Which bow to Beginn KTA (Page 2 of 5)

And yes there is much confusion on the net regarding khatra and torque.  The two are jumbled up with each other, and I've even seen it done by one other person here besides you.  Maybe this will help:

khatra: forward wrist movement; said to improve speed

torque: sideways wrist movement; said to improve flight of the arrow (make more of a 'center shot')

That's good.

A pinch draw is probably more archaic and 'natural'.  Mostly what Paleolithic people would have done.

Some of it more than others.  Some people add more mind stuff then is really needed and others vice versa.

This much is true.  Except the war thing.  That probably doesn't happen until the Neolithic or later Meso.

So Saracen Archery is actually based off of a treatsie on archery written by Taybugha in the Middle East in the 1300s.  I find myself repeating things alot in this conversation....  Anyway, his work was not entitled 'Saracen Archery' mind you and there were plenty of other treatsie on archery not only in the middle east, but also Europe, and East Asia.  The thing with Saracen Archery is this: it is the most accessible, most comprehensive translation with insertions on Asiatic archery we have today.  There is a lot of stuff probably from Joseon era Korea but also feudal Japan that we don't have access to because it has not been translated yet for western consumption.

Good belief to have as its is actually backed by empirical knowledge too.

Not only the word, but technique too.  I mean, make sure you understand what khatra is and what it actually refers to.  Then ask a Korean archer, if in the history of Korean traditional archery, if such a technique has ever been utilized.

Also ask them what they refer to their torque technique as.  You will likely get two different terms out of them and explanations if any for the first.

Keep in mind though, some techniques may be newer then you think and clearly not as ancient.

Actually what Lars does is straight out of the exhibition style shooting section of the book entitled 'Arab Archery' which is yet another treatsie on archery written in the middle east.  Its unlikely that what he demonstrates was used by the average archer or even all that practical especially when factoring draw weights of bows used in combat at that time.  Horn composite bows for war had draw weights ranging from 90 to about 150 pounds.  Even the strongest of archers probably were not concerning themselves with all that trick shooting that Lars shows us and wants us to believe was used in a far more ubiquitous manner.

I mean, all those techniques are straight out of the 'trick' or 'exhibition' section of 'Arab Archery'.  Says it clearly in the book.  Our problem in more ways is not that our knowledge is very very small, but rather, given what we have learned or have access to is, more often than not, bluntly understood.

Many particularly on FB, YT, and elsewhere have a tendency to assign more to what is actually being presented and thus distort what the original sources have said leaving us with a poor(er) foundation then what we could have ever started with in the first place.

In 2 weeks, you may improve so much that you may not need to worry about these things and just shoot the bow.  A lot of it is just feeling your way through.

I believe that there must have been a lot more to archery during times we don't know anything about, but bow and arrow were a lot more important to the survival of humans before humans became farmers. Arab archery and this Saracen stuff is really good, but only a very small portion of the knowledge that must have been there in former times when humans were mainly nomadic hunters. Trickshooting might always have been practised just as a training for hunting or war, even if war weapons had to be stronger. If you look at dinghy sailing:during a race you don't do any tricks, but in training you do everything, just to get a better feeling for your boat, waves and windshifts and become a better racer.

Maybe you are right, maybe wrong as we don't have any written texts from former times. Trickshooting to entertain the Sultan, yes good possible, even today people earn money with that. Still everything else is also possible. During my military service we had radar controlled 40 mm cannons with uranium heads for air defense. Still, more or less for fun we also practised shooting at planes (they were towing a target dummy, of course) with machine guns - which looked to us like children toys compared to our weapon system and practised a more or less instinctive shooting technic, which even worked quite well at a distance of 1500 m. Don't think that you can win a war that way, but nevertheless it was a good experience that you can hit something at that distance with a simple machine gun and a very basic sighting system.

Regarding Arabs and arab archery you are propably right. But this is only a small part of this planet, and only a small amount of time if you look at how long humans use weapons. How much do we really know on how did Huns, Avars, Mongols, Vikings, Persians used bow and arrow, and especially how did they practise to become such good warriors. You just can't start on day one you use a bow by killing enemies. Arabs were a very well organised culture, where books and training manuals will have existed. In other parts of the world this did not exist. Old saxons as an example were not organised, they only elected leaders in wartime and formed alliences between some tribes, but there was no Sultan, no King, no military education, every tribe did things different. We don't even really know how the old saxons and angles, who spoke a language similar to that we use here on that forum used bows. Yes there are reports from some romans that state that germanic tribes did not use bow and arrow in war. But is that true, and if it's true, was that only true for the 20 years he had a chance to observe that, or for 10000 years back... We see today how fast things can change. Just look at the last 70 years since WW2 how military tactics and technology have changed.

Ok, thanks, will try to find out more on the text you mentioned. As said, I'm not shooting korean bows cause I'm interested in history, just like to shoot that way. I'm interested in archery, but Olympic style does not look very interesting to me.
But on the other hand I am still generally interested in history, and love to learn more about ancient technology.

Someone reviewed the Segyue here:

http://www.koreanarchery.org/punbb/view … 5216#p5216

http://www.koreanarchery.org/punbb/view … 5040#p5040

My 2 cents on Alibow in general is that, unfortunately, its probably best to stay completely away from them due to a number of factors unless you can buy their bows from a vendor and not directly from the company.  Someone else here will have to tell you how their Korean bows specifically compare to those others.

That seems a bit much.
Draw weights of KTBs are specified for 31", so 20lbs for a half inch seem ... a lot.

My 30lbs WF Carbon Forever (53") draws much stiffer then the 30lbs Kaya KTB, and even the 35lbs Black Cat.
My WF bows are more then 3 years old, though. Maybe they had been modified in the meantime.

Thanks for your reply. Well 800 spine works really good, with just a little bit of torque. But I believe that you are right regarding back tension. With the Kaya - we measured 3 times with a 32" arrow nocked in 60 lbs - I popably just have so much back tension that the bowhand automatically goes to the left on release I believe. With the 42 lbs otf of the WF this just seems not to happen automatically. Need to work on this. I just saw on a korean webpage that they seem to specify a different arrow for each length/lbs combination, so Koreans seem to very finely tune the arrows to their bows.  Also the HMG is sold as RH and  LH in Korea, they seem to be tillered off center. Only the "export" bows are offered ambidex. Would love to be able to shoot such a bow with the proper tuned arrows one day. Maybe that is the reason why they only need a little bit of torque...?

I don't think that they use the arrow shelfs Freddie sells in Korea.... As far as I understand it the string is not in the middle, but a bit on the right side for RH bows.... So might be less of a problem with arrows slapping against the riser.

I would really love to know how an original korean right hand tillered bow shoots vs all the ambidextrious export models that we can buy here in EU. Nobody around with some experience? I checked the arrows that shoot best with my WF 30lbs (42lbs at max draw) vs the dynamic spine calculator at 3riversarchery. By trial and error I found light 800 spine 4.2 gpi with 100 grain tips and 33" to shoot best. The above calculator comes to the exact same result. Just did a bareshaft test at 18m, arrow sticks absolutely straight in the gold of a 40cm field target with minimum handle torque.