A friend sent me this link and if you are interested in archery this is a must see. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2zGnxeSbb3g&feature=youtu.be

I just want to see a slow breakdown of his technique - extraordinary

Tod

Hi Tod,

Thanks so much for posting this ... I was pleased to see the use of instinct shooting skills as part of the approach!

Nice, but what's the poundage of the bow? It seems lighter that 70 pounds, of whenever poundage is needed to be lethal at a reasonable distance.

He meets all the requirements for a Mamluk Archer, except not from horseback. Technique -wise, it looks like he could do it, though.

Gives us something to aspire to.

Unbelievable! He must be the fastest archer alive, but I doubt he's using a strong bow, or that the mail test was realistic.

I've seen this video, and I agree that the mail test is not reliable, given the reasons Dan Howard has outlined in his "Riveted Does Not Equal Historical Thread". Additionally, there should be some sort of padding underneath the mail.

Still, the skill displayed is simply astonishing. To be able to fire a bow so consistently while running, leaping and moving is almost unbelievable. I also like that we can see examples in medieval illustrations of bows that are not completely drawn back; now that I have seen this video, the illustrations suddenly make so much more sense. Seeing this video gives me immense respect for the skill and ability of past archers, and in an interesting way, the historic archery techniques parallel the other aspects of the historic European fighting arts, in that the archery is far more dynamic and skillful than we modern people could possibly conceive.

30-35lbs, with a longish draw, should store about 50J of energy. Deliver perhaps 40J at very short range, with non-light arrows.

For a lot of the shots, the draw is very short. I think the arrows must also be very light. I don't think it would be very dangerous to good armour, or even to fairly thin metal armour (1mm should easily stop it). Would be dangerous to unarmoured body parts.

Impressive even if the bow was extremely light as he has to be very accurate as well as fast to hit the targets in the most difficult conditions possible ! The only thing harder would be if he doused himself in gasoline and did his archery while on fire. :eek: :lol: ( I'm obviously overstating it as a joke, but still very impressive ).

The technique seems to work and I think someone very used to very heavy bows from childhood could do the same with a much stronger bow but maybe at the cost of losing a little bit of speed.

Wish they showed exactly how he hold and of his arrows in one hand and how he gets each on the bow string in close up and in slow motion.

Taking an arrow from a quiver or even stuck into the ground in front of the archer at the very least doubles or triples the time to shoot each arrow.

This is almost like machine gun level of firepower and one would run out of arrows real fast !

Imagine a thousand archers all firing this fast: Now that would be an arrow storm. :D

It is very impressive, and suggests why some Scythian bows might have used short arrows. It is a different kind of archery than was popular in, for example, 15th century NW Europe but that just reinforces that archers at different times and places focus on different things. I suspect that with time someone could learn to shoot bows with a moderate draw weight like that. Basically, he is doing an excellent job of recreating the skills of an early modern horse archer.

Jean Thibodeau wrote:

This is almost like machine gun level of firepower and one would run out of arrows real fast ! Imagine a thousand archers all firing this fast: Now that would be an arrow storm. :D

Yes, that is always one limitation of fast archery. Arrows are heavy and bulky, so the number one man or one horse can carry is limited. Some traditions sacrificed other things to have arrows which could easily be carried in bulk.

Chinese repeater crossbows had similar of rate of fire and they used 10 bolt magazines.
The energy and range was enough to wound (or kill with a lucky shot) unarmored men and horses forcing them to retreat.

Move aside Lajos Kassai, Lars Anderson is my new hero :lol: *

* Joking. Lajos Kassai is still my horse archery hero.

wow, talk about throwing every modern idea of the bow out the window. but it is true for instinct shooters to be able to do things that look out of the ordinary. i once shoot with a man on a skeet course - he could break every bird from shooting off of his hip with and only one hand on the gun. amazing when you see it, but once you understand instinct shooting, it's totally possible.

when i first learned instinct shooting, all i was told was to do was point. i was taught by John Wooly (believe he was in the olympics a few times in the 90's). he used to say that every time you'd think to break the bird in your head, you would break it, without any other thought.

sporting clays actually is not any different when transferred to the bow, all instinctive shooting is the same the only thing that differs is what your shooting. it's odd, i applied instinct shooting to traditional bow - it works just the same, i can put together 5 arrows at 30 yards without thinking about it, but as soon as i do think about anchoring, grip, etc. i all of a sudden i am all over the place. it takes time to apply it between what your shooting, because a lot of it is mussel memory. it took me about a month to get it down when shooting a bow vs shot gun - the other thing is that its a skill that you cannot allow to relax. if you get away from it for a year, you have to redevelop the skill, but it won't be as hard to do having learned it once you body will remember key things and you will pick it up again pretty quick.

a key of instinct shooting is thinking about nothing but your target, and reach for it. John used to say it was like a meditation or intense concentration for a fraction of a second. if you develop the skill (it actually does not take very long) you'll notice a tunnel vision when your engaged in it, your eyes will also pick out a detail at a distance that you won't normally see. i still hear john "did you see the rings?" a sporting clays have a certian disk shape that when the light hits it, you see a ring, what's neat is that you don't see this ring when your looking at it, only when your shooting at it because your brain is switching itself over to another program.

This seems to be mostly about Eastern European archery. Do we have any evidence for similar type shooting in the West, aside from the rather vague pictures mentioned in the video?

We also have the following inscription from Hadrian's day (CIL III.3676 or 3672)

Ille ego Pannoniis quondam notissimus oris
inter mille viros fortis primusq(ue) Batavos
Hadriano potui qui iudice vasta profundi
aequora Danuvii cunctis transnare sub armis
emissumq(ue) arcu dum pendet in aere telum
ac redit ex alia fixi fregique sagitta
quem neque Romanus potuit nec barbarus unquam
non iaculo miles non arcu vincere Parthus
hic situs hic memori saxo mea facta sacravi
viderit an ne aliquis post me mea facta sequ[a]tur
exemplo mihi sum primus qui talia gessi

"I am the man ... who with Hadrian as judge was able to swim across the immense waters of the bottomless Danube in full kit. A dart having been shot from my bow, while it hung in the air and began to return to earth, I hit and shattered it with another arrow, [a feat] which no Roman has been able to beat, nor any barbarian, neither the soldier with his javelin nor the Parthian with his bow."

The dedicator was a Batavian cavalryman, and presumably he shot from the back of a swimming horse. Cassius Dio (69.9.6) records that Hadrian saw the Batavian cavalry swim the Danube in full kit. It is not one of Lars Anderson's feats, but it did require quick and accurate shooting!

Impressive as hell, that's for sure. From what it looks like to me, the biggest area he cut down time was his instinctive knocking. He's not wasting time aligning every arrow, he's spending that time aiming. Add in instinctive shooting where when his bow is basically getting to where he's decided to shoot it, and that's really fast.

Still, I don't think it's entirely adaptable to medieval type longbows. The longer draw would be the biggest as you lose too much cast even in slightly underdrawing. The size of the arrows would by itself be a problem, I think. My arrows are 32 inch 23/64 round beasts compared to what looked like modern thin carbon shafts in the video. I could see my arrows going all over trying to hold them in the same hand I am cranking back my 65# bow.

Still I have a few ideas from this. I bet that if I got a system to have my arrows aligned so I can grab and go, I bet I could get 6-7 in air at once. Headed more or less towards the same target...