I got a "sense" of thumb release. BTW, doesn't thumbrelease have to tolorate a larger spectrum of spines? Should I try weaker shafts?

Thnks.

M.

Murat:

The thumb release does not eliminate the issue of spine. The bows' grips have a certain width for the arrows to go around, they are not centershot.

If your draw length is 28" or so, and the bow is 50lb, both arrows should work reasonably well. With good release, arrows of higher spine could also be used.

If your draw is more than 28", you should use arrows spined higher than 40/50lb.

I wonder sometimes, if our knowledge about the ancients is not skewed. We base our knowledge on old texts. However, most people who were educated enough to write at the time were not the front men to do battle. Plus, references to religion were obligatory in all aspects of life, regardless of real "practical" need.

To kill without mercy and to obey orders without question, one needs to be in a group of trusted friends who do exactly the same. The religious orders helped to provide this cohesion, but would not teach how to shoot a bow.

Adam

Adam,

The orthodox religious orders do not. But the practices of mystical schools may be helpful in enhancing the mental skills to learn and master martial arts, maybe shooting a bow too.

With the "higher spine" you think about 55-60, or so? Ironically, switching from 2018 shafts spined for 50 pound center shot recurve to weaker shafts (spined for 40 p. center shot) worked very well in reducing the inconsistency and fishtailing of the arrows.

BTW my draw is about 29.5'' when I use thumb release, 28.5'' when I shoot by anchoring to the corner of my mouth with 50 pound center shot recurve.

M.

hi,
it is obvious that in every culture of the past and the present mystic or shamanic pratices are used to refine the human being and so we have a direct connection to religion.
The samurai-warriors were teached in different ways of selfcontrol,in mental skills,same story with the dog-soldiers among the Native Americans and nowadays GI?s or secret-service people or top athletes.
These people live a life like monks apart from their communities without sexual activities for to become a real master of his art.
All the very good archers I know try one those practises to refine their mental skills as a kind of basement for good and beautiful shots.
I guess Stephen could say a lot to this topic with his experience in Quigong and archery.

Murat:

Thumb release is sharper, so higher spined arrows can generally be used. I find wood arrows spined (as sold) for the same weight bows work well, also arrows spined 5-10lb higher. This is for arrows made of light woods, such as cedar or pine. Heavier arrows have to be spined higher for the same dynamic spine.

1" arrow length over 28" will require 5lb higher spine. I would think a wood arrow spined at 45-50lb would work well, if your bow is 40lb @ 29.5".

I never use aliminum or carbon arrows, spined high for centershot bows.

Adam

Agreed with Adam about spine. In fact, in my research on Chinese archery, although there is detailed attention given to the relationship between arrows and draw-weights, the concept of spine was never addressed. All attention was concentrated on the relationship between the weight of the arrow and the draw weight of the bow.

Arrows were barrelled. Because there was relatively little choice about the materials available to make arrows at any one time, their spine varied a lot. On the other hand, a set of arrows intended for the same bow could vary quite a lot in length.

In the Classics, it was pointed out that a shaft could bend differently according to the orientation in which the bamboo had grown. It was therefore important to ensure that in any set of arrows, the relative spine should be oriented in the same direction related to the nock.

Some one had rised here the problem to maintain allignement between elbows and shoulder during drawing.
I read in Arab treatises that they inist a lot on hands- elbows-shoulders alligment on horizontal plan. Do you mains the same things? Or do you refer to the vertical plan?
I.e. what is the more important allignement of elbows-shoulders, the horizontal or vertical one ?

Giovanni

The most important alignment would be in the horizontal (i.e. as seen from facing the archer's chest). It is not really possible to get a perfect elignment in the other planes.

The Chinese talked of 'five levels', meaning l fist, l elbow, l shoulder, r shoulder, r elbow. There were also 'three close', which was meant to achieve alignment as seen from above the archer.

S.

Giovanni,
Some of the old Arabic books, because of the original and then the problems in translation, are vague about exactly what they meant.

It is clear that they thought the elbows and the shoulders should be aligned and they mention aligning the hands. However, in Turkish flight archery there was some variation because the archer was shooting at almost 45 degrees.

My impression is that the hands were also aligned with each other, but, looking at some old photographs of Turkish archers provided to me by Murat, I think the alignment was meant to be in the drawing to get maximum benefit from the back muscles. At full draw, you might have to elevate the bow hand for increased range or tilt at the waist in the manner of Sultan Murat in the miniature of him kabak shooting from horseback.

Much of the advice on drawing the bow presupposed that the bow was heavy and you needed a balanced stance to keep control of it. My experience only extends to bows of 80 pounds, but I found it easier to draw the heavy bows by keeping hands, elbows and shoulders level for the first 75% of the draw.

Dear Stephen and Bede,

first we can define what we means for horizontal and vertical plans. I means for horizontal the imaginary (horizontal !) plan that pass above the archer's arms; for vertical: the imaginary plan that pass along the archer's body from up to down.
I agree that old arab books are often confused because of transaltions, but in this case they seems clear. They speak of an horizontal alignement, indicating precisely that elbows, hands and shoulders they must stand at the same distance from terrains.