I have just started doing traditional archery, and I'm trying to use period
manuals to shoot in the style of the Turks of the middle ages. However, I'm running into something of a problem when it comes to aiming. Using a thumb ring, the arrow is on the right side of the bow. However, this makes it impossible to sight down the arrow the way you would in western-style archery using the mediterranean draw. I looked up some information on how Kyudo practitioners do it, and it seems that they don't really aim at the target in the western sense at all. Could you help clarify this for me? How do I aim? Thanks for any help,
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Thank you for your question.
Keep in mind that the Turks and most other oriental cultures shot both on the ground and on horseback. So aiming in the Western sense (i.e. aligning three points) doesn't work because of the continuous motion of the horse.
Instead, you need to use the approach you would use if you were trying to hit the target with a stone. To do that, you need to have some sense of the arrow in flight.
You don't get that sense when shooting at a close target because the arrow's at the target almost as soon as you have released. So I suggest starting out with a very small target (Coke can) set at 70 metres. Shoot off lots of arrows just by looking at the target and nothing else. Don't have any particular expectation of hitting it. Just let your eye and hand find their own accommodation.
When you have your arrows not going too wild (i.e. generally going to the same place, even if it's not exactly at the target) then then go back to closer target shooting (about 15m). But it's important to focus on a tiny point on your near target and pretend that it is still the Coke can at 70 metres.
Hope that helps.
S
Bede
If you follow Stephen's method, you will develop a viable way of aiming for yourself. Also when you reread the manuals, some of the obscure comments will start to make sense.
The description of aiming from Kani in Turkish Archery and the Composite Bow is particularly misleading. Firstly Kani is quoting sources, like Taybugha, who knew nothing of shooting with the siper. Secondly, Hein, doing the initial translation into German, was unsure of the correct side of the bow to place the arrow on. Thirdly, Klopsteg translating the German into English was not particularly interested in target archery. The result is difficult to follow.
Both Arab Archery and Saracen Archery are easier to follow, but the aiming methods will not work unless you draw to the ear and align the arrow shaft with the part of the face specified in the text. Even changing the stance affects how aiming works.
This is why Stephen's method offers the best inroduction into aiming while using the thumb ring. You might find that at longer distances, closing one eye or the other will help.
enno
There is an aiming theory "become the arrow". It's author is Byron Ferguson and he is a really nice (amazing, dead accurate) shooter. He is shooting a longbow using mediterrian draw but never the less I suggest you to learn more about it.
Basic idea is that you have to project the arrow trajectory in air and and set your shooting angle accordingly. Aim directly to the center of the target (arrow hitting place) but use peripheral vision to see the arrow path in the air. It requires pactise, practise and practise but not just that. It requires even more (as Fergusion says) a smart practise. :-)
Just type his name to the Google and you'll find it. Hope that helps.
Adam Karpowicz
I do not quite agree with the proponents of the "pure" instinctive aiming. The bow grip, the hand, the target and the arrow are positioned in a certain geometric arrangement, and this position is remembered (iconsciously or not) by the archer. The Taybugha gave descriptions of the geometry - I agree about the confusion, however, which is related to eye dominance.
What worked for me (and others) is this:
1. establish your eye dominance
2. cover your non-dominant eye
3. shoot until you start hitting the target and consciously make an effort to remember the geometry of what you see
4. once you are comfortable, shoot with your both eyes open
5. repeat as needed
After enough practice you will no longer do any conscious "aiming" and you shooting will be instinctive, whatever that means.
Adam
jack farrell
How to improve if one is right handed but left-eye dominant?
Alina
Hello, I wrote the initial letter. Thank you all very much for your responses. I haven't had a great deal of experience with archery, so I'm still getting used to all of the various methods one can use. The club I practice at mostly shoots olympic style recurves with modern sights, or compound hunting bows with sights. A few people use traditional longbows. However, none of that really helps very much in learning to shoot an asiatic recurve with a thumb ring - something I'm rapidly discovering can be very complicated indeed. I'm trying to put the methods Stephen mentioned to good use, but it looks like it will just take a lot of practice (like anything else). If anyone else has any aiming tips, I'd greatly appreciate them.
I'm leaning more towards using Taybugha as his instructions seem to be clearer. However, both authors really failed me when it came to aiming - I didn't get what they were saying at all. I have no doubt it is my shortcoming rather than theirs, but it'll take time before it starts to sink in and make sense. Again, thank you for the responses,
Alina
Stephen Selby
Adam, I think that there can be purely instinctive aiming. but I admit that mostly there isn't in practice.
If you are going to learn a body geometry, Alina, make sure that it incorporates all the components of a good, full draw. The good form must come first (even if you consistently miss the target when you use it). A habit of shooting that achieves hits without good technical form is not sustainable long-term.
