Have you guys seen this new video that shows how, according to Lars Andersen, the bow and arrow should be handled?
I am impressed by his skills.
…and it has nothing to do with traditional archery whatsoever.
What do you mean traditional archery? You mean Welsh Longbowmen? Or you mean shooting at a practice target? or you mean movies?
Who’s traditions 
I know he have looked at Persian archery traditions…
Iam impressed with his speed and he hits what he aims at…
But I really wish he would show it with a proper high poundage bow made by historical methods and with historical arrows. And IF it can still hurt a target wearing proper historical mail.
Atm it is too easy to just say “weak bow = not relevant”
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Nice thing he learned how to aim and shoot so fast but relating this to any historical situation seems a bit absurd. Use a normal warbow with this technique and see how it works out.
This wouldn’t work against folks wearing any protective garments. Besides if bows were only half as effective as is often claimed everyone would have used it back then.
EDIT: Okay perhaps the technique is fitting for Ancient warfare where many soldiers would wear nothing but a loincloth and a shield, but he implies it has something to do with medieval warfare.
EDIT EDIT: A target board unknown in the past? Where does he get this information? All in all I don’t say the technique is fake I just wonder how well it works in a medieval setting and what purpose it would serve.
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So lets for the hell of it say this tard went up against someone with armor on. He does his little flips while shooting the arrows at half draw with his little bow at the man in armor. Hes surprised why his magical flips and shooting the arrow at half draw isn’t doing anything. Then man in armor calmly walks over and splits this douche bags skull with a sword.
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According to Chrome’s quickinfo mail means “Letters and packages conveyed by the postal system.”. So yeah, that’s basically not a good armor.
PS: I know what you’re talking about, it’s just a pun from my side. It’s Friday, you know 
It doesn’t look like it penetrated deep at all.
One thing though and I need a physics guy for this. At one point he shoots and arrow out of the air. Eyeballing the distance I think it’s around 20 meters. An arrow from a 75 pound warbow would move at 48,19 meter per second. If we take 250 milliseconds as reaction time he can’t have turned around after the shot was loosened, he must know in which corner the arrow was going to be shot or he turned around before it was shot.
His inspiration is not western European archery. But middle-eastern.
The point of jumping and other “stupid” things is that if he can do that. (with only 10years of training, starting when he was in his mid 30ties) then a Persian/mongol/Sarancen warrior who trained from childhood would surly be able to do it from horseback.
The question is naturally: can it be done with a full powered bow?
Here is should be remembers that composite bows used by the different horse archers cultures was not as strong as the english longbows… they don’t need to since the recurved composite bows are technically a good deal more effective at throwing an arrow.
This Flemish manuscript illustration from 1442 or1443.
All arrows shown on the “outside” of the bow,… so clearly that part of his Technic is historical.
a mix of truth, entertainment, and plain ignorance. i wouldn’t give too much heed to that video.
You need to expand a bit on that and explain what you see as the problem…
Calling it “ignorant” without backing that up with evidence and sources is not the way for your post to be “heeded”
(note that I do thing there are problems with using what he do as a bacis for what could be done… but that is not that same as everything he do or what is said is wrong)
I agree that dismissing something so outright is itself ignorant but I think we need to watch this video before watching the one above and then draw our conclusions as to how his bow would have preformed against armor.
*The video below is not flawless either but it does demonstrate how resilient armor made from linen can be.
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The problem is not riding a bear in the circus - and actually, you might just be the best bear rider of the world. This is truely an achievement and performance worth praising. The problem is, when you state, that everyone rode bears into battle, and this is the only true way. The problem is having a single piece, and making statistic out of it. In one of his videos, he hints that - for example - he is faster, than Kassai. Again: Nothing is wrong with that. Except for the fact, that Kassai doesn’t do his horse-archery alone, but along with hundreds of other HA’s, involving in an international championship, giving the chance for everyday people to shoot and practice on horseback - and his method is still not traditional in terms of bow usage in war, but - only because of numbers - still more plausible. All in all, it is still a sport.
Believe me, I come from a region really into steppe bows (and ocassionally wild “historical” hypothesises drenched with nationalism, but hey…!), so as you can imagine, he is not the first I see, nor the last who makes a christmas tree out of his bow. Guess how many of them did perform with a composite bow with 80-100 pound draw weight with war arrows. Not even on horse, bigger distance, harder target, with people around them, in combat situation, no. Just proper bows. None, zero, zilch.
