4 ms·

I'd love to know the draw weights of the bows he's using. One of the differences between the sort of archery he's doing and the standard recurve competition sh

I'd love to know the draw weights of the bows he's using. One of the differences between the sort of archery he's doing and the standard recurve competition shooting you'll see is that the latter is much slower, more relaxed, with very defined, conscious aiming. The idea is to do precisely the same thing, with your whole body, over and over and over again. His aiming is completely instinctual. Because of the way the arrow will drift away from the bow sideways if you put it on the right, I doubt it would be worth using the bow as part of your sighting at all. On the one hand, I can believe he'd be able to do this sort of thing quite easily with low-powered bows. On the other, you really wouldn't want to be holding the sorts of positions he gets into for very long at all if they were heavier. I'd also, just for interest's sake, be interested to put him up against an experienced modern recurve archer at, say, 40 metres. Close range trick-shots would, I suspect, lose out to more refined technique over much more than that.

Tharkun 12y ago
Try hitting a moving target at 40 metres. You'll probably miss. He'll probably miss as well, but he'll have a significant edge being able to shoot while moving closer towards the other archer. Kyudo is a very nice and sort of meditative experience. I'm guessing it's the same for other forms of stationary archery. It'll really teach you how to work your bow. Slowly and methodically. No one who practices kyudo expects to be able to fight a battle with it. This guy pretty much shows why.
- BashiBazouk 12y ago
  The samurai to which kyudo is descended from certainly expected to win battles with it...
  - ramblerman 12y ago
    The samurai were noted horse archers so they seem to have adoped the move and shoot approach for actual combat as well.
timw0j 12y ago
I imagine that in combat (as bows were used when these techniques were "lost") you didn't have to be bullseye-accurate. Close to where you were aiming is often good enough.
- yellowapple 12y ago
  On the other hand, he manages to be bullseye-accurate (as evidenced by the size of many of the targets he managed to hit - including hitting other arrows mid-flight).
  - Zibulon 12y ago
    Actually not so hard - below 30 meters, you can have that kind of accuracy with not too much effort IMHO - in recurve archery, we shoot only 3 arrows, on separate targets, starting at 50 meters, to avoid breaking arrows (the next one hitting the preceding one). At 30 meters, I can let go of sight and a lot of technique and still be "bullseye" as he is.
wonsler 12y ago
He is very specifically releasing quickly. I didn't see anywhere an attempt to hold a bow in position for a long time to aim --- just like throwing a ball, you don't have to hold it cocked when you are an expert. How are these trick shots, and not refined? Those sound like belittling statements. He has done good research and discovery of how ancient warriors fought. It is fair to call them different techniques, but not refined vs unrefined. It would take some serious practice to duplicate the masters in either style.
tormeh 12y ago
So you want to compare sports archery vs combat archery and expect the results to be anything less than obvious? Your comment does make me consider, though, whether longbowmen use a technique more similar to the modern sports technique than to Andersen's here. Kind of like how sniping is more similar to target practice than urban combat.
- mcguire 12y ago
  Maybe, maybe not. :-) Accuracy vs. volume of fire is not an easy question to settle, given that they can't be compared directly, but require very different tactics and training. Check this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WOHGUExSGH8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WOHGUExSGH8 (and for background, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XomJdLZGyCM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XomJdLZGyCM ). Most of the depictions of longbowmen in battle that I've seen make me suspect that they're going down the volume-of-fire route.
Zibulon 12y ago
From the trajectory of one of his outdoor shots, IMHO, he shoots 25-30 lbs.

Tharkun 12y ago

Try hitting a moving target at 40 metres. You'll probably miss. He'll probably miss as well, but he'll have a significant edge being able to shoot while moving closer towards the other archer. Kyudo is a very nice and sort of meditative experience. I'm guessing it's the same for other forms of stationary archery. It'll really teach you how to work your bow. Slowly and methodically. No one who practices kyudo expects to be able to fight a battle with it. This guy pretty much shows why.

BashiBazouk 12y ago
The samurai to which kyudo is descended from certainly expected to win battles with it...
- ramblerman 12y ago
  The samurai were noted horse archers so they seem to have adoped the move and shoot approach for actual combat as well.

timw0j 12y ago

I imagine that in combat (as bows were used when these techniques were "lost") you didn't have to be bullseye-accurate. Close to where you were aiming is often good enough.

yellowapple 12y ago
On the other hand, he manages to be bullseye-accurate (as evidenced by the size of many of the targets he managed to hit - including hitting other arrows mid-flight).
- Zibulon 12y ago
  Actually not so hard - below 30 meters, you can have that kind of accuracy with not too much effort IMHO - in recurve archery, we shoot only 3 arrows, on separate targets, starting at 50 meters, to avoid breaking arrows (the next one hitting the preceding one). At 30 meters, I can let go of sight and a lot of technique and still be "bullseye" as he is.

wonsler 12y ago

He is very specifically releasing quickly. I didn't see anywhere an attempt to hold a bow in position for a long time to aim --- just like throwing a ball, you don't have to hold it cocked when you are an expert. How are these trick shots, and not refined? Those sound like belittling statements. He has done good research and discovery of how ancient warriors fought. It is fair to call them different techniques, but not refined vs unrefined. It would take some serious practice to duplicate the masters in either style.

tormeh 12y ago

So you want to compare sports archery vs combat archery and expect the results to be anything less than obvious? Your comment does make me consider, though, whether longbowmen use a technique more similar to the modern sports technique than to Andersen's here. Kind of like how sniping is more similar to target practice than urban combat.

mcguire 12y ago
Maybe, maybe not. :-) Accuracy vs. volume of fire is not an easy question to settle, given that they can't be compared directly, but require very different tactics and training. Check this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WOHGUExSGH8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WOHGUExSGH8 (and for background, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XomJdLZGyCM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XomJdLZGyCM ). Most of the depictions of longbowmen in battle that I've seen make me suspect that they're going down the volume-of-fire route.

Zibulon 12y ago

From the trajectory of one of his outdoor shots, IMHO, he shoots 25-30 lbs.