Stephen Selby
Also from Alina:
Today, I tried shooting at a target about 5 inches in diameter from 70m. My first shot hit the target - I was flabbergasted. Fortunately, the laws of the universe soon returned and I missed every subsequent shot.
Stephen: Funny about hitting the target first time: that often happens. Then once the intellect takes over, things start to go pear-shaped :)
Alina
Stephen Selby wrote:
Adam, I think that there can be purely instinctive aiming. but I admit that mostly there isn't in practice.
If you are going to learn a body geometry, Alina, make sure that it incorporates all the components of a good, full draw. The good form must come first (even if you consistently miss the target when you use it). A habit of shooting that achieves hits without good technical form is not sustainable long-term.
Fortunately, I had a couple of kyudo lessons in the weeks leading up to deciding to try Turkish archery. And, while I've set doing kyudo aside, I find myself using that body geometry, as it's the only way of doing a thumb draw that I know. The closer I keep to the kyudo style of draw, the better my accuracy tends to be, and the easier the shooting tends to be. I don't draw fully behind the head with my kassai bow, but I get a full, deep draw that I wasn't getting before using it with the mediterranean draw.
Adam Karpowicz
Jack, it does not matter if you are cross-dominant or not. The sight picture will be different, but still consistent. The geometry of the hand/bow/arrow arangement is a shortcut towards the "instinctive" shooting technique.
The Stephen's remark about form is right on, this is the most difficult part to master.
Adam
Bede
I agree with what Stephen and Adam are saying. With proper form and consistent release, accuracy follows. The most important thing to establish is grouping. Once the arrows start landing together, then it is relatively minor to move that group onto the target.
The first-shot accuracy shows you what you can do when your mind is relaxed and concentrated. I don't think it is a fluke. Many hunters rely on the phenomenon to some degree, but over time your other shots start to approach those so called lucky ones.
Stephen is right in saying the mind often interferes with shooting. Concentrating on one thing when trying to think of others can be very unsuccessful, but it is how we learn. Persistance and intelligent observation pay off.
Russ Mitchell
Hi, I'm Russ, and I'm an inconsistent archer.
(::chorus:: Hi, Russ.... ::chorus::)
I had a carefully set-up backyard range that turned out not to be as safe as I thought it was, so I'm not able to do my hundred-shafts-per-day program any more. Back in Hungary I used to shoot from a log laid out like a horse's back, at about 20. When I was on, I could hit the knot on the cord holding a 2-liter soda bottle consistently. When I was off, it'd go into the haybales a foot and a half away.
But when I was on, there was a *feel* to it, and body alignment was very much part of it. The more I'm able to drop into that mental feeling, the easier the alignment stays consistent. I use neither a thumbring nor a mediterranean draw, but a variant on the primary draw that Cumans are depicted using... shooting from the chest just like those images do. But my ability to relax mentally is what seems to keep me either in or out of alignment.
Alina
Russ Mitchell wrote:
Hi, I'm Russ, and I'm an inconsistent archer.
(::chorus:: Hi, Russ.... ::chorus::)
I had a carefully set-up backyard range that turned out not to be as safe as I thought it was, so I'm not able to do my hundred-shafts-per-day program any more. Back in Hungary I used to shoot from a log laid out like a horse's back, at about 20. When I was on, I could hit the knot on the cord holding a 2-liter soda bottle consistently. When I was off, it'd go into the haybales a foot and a half away.
But when I was on, there was a *feel* to it, and body alignment was very much part of it. The more I'm able to drop into that mental feeling, the easier the alignment stays consistent. I use neither a thumbring nor a mediterranean draw, but a variant on the primary draw that Cumans are depicted using... shooting from the chest just like those images do. But my ability to relax mentally is what seems to keep me either in or out of alignment.
Your name sounds very familiar, Russ. Are you on Swordforum or something?
Michal
Alina,
If i may say,
any type of aiming consists of combination of outer picture (got by vision) and inner picture (got by your proprioception- feeling of position of parts of your body- body scheme).
When you shoot the rifle, and use the iron sights its more easy to hit the target than when you shoot hangun, with the same type of sights. The explanation is, that when shooting the handgun its more difficult to get hand to the same position every single shot.
When you will shoot without any sights, just looking to the target, that means that you have to make corrections of gun position only by your proprioception - body feeling, with the rifle you will be better as well.
In archery its much more complicated than with handgun, bacause there are many variables of position of bow, arow on the bow, on the string, hand holding arrow etc. Its the same in all types of draw. When you throw stone its the same problem, and its of course more difficult to hit.
