Traditional Archery
Traditional archery is a sport using the equipments made of specific materials and methods that were in use before the industrial revolution. It is more like a martial art than the modern archery as more mental and physical discipline is required to achieve the same result.
In addition, the equipments used in traditional archery are more like the ones which would have been used when bows and arrows were a part of the military. Practicing traditional archery is very similar to the various modern archery types. Similar to the other types, the traditional archery also requires a bow, some arrows, protective equipments and a target.
The bows used in traditional archery are mostly made of wood along with some other materials like leather, hide, horns, bone, feathers etc. used for giving the finishing touches. All type of bows like the longbow, crossbow, flatbow, recurve bows, compound bows can be used in traditional archery.
The traditional bow is sometimes more commonly termed as the hunting bow. It has a heavy draw, usually 50lbs or more that is based on the pattern which was very common during the time of military archery.
The term hunting bow or the traditional bow is usually referred to a recurve bow with a carved handle, sight window, an arrow shelf that is patterned after a design which was very common during the Victorian era. The back of a traditional bow faces away from the archer and is its critical part as it is subjected to extreme stress. If any weakness occurs at this place, it will eventually lead to a tragic failure.
Thus a thin strip of material is tied onto the back edge of the bow to either increase the bow’s tolerance against tension forces or to protect the back from the impact damage. Today, these bows are often made using modern materials like carbon fiber, glass fiber etc. and shoot very similar to the modern recurve bows.
The arrows used in traditional archery are made of wooden shafts, feather fletchings and points of either steel or brass. In the modern types of archery, the arrowheads are glued to the shaft while during the olden era they used to be tied. Also during the early years, the arrows used by the military and for hunting had broadhead points made from stones, copper or iron.
These broadheads have a cutting action which used to be very effective against flesh. Modern practitioners of today favor steel field points which are essentially a condensed bodkin. They also look quite authentic and do not tear the target into shreds like the broadhead.
The medieval European archers wore leather gloves to protect their fingers from the effect of drawing the bowstring and from the scratches caused by the arrows. A forearm bracer was used to protect their forearms from the impact of the bow string. Thus traditional archery is very much similar to most of the modern archery types except of the above mentioned points.
This entry was posted on Wednesday, September 10th, 2008 at 9:40 am and is filed under Archery Types. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.