Primitive Shooting Technique

[Sempertiger]

I'm curious. These two pictures show archers shooting in completely different parts of the world. The Hadza of Tanzania, and the Inuit of Alaska.





Has anyone done any research on this topic?

JS

[Weylin]

I would say they are shooting that way to give themselves a concrete anchor point on shorter draw length bows, but I'm not certain.

[bubby]

look like pretty deep anchor point's to me, Bub

[Del the cat]

When they wus young there was a meeting with senior management and they wus told. 'Now look son, we've always done it like this'
I agree they look like pretty long draws. What surprises me is the feet together stance.
Personally I tend to have a wide stance and I lean in a bit as if shooting a shotgun, but not as much as these fellahs.
I think the real point of any style is consistence and practice. I expect if you shot for fish all your life standing on one leg in a river you'd get pretty good at it... it works for Herons .
Bearing in mind they start as young lads, the style is probably optimised for looking cool and impressing the girls.
Del

[k-hat]

Anyone else notice the arrow placement?  (crotch!)  I think that explains the "feet together stance"!    shall we call that a "crotch quiver"?

Perhaps it's simply a way to level with the target so there's no pointing down with the aim.

[sonny]

simply coincidence ........

[JW_Halverson]

Never thought I'd see the phrase "crotch quiver" in a family oriented site like this. 

[Bryce]

good anchor point against the shoulder stabilizes the draw hand.

anyone else have an unbelievably stronger arm than the other from shooting?


sempertiger i am loving your topics keep it up!

[Sempertiger]

I'm trying to figure out what he's anchored against... I don't think it's his shoulder because I can't even touch mine, my bicep gets in the way.

I was thinking that it might be easier to draw a heavy weight bow. Either on a different thread, or somewhere else I was reading, I thought I saw that the Hadza use ruffly 100lb bows. bent over like that allows you to use significantly stronger muscles (lats) than if you are standing upright.

[RDK]

I’m glad to see this thread. And  like the photo…good to see people having a good time......

I’ve looked at the videos posted on “Bows”—the Hadza Picture thread—probably a dozen times.  My shooting always needs to be improved---So I have tried imitating what I saw as best I could—not with the feet together (which I think is just from using the thigh quiver).  My developing problem has been a rising elbow, and discomfort when I cant  my bows and lean…. What I see in the video is a   lean into the bow with a simultaneous draw—putting their entire body into the draw.….I tried it (as best I could) with a  new long bow I just finished  (60#@ 26, 70” NTN)..imitating the video—no problem getting to 28 ½ “---also I noticed how they dropped their elbow in line with the arrow at near full draw—to me—it seemed stronger……  the anchor became the  knuckle of my thumb touching my nect  behind my jaw bone below my ear.  That is where they look to be anchoring or their floating anchor is behind and below the ea further back---anything beyond that would show more of their upper neck and/or an area toward the back of their head…….

Also-they don’t have arm guards…just a perception that the angle of the bow arm is different from how I have been shooting-putting the string further away---
 
I shot probably a couple dozen times-the only muscle tension I had was in my back and not the tops of my shoulders-which has been a recent problem (a  problem attributed by young fella’s to their deeply misguided misperception of my advanced age of  ~mid 60’s.)....  I’m going to try my heavier long bows this afternoon….

Check out the videos what do you guys think?

[Bryce]

I tried putting my thump behind my jaw and it hurt so I stopped lol. But your right my back is a little sore from using a couple extra muscles.

[DRon knife]

My theory is that the Inuit leans forward to avoid the string hitting his bulky clothing,just a guess.

   

[Baldmoose]

I shoot like this... i never did any research on how to shoot a traditional bow and just went with what felt right.... i feel it helps my accuracy to lean forward a little.  it shortens my draw length quite a bit though.

[mullet]

In both pictures they are canting their bows to the right. It is hard to cant a bow without leaning over forward, some.

[bowtarist]

There are lots of different anchor points around the world.  Consistancy is what matters.  I shoot from all kinds of positions, sometimes w/ my feet together, especially if from a tree stand.  Cool picks.  The inuite has his coat sleeve rolled up too it looks like. I'd like to shoot w/ some folks like that someday. dpgratz