When you hear the term “traditional archery,” you may find yourself wondering something like “isn’t archery already a traditional thing?” It’s a fair question, especially given that those not wholly familiar with modern archery likely imagine archery as they see it in the movies, with wooden bows and arrows during medieval combat or at really old school competitions during the days of Robin Hood. However, modern archery has broken from its traditional roots and has given itself wholly over to modern efficiency. Bows have traded their wooden bodies for carbon and aluminum frames, arrows, likewise, have traded in their wooden shafts for the same modern materials as bows, leather has been replaced by rubber, and traditional techniques for aiming and tuning have been exchanged for sights and stabilizers. Traditional archery hits the brakes on all of this exchanging and attempts to bring archery practitioners back to the roots of archery, where they can actually feel the bow fire, and where aiming is something more instinctual than technological.
So the real difference between modern archery and traditional archery is the equipment. The line between the two disciplines can become a little foggy when it comes to materials used. Most traditional archers are perfectly fine using bows made with modern materials (modern glues and fiberglass primarily) and modern techniques (such as the use of power tools). Others, however, prefer that their equipment, down to even the materials and techniques used to build it be natural. This will typically result in bows made from wood primarily with parts made of bone, sinew, rawhide, and leather that are bound in places by natural animal glue. The arrows likewise would consist of wood shafts, and bird feathers bound on with natural fibers and arrowheads made from knapped stone or flint. Bowstring too would be made from some sort of natural material such as hemp, linen, or silk using a traditional construction method, most commonly the Flemish-twist style of bowstring construction.
While there are some gray areas in regards to what is and is not “traditional archery,” there are some hard and fast lines. Traditional archery includes longbows and recurves, and even some crossbows, but anything with wheels and a pulley system is out. Compound bows are not considered a part of traditional archery. Also, anything with tuning accessories or modern sights is going to fall outside the range of what traditional archery encompasses. So even if you’re shooting a wooden recurve bow made with all natural materials, if it includes some sort of stabilizer or a modern sight of some kind then it’s not considered a traditional style bow.
Thankfully restrictions on arrows are not as stringent. Typically any arrow you could use with a modern bow, you can also use with a traditional bow, though wooden arrows tend to be kinder to wooden bows and they just look and feel more like the kind of arrow you’d use with a traditional setup. Strings, on the other hand, have to be made of a material that the bow can survive using. If the bow is made with modern materials, generally any kind of string material should be fine (typically it will be noted by the bow seller if it’s not safe for certain materials). However, if the bow is made from traditional materials, it’s likely you’ll need a particular type of string material to allow the bow to survive extend use. Typically these materials will have a bit more stretchiness to them than will modern materials which does reduce arrow speed by a little, but they don’t cause traditional bows to break during use, so it’s a fair trade-off.
The final difference between modern and traditional archery is how you aim. Those accustomed to modern sights will likely find this the most difficult part of traditional archery to get used to. Instead of lining up your peep sight with the appropriately colored peg on your sight, you have to look down your arrow shaft and determine from that exactly how to maneuver your bow to place your shot where you want it. Because of the fact that you’re to the side of your arrow, you have to adjust your shot to the right a bit for right handed archers and to the left a bit for left handed archers. This required adjustment is actually why you’ll sometimes see archers fire their traditional bow sidewise. This technique eliminates the need for the side adjustment and instead puts the slight skew of the shot into the arc, allowing for increased range, however the bow is much harder to pull back in this configuration and much more difficult to aim due to not being able to sight down the shaft, hence why many traditional archers shoot at an angel, mixing the benefits and drawbacks of the two styles.
Traditional archery, while often not as popular as modern archery is for competition, it is still a part of competitive target, field, and 3D archery tournaments. It is important of course to find out what equipment and aiming techniques your tournaments allow for their competitions. These types of competitions are commonly referred to as recurve and or barebow competitions, though names may vary.
No matter what the reason, and no matter just how traditional you want to go with it, traditional archery helps modern archers reconnect with the old world feel of archery and helps to remind every archer of our sports traditions and history.
Research for this article was conducted at the following sites:
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