There are some genious shooters, whose body feeling is so good, and spacial vision so good, and ability to combine all these informations into one idea so excelent, that they should shoot from different positions with diferent bows and arrows very good, until they get basic feeling of arrow fligth which they actually use.
Of course its something what you should train, but your final level depends not only of training, but much more of inborn abilities of spacial vision and ability of mental construction of space relationships using informations from different sensual modalities.
So when you started to shoot without using vision control of relationship between target position bow and arrow, you entered into "higher level" of aiming. But its still aiming. I think.
Russ Mitchell
(Not in a very long time: those people think a hundred repetitions constitutes training.)
Alina
Russ Mitchell wrote:
(Not in a very long time: those people think a hundred repetitions constitutes training.)
Well I think a hundred repetitions isn't a bad day's training. I try my best to shoot over 100 times a day, but my arrows are suffering terrible attrition.
Michal
"Practice doesn't make perfect; only perfect practice makes perfect. If you practice crap for twenty years, all you'll be is a crapmaster."
Marc Fleischmann
Southern California SWAT operator/trainer
:wink:
Stephen Selby
"Practice doesn't make perfect; only perfect practice makes perfect. If you practice crap for twenty years, all you'll be is a crapmaster."
Marc Fleischmann
A nice quote, which could almost be a translation of Gao Shuying writing in China almost 300 years earlier.
Russ Mitchell
I have the same problem with arrow attrition, Alina. Counter-intuitively, I've found that the cheap nasty shafts tend to last the longest.
Speaking of which, Stephen, I've flipped down to a lighter-weight bow due to my surroundings, if you still have aluminum arrows hanging around.
Regarding the OT forum, I was actually talking about fencing... But since I train for speed/fluidity as well as accuracy (following the advice of pseudo-Maurikios' Taktika), a hundred arrows doesn't mean much when you can empty a twenty-arrow quiver in roughly a minute -- and that ain't even close to the speeds achieved by the folks Kassai teaches (though I don't care for their technique on historical grounds, you have to respect that kind of shot speed).
So, no insult was intended. For me, 100 shafts is more like "de-stress after work" than "training."
Michal
For me, 100 shafts is more like "de-stress after work" than "training."
I agree Russ, and when the shooting is practised together with deep abdominal breathing, mind gets calm and fluent very quickly. That time becomes the best part of the day :)
Stephen Selby
Speaking of which, Stephen, I've flipped down to a lighter-weight bow due to my surroundings, if you still have aluminum arrows hanging around.
Not really, I'm afraid.
I have two causes of arrow attrition. Breakage is one. The other is that wherever I go in China, people demand my arrows as mementos, and give me their beautiful but totally impractical arrows in return. :(
Russ Mitchell
:lol:
Yeah, I've got some that would get me arrested, too. Gorgeous... not suitable for practice... btw, anybody else around here pulling from an arrowhead-up quiver set up, or am I the only one?
Bede
Russ,
I made one and have not had any trouble with it. One of the people I shoot with at archery practice also has one and handles it quite well. He uses three fingers and I use the thumb draw.
Russ Mitchell
Great. Good to know I"m not the only one. My rhythm is "lift, (bowhand secure)+shift right hand to nock, pull+release (no hold). I average just under a shot every three seconds with medium-weight bows.
If you've shot without a hold, have you noticed yourself being indifferent about how far you pull the string, so long as your shaft hits the target, or does your aiming involve a set "always to here"+hold?
Stephen Selby
If you've shot without a hold, have you noticed yourself being indifferent about how far you pull the string, so long as your shaft hits the target, or does your aiming involve a set "always to here"+hold?
I think that's a bit of a slippery slope. It may be ok to be indifferent if you and the target are stationary and you get enough penetration and not too mich drop off; but with a moving target/archer, you need the speed delivered by a full draw, otherwise you have to put in a bigger offset to allow for the sideways movement. And if you don't work from a full draw, how big will that offset be?
Reaching full draw doesn't necessarily mean that you have to hold, though.
Russ Mitchell
Obviously bigger. You're absolutely right, I haven't gotten access to a horse. Hrm... I have a nearby levee, though, and a friend with a pickup truck...
Bede
I draw until the point of the arrow touches the the thumb of the bow hand. You can use that sensation like a modern archer uses a clicker and shoot immediately if you have aimed during the draw.
Alina
I find that there is a pattern developing. If I do my kyudo form, or the mongolian form Stephen posted, I hit the target. If I shoot without concentrating on the form, I miss.
jiao
i'm interesting this topic, in fact , the feeling of straight line the god give our human, it on our hands, fingers,foot,it not need use eyes aiming, perhaps it is a secret of army
yestoday i am try this way but failed , some unstable reason happen caused i take a wrong way on arms and waist, the gesture and musculature must be stable
