As the name suggests, Traditional Archery is a form of Archery that is played from the traditional times. In traditional Archery, it involves a raw style and traditional technique to shoot arrows. It does not need any kind of equipment and tools for bow stability and accuracy for hitting the target.
In traditional Archery, the bows are usually made from natural materials like bamboo, wood, and similar types of materials. Whereas in modern Archery, the bow material is a mixture of natural and modern-day metal, but usually, their shape is of the traditional curve bow.
If one wants to learn traditional archery, one has to develop the skill of hitting the target by aim through proper coordination of hand and eyes. If you want to become a traditional archer, you need to do a lot of practice and have to develop coordination of eyes and hands to hit the target.
Talking about Modern Archery, we can say that it is a different version of traditional recurve archery that involves the use of modern equipment made with modern materials. Modern Archery focused more on the accuracy and less depended on the speed and power of shooting. As I mentioned earlier, it also involves the support of equipment to aid accuracy and stability while shooting.
The modern recurve bows are usually made of the materials of the space age. The modern recurve bows are made by using the techniques of software and engineering. Even though the modern Archery uses equipment to aid the archer, he or she must know how to use them perfectly so that they can shoot accurately and consistently.
Three Important Parts Of Traditional Archery
As traditional Archery does not involve any kind of aids and supporting equipment, archers have to develop some kind of skills to excel in this field. There are three important parts of traditional Archery that one has to develop and practice a lot to become a perfect traditional archer.
- Power: To hit the target successfully, the traditional archer needs to develop the skills to throw the arrow powerfully on their enemy. Traditional archers always worry about how much power their arrow contains to kill their enemy or hit the far object accurately and hit on the right point. Thus, they need to increase their power ability and shoot the target with the right force to reach the object.
- Accuracy: This is the most demandable skill that is required for all types of Archery, whether it is traditional or modern Archery. It is a discipline in the traditional Archery that one needs to develop. In traditional Archery, one needs to work on developing instincts and reflexes to fight their enemy efficiently.
- Speed: For traditional archers, speed skills is also one of the important factors. A good and professional traditional archer needs to release an arrow within the 3 seconds continuously. This is one of the general rules of traditional Archery. There are so many schools that teach traditional Archery, however, this is the golden rule of traditional Archery to help archers develop strength.
All these three things, when combined together, make the traditional Archery. There are some other rules and disciplines, but these are most important that traditional archers need to develop.
Traditional Recurve Bow vs. Modern Recurve Bow
Basically, Traditional Archery includes the uses of arrows and bows that are made from nature’s material and do not involve any traditional equipment to design them. Traditional bows and arrows are still made by using the 100 years old technique. For thousands of years, many cultures include the use of traditional recurve bows. The shape of a traditional recurve bow is like all other bow curves, but it gets more curved from the top or end of their limbs from both sides. These are usually made from wood or bamboo and do not include any other equipment like stabilizers or sights built in their recurve bow.
Whereas modern recurve bows and arrows are usually made from metals or the composite materials and also have wood parts in them like the traditional bow. It is usually made from using so many materials instead of one like a traditional bow. The modern recurve bow’s part can be separated into three different pieces that comprise one riser and two limbs. Recurve in modern bows usually refers to the Olympic recurve or Barebow Archery.
Barebow is a type of modern recurve bow that has no extra equipment attached to it; that is why it has the name “barebow.”
The Olympic bow is almost like a barebow, but it uses equipment to help the archer like a clicker, stabilizers, and a sight.
