Archery .. wow

Fretwired

Legolas and Hollywood have nothing on this guy .. how real archers really fought .. some amazing skills.

PolarityMan

Wow indeed

RaymondLin

The last 5 seconds boggles my mind.

ThePrettyDamned

Wow, that's bonkers.

ICBM

Amazing!

I was reading something a few years ago about the last scene in Homer's Odyssey when the returned Odysseus and his son - both skilled archers - fight the 40 men who have taken over his house, and kill them all. Usually dismissed as just an imaginary tale, it was interesting when the Hellenic-period palace Odysseus is supposed to have lived in was found, and its ground plan corresponds remarkably to the description in Homer… add in what you've just seen and it doesn't seem impossible to me that two men could kill 40, even armed, men.

xmrchi

Truly amazing, the real legolas!

thisisguitar

That is absolutely incredible!

iseverynamegone

Wicked. Going to get me a bow to replace my Maori beating stick for end of world type scenarios.

Grunfeld

That was awesome.

jonnyburgo

Don't fuck with Lars

Phil_aka_Pip

wow to the power of wow!

Hertz32

I just lost it at the Drive by bit! 
This guy has got some skills, and I have so much more respect for archery when it was in military use now. 

PolarityMan

Archery of curse was most effective en masse which is a totally different ball game. Long range not picking individual targets ballistic trajectories etc.
That vid was still awesome but I doubt it bears much resemblance to how most soldiers used bows.

Megii

The guy in the video above does indeed have some awesome, and unusual skills, but I'd just like to add that archery is a great sport and activity, that can be taken up at any age - and you don't have to be super strong or anything either - there are bows and equipment to suit all shapes and sizes. Best way in is to find a good local club, and book in for a "beginner's course" which will usually be 5 or 6 weekly sessions. After that, you can join the club if interested, and also I'd advise not to be buying equipment too soon, as this needs to be tailored to the individual, and you need to have developed a bit of technique first. Don't buy gear from those shops that sell BB guns, knifes and that sort of stuff. Best to take advice from experienced archers at a club, and visit a specialist archery shop.

I started in the sport in 1990 though, and found it totally addictive, and continue to do so. The Archery GB website is a good place to start if looking for a club in your area:

http://www.archerygb.org/

I shoot a compound bow, FWIW, as seen here:

Great sport though, honestly, give it a try if you fancy it.

Fretwired

PolarityMan said:

Archery of curse was most effective en masse which is a totally different ball game. Long range not picking individual targets ballistic trajectories etc.
That vid was still awesome but I doubt it bears much resemblance to how most soldiers used bows.

Not sure about that .. I can now see how Genghis Khan's mounted archers could have decimated whole armies.

koneguitarist

PolarityMan said:

Archery of curse was most effective en masse which is a totally different ball game. Long range not picking individual targets ballistic trajectories etc.
That vid was still awesome but I doubt it bears much resemblance to how most soldiers used bows.

Actually The Welsh used short bows and often hid in trees and such like shooting down, I think we have all grown up with the legends of the old English longbow  archers all standing in a line, which was designed for longer distance. Accuracy was less important than volume of arrows then. 

I used to do field archery as I thought target archery boring.

In Field archery you are shooting at different size targets from different distances, and is more fun to shoot. I used to do what is called barebow, no trigger release, no stabilisers or sights etc, just the bow, arrows, finger tab and brace. 

I think commandos used archery in world war 2 if I remember correctly. 

American Indians shot with small bows from horse back same as Khan's armies would have done.

VimFuego

something I always wanted to take up, never managed to find the time. I like the idea of field shooting, may look into it.

monquixote

It's amazingly cool, but as @polarityman says the real power of the longbow was to have a unit of archers turn the sky black and completely decimate an opposing force at long range. Apparently the elite units could have 3-4 arrows in the air at one time.

What people don't always appreciate is that the longbowman was a far more deadly adversary than a crossbowman, or a musketeer. Armies moved over to the latter because a longbowman had to be extremely fit and well trained whereas anyone can fire a musket. It wasn't until the repeating rifle that they truly became obsolete.

Fretwired

monquixote said:

It's amazingly cool, but as @polarityman says the real power of the longbow was to have a unit of archers turn the sky black and completely decimate an opposing force at long range. Apparently the elite units could have 3-4 arrows in the air at one time.

What people don't always appreciate is that the longbowman was a far more deadly adversary than a crossbowman, or a musketeer. Armies moved over to the latter because a longbowman had to be extremely fit and well trained whereas anyone can fire a musket. It wasn't until the repeating rifle that they truly became obsolete.

True, but it was a skill that took years to learn whereas you could teach an idiot to fire a crossbow in a few hours. King Richard I of England was killed by a cook with a crossbow. Apparently he'd never fired one before. I also thought it was the Welsh that perfected the use of the 'English' longbow and downed hundreds of heavily armed English knights in a number of Welsh victories.

Megii

koneguitarist said:

PolarityMan said:

Archery of curse was most effective en masse which is a totally different ball game. Long range not picking individual targets ballistic trajectories etc.
That vid was still awesome but I doubt it bears much resemblance to how most soldiers used bows.

Actually The Welsh used short bows and often hid in trees and such like shooting down, I think we have all grown up with the legends of the old English longbow  archers all standing in a line, which was designed for longer distance. Accuracy was less important than volume of arrows then. 

I used to do field archery as I thought target archery boring.

In Field archery you are shooting at different size targets from different distances, and is more fun to shoot. I used to do what is called barebow, no trigger release, no stabilisers or sights etc, just the bow, arrows, finger tab and brace. 

I think commandos used archery in world war 2 if I remember correctly. 

American Indians shot with small bows from horse back same as Khan's armies would have done.

OK - I admit I was giving target archery specifically a bit of a plug in my previous post - but myself and many other people don't find it boring. Actually it's great, as is field archery of course, which I've also done in the past myself (American Flat Bow and Compound styles, both NFAS and EFAA). It's all archery though, and all good stuff - a diverse activity. I would reject the claim that field archery is more fun - a different kind of "fun" maybe, and some may prefer it, but for myself, there are things that about target shooting that seem to draw me more strongly. Also with types of bow - some find themselves more drawn to the traditional side of things, others like the more modern types of bow, and of course one can always switch if you need a change. It's all good though - a rewarding and fun sport/activity, which I highly recommend. I know people who do both field and target archery, and with multiple bow types, that's quite possible.

But apologies for not doing so before, and here are the websites for the main field archery organisations in the UK, to add to the Archery GB one I posted earlier:

http://www.nfas.net/home.asp

http://www.scottishfieldarchery.co.uk/joomla/

http://www.efaafieldarcher.com/

http://www.wfaa-archery.co.uk/

http://www.sixgolds.com/nifaa.htm

Actually, Archery GB does itself promote FITA style field archery, as well as target archery. But try archery folks, its brilliant.

Gassage

This guy has nothing on Jeremy Renner in The Avengers.

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