Warbow Shooting

[Hawkswood]

Hello mates,

I've been shooting my sissy 50# warbow look alike for about a week now (500 odd arrows) and am enjoying it immensely. I set up a short range in my yard and am shooting constantly. It is a 76" Hickory bow with a draw of 33" at about 45-50lbs that Jim at Rudderbows made for me. This being my first archery experience at 34 years old, I thought it would be better to get an easy and cheaper bow to shoot so I would not have to constantly fight the bow. The only information I've got on shooting form is basically from the internet and youtube. Bigbowbrum and the boys being my favorite videos. Are there more authoritative sources? Are there any good books that deal specifically with shooting in the medieval style. None of this fancy arrow rest and wheels and such please.

I bought one book called "Shooting the Stickbow" which I thought was pretty good, but not the right style of archery as it was mostly meant for modern shooting being anchored from the chin. A few friends who hunt and shoot in the modern style insist that I must have an anchor point, but I'm not sure how this works when I draw back past my ear. I mostly just try to do it the same every time. I can now keep all my arrows on the target, but that's not quite good enough. I will keep practicing and maybe after the first 50,000 arrows these things will sort themselves out. 

Thanks,
Dan Kost

PS. I'll try to post some pics if I can get my wife to film me.

[Dag]

Hey Hawkswood! Sounds like someone is catchin' the warbow bug! HAha. I myself own a Rudderbows 76" tri-lam warbow 110lbs@32" and love it! I'm glad you like your bow as well.
 
As for form, I got started watching bigbowbrum as well, I studied N. Brimingham's from intensely and my shooting has done just fine. Another archer you should study is Mark Stretton. He shoots similar to N. Birmingham of bigbowbrum, i.e. with is backside sticking out. This technique is what is called "shooting in the bow". You can't go wrong with those guys.

As for books, Robert Hardy and Matthew Stricklands The Great Warbow I've heard is a great resource. Also Arrowstorm by Richard Wadge is another good book on the English warbow.  If you can find The Grey Goose Wing at a local library, it has lots of great info on English warbows as well! This is a very small list of all the books on English warbows, but they are some of the finest and they get mentioned on this site a lot.

Hopefully, this was helpful! Welcome to the world of the English warbow, haha 
Take care!

[bow-toxo]

I bought one book called "Shooting the Stickbow" which I thought was pretty good, but not the right style of archery as it was mostly meant for modern shooting being anchored from the chin. A few friends who hunt and shoot in the modern style insist that I must have an anchor point, but I'm not sure how this works when I draw back past my ear. I mostly just try to do it the same every time. I can now keep all my arrows on the target, but that's not quite good enough. I will keep practicing and maybe after the first 50,000 arrows these things will sort themselves out. 

Thanks,
Dan Kost

PS. I'll try to post some pics if I can get my wife to film me.

 The archers mentioned are great role models. Focused practice would be the key. There is a book [With a Bended Bow] to be published by The History Press, I'm not sure just when, that would deal with mediaeval shooting in considerable detail.

[CraigMBeckett]

Hawkswood,

I have not yet come across any books etc on the subject of shooting the English Warbow, shooting the English longbow yes but not the warbow. As you are aware members of the English Warbow Society have issued at least 2 instructive videos, oif I remember correctly one on sitting into the shot and the other on the rolling loose

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QyEIk_INOaY

Unfortunately for you most of the efforts of the Warbow shooters are directed towards distance shooting not target shooting so they are of limited help.

A few friends who hunt and shoot in the modern style insist that I must have an anchor point,

In many ways they are correct if you intend to hunt or shoot at targets, you need to pull back to a consistent arrow length and ensure that at the time of release the string is held in the same position relative to your eyes. You may achieve these by  touching your ear or someplace else with your thumb whilst feeling the correct draw length by touch of the head on your index finger, or by whatever other means you develop to do the same. I gave up trying to touch my ear with my thumb when I began drawing past the ear, what I try and do now to ensure alignment is to make sure that I can feel the fletches brushing the side of my face.
The point is for accurate shooting at targets, be they static or not, you need to develop the equivalent of an anchor, so its a case of practice, practice and more practice trying to end up with the string, arrow and bow in the same place each time.

Best of luck.

Erik,

Regarding the book you mention, do you have an Author's name?

 Is "The History Press" an American publisher? I don't seem to be able to locate them on the internet.

Craig.

[bow-toxo]

Craig--The History Press is described on the internet as "the UK's largestand specialist history publisher" aith main office in Gloucestershire.