But you do not have to listen to me, I am nobody after all. We are talking about “persian/mongol/saracen” warriors? Alright then. Luckily, we have a “mameluke handbook” for example, in which - not surprising - technically none of these elements represent themselves. But even better, on YouTube you’ll find archive footages of mongolian, chinese and korean archers, who do not try to invent a religion out of a book, but actually have a somewhat living archery tradition based on the knowledge of the composite bow. I would love to see, when they will get to know that they all did wrong their archery for a couple of hundred years. : )
And one last thing:
“Here is should be remembers that composite bows used by the different horse archers cultures was not as strong as the english longbows…” - Excuse me, have you ever drawn a properly made, historically plausible composite bow replica, based on hard data? No decent bowyer will make you one under roughly ~70# even if you pay them grand, simply because under this poundage, there is no physical need for the horn layer. A recent conference of the National Archery Association in Hatvan in september, 2014 even agreed on that composite bows with natural material strings might had a pull weight very broadly around 100 pounds. Naturally, I will give you the link if needed, but the presentations do not have english transliterations, so let’s just pretend I didn’t said anything.
Luckily, we do have some acceptable sources in english as well, let me quote only one this time. For example, scythian bows, page 16: “It would be reasonable to estimate the draw weight range of scythian bows to be from 80lb to 140lb, which falls close to a similar estimate for other composites.”
And here is a picture about a knight fighting a snail, if you get what I imply ;]
Naturally, you can release the arrow on the opposite side of the bow, it is a widely known technique. Horse archers shooting with thumb ring often do that, so they can keep a better control of the arrow with their bow holding hand’s thumb finger. …they still didn’t do salto mortales on horseback, though.
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A recent conference of the National Archery Association in Hatvan in september, 2014 even agreed on that composite bows with natural material strings might had a pull weight very broadly around 100 pounds.
Still lower than the longbows found on the Mary Rose… they where mostly 150-160pound. with some up to 185.
(source: “The great warbow” by M.Strickland and R.Hardy)
But my point was actually, that because a composite bow is more effective, you don’t need the same pullweight to get the same results.
Looks like an interesting PDF btw, need to read it tomorrow. (off to bed now)
Why would they jump around like idiots? I doubt a horse archer would be jumping around doing dumb things like that when sitting still and shooting is far more effective.
you are missing the point.
He clearly haven’t had the option of training to do this from horseback. Running, jumping or other sort of movement show that it can be done when not standing still on the ground.
Nobody suggested they they would have done stupid things like it back then in a real fight.
I think he shows what he can do after only 10 years of training, whereas archers spent their entire life training with a bow. So what he shows is probably the fraction of skills that archers had back in the day. There is a saying that Mongolian archers were releasing arrows when their horse was not touching the ground in full gallop.
Still lower than the longbows found on the Mary Rose.
I have no reason not to accept this; but we can agree on that even a 80# composite bow is pretty damn far from his equipment.
I think he shows what he can do after only 10 years of training,
In 1848, the 8th (bohemian, to be stylish) regiment of the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy had a service time of 18 years, plus 13 years in the Landwehr. For some strange reason, both the movies and the public still has the image of these soldiers nothing but cannon fodder. They loaded, shot and died. We except somewhat over average acts from an average man in a very special, life threatening situation, when he is well prepared.
Suddenly, when we deduct a thousand or two thousand years from the date, it is acceptable to believe that they had far more superior skills (so we have a “fraction”), some kind of lost knowledge of Atlantis, than we could achieve. Like the spartan hoplites DID fight just like in 300.
Why? What is the reason? It can’t be anthropological, right? We look like roughly the same, and - for most of the time, on this part of the world - we are even more well fed. So it must be because of practice, but this doesn’t really stand as well, because there are people out there with tons of free time and practice. And they are damn good. The difference is that they simply aim better, hit harder, ride faster. No magic. “Magic” comes from when they create very specific enviroment around them to train for a very particular goal. Again, let me bring an example.
Gentleman JĂłzsef MĂłnus is a hungarian distance shooter. In 2012, at the inner-mongolian Ergun, on the II. China Open International Traditional Archery Championship, he shot as far as 653 meters. We have sources about a mongolian recorder, named Esunkhei, who shot in 1226 roughly 502,5 in modern meters.
So what now? Are we even better, as modern humans, than the ancient folks? There is no “lost magic”, we even surpassed them? Or am I grabbing one exceptional example, and with that I make a deductive generalization to all?
I can’t possibly point out better what is “wrong” with the video. It is a beautiful and unique sport performance (I would say “circus”, but that might sound degrading while it is far from my intention), creating myths, from which these sentences will start like “There is a saying…”, and not "I measured a bow from a museum…"
I honestly believe that the main difference between the average men of different eras is not what they could, but what they knew. Shooting on different side of the bow, or releasing an arrow on the dead center of the gallop (Kassai’s horse archery school actually teaches just that) is nothing we are not aware of. Please, don’t lie down for a few pictures downloaded from the internet. With that, I can “prove” you that bows were held by foot.
You’d have to keep in mind that not every archer would train his whole life. Especially in sedentary societies only a small fraction of the population would not have to produce their own food and have plenty of free time (nobility). Mongols form the exception but even within their society you had social ranks.
I probably struggle with the english language, but by “I have no reason not to accept this”, means I accept what you wrote. Even if you understood this part as “not accepting”, the following “but…” could have hinted that I do.
…and besides, you are free to believe anything, regardless of what I write.