[CraigMBeckett]

Erik,

The book you mention does not appear on their lists, not even the coming soon list.

Any idea who the Author is?

Craig.

[Marz5]

I looked it up on google and found this:
http://www.amazon.com/Bended-Bow-Archery-Medieval-Renaissance/dp/0752463551
in there it says the author is Erik Roth, and is to be published March 2012

--Mark R.

[CraigMBeckett]

I looked it up on google and found this:
http://www.amazon.com/Bended-Bow-Archery-Medieval-Renaissance/dp/0752463551
in there it says the author is Erik Roth, and is to be published March 2012

--Mark R.

Ah light dawns! Its Erik's own work, no wonder he knew the future!

With Mark's help found it on both Amazon US and Amazon UK but not on the History Press, Amazon UK says price is UKP 20.00, US has no price yet. Neither  Amazon's say much about it, so how about a quick precis Erik?

Craig.

[peasant1381]

Everybody seems to be missing the point of what a warbow is for, namely stopping a man wearing armour by killing him, wounding him or scaring the crap out of him. You're only going to do any damage by using the full power of the bow which means drawing to the full length of the arrow(which should match the draw length of the bow) every time. That's it, just draw to the full length of the arrow. You have to do that to propel the arrow as far as possible because you want to stop him as far away as possible. You draw the full length of the arrow at short range because you want the arrow to punch through his armour which is a lot less likely to happen if you don't draw to the full length of the arrow. The only way to become good at this is to practise as much as possible (like any thing else really).
Now you might say that we're not shooting at men in armour any more so why do we need to draw like that all the time. Well if that's the case why shoot a warbow at all. The whole point is to shoot the bow the old way like it was meant to. Full length of the arrow everytime - no anchor points.

[Del the cat]

I like your choice of word 'authoritative'
The answer is no, the only people who realy knew are long since dead.
Of course there are those who are shooting heavy bows now and they've had to re-learn the skills, fortunately they post on youtube and the like.
The only real answer is to do it yourself, like most of this stuff.
The rest is opinion or 'received wisdom' or personal experience/proference.
Roger Ascham is probably the nearest thing to an authority and even he notes that men have many and varied styles.
Personally I recomend grimacing, but not leaping forward like a startled cat.
Del

[Justin Snyder]

Full length of the arrow everytime - no anchor points.

I understand the full length, but does that really mean no anchor point? Can the anchor point not be ear lobe or a certain point on the neck so you get full length draw? Just drawing back and loosing may not provide accuracy you desire. If you draw 2cm higher or lower you may miss the man by 50 meters and likely not scare him, much less kill him. Just thinking out loud.....

[peasant1381]

Going back to the military aspect of warbows Justin. You have to shoot the arrows issued to you and as I said you need the full draw to elicit the full power of the bow. It's quite common for archers used to a particular anchor point to think that this style is not particulary accurate but if that's the only way you shoot and you practice enough it's no less accurate than any other way (speaking for myself). In fact the power of the bow makes for a very flat shot.
In it's own peculiar way the arrow becomes the anchor point as your drawing hand will end up in the same spot every time. The difficulty arises when because of physique or compression (often overlooked) makes it incredibly difficult to draw a really powerful bow full length. The option then is to have a shorter arrow. I don't know for sure if that was done but it may explain why the Mary Rose arrows are of different lengths. One of our group is around five seven and finds it hard to draw 32" with bows 120lb+ so his own arrows are 30 1/2" (EWBS minimum). He' not getting the full power from the bow but there isn't any wood of the arrow being wasted either and if you're shooting a bow of say 170lbs then losing 10 or 15 lbs by only drawing to 30" isn't going to make a huge difference in the overall scheme of things.
For a good contrast in shooting styles have a look at this vid.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GWGNCGlioa8

The bows are 130lbs Stratton Italian Yew, 122 lbs Stratton Hickory, Greenheart, Lemonwood laminate , 90lb Maisel Osage.
The arrows were EWBS Standards weighing between 52g and 60g.
For the record the Lam made 230 yards , Yew 220 yards  and the Osage 152 yards.

[Phil Rees]

Interesting video.... why all the jumping about

[Del the cat]

Interesting video.... why all the jumping about

Because they are daft and think adding 4mph to their left hand is going to make any significance to the distance they shoot.
Do they really think archers in a medieval war would waste time and energy leaping about like ballerinas and risk losing their footing in the mud?
Del

[Ian.]

Says someone who has never made/shot a heavy bow, it would be nice if the people who have no experience of something would keep their opinions to themselves.