Documente Academic
Documente Profesional
Documente Cultură
Back to basics
In recent years there has been a comeback of traditional archery (TA). More and
more people are going back to traditional
bows and arrows, wanting to hold a piece
of history in their hands, rather than the
hi-tech shooting machines which simply
guarantee higher scores on the target
face. They simply trade accuracy with a
warm piece of romance surrounded by
the history of the human being.
Interestingly, even the meaning of TA
varies between countries and cultures.
The arrow
launcher cast
the arrows
with the help
of gunpoder.
Impresive
stuff!
(Photograph:
Andrzej
Abratowski)
30 BOW INTERNATIONAL
30-32 WTA_rev2.indd 30
14/8/07 13:37:09
Janissary in
action: the author
represented
Turkish traditional
archery in an
Ottoman foot
soldier outfit
Mongol bows
(Photograph:
Andrzej
Abratowski)
Theatrical feel
The World Traditional Archery Festival was
organised by the National Association of
Archery for All with great support from the
Korean government. The Korean government supported many participants with
50% or even 100% sponsorship. Each
team was asked to bring archery-related
items, including a bow, and to trade them
for a modern Korean bow replica provided
by the Organisation Committee.
At the first day of the event the participants were transferred from the Incheon
airport to the National Youth Training Centre
of Korea, a cultural complex located in Cheonan which is approximately 1.5 hours away
from the capital, Seoul. This complex not
only fulfilled all the daily essential needs but
also provided places for ceremonies, lectures
and demonstrations. On the first evening the
opening ceremony was held in a congress
hall and was followed by two demonstrations. The first was about gluing the horn
laminate to the core of Korean composite bow. The second demo was by
a fletcher and about fletching the Korean bamboo arrows with pheasant
feathers. Both the bowyer and the
fletcher used fish bladder glue and
the fletcher fletched the arrows by
hand, without using a fletching jig.
Event report
Know no boundaries
This section of the event clearly showed
that TA has no boundaries. Stephen Selby,
an Englishman who has been living in Hong
Kong with his Chinese wife and three kids
for decades, and who is the founder and
moderator of the Asian Traditional Archery
Archery and aesthetics: Kyudo
(Photograph: Andrzej Abratowski)
A good physical
condition
and the right
mental outlook
are just as
important as
the proper
equipment
Korean
arrowheads
(Photograph:
Andrzej
Abratowski)
Jaap
Koppedrayer
demonstrated
how to make
the Japanese
bow, yumi
BOW INTERNATIONAL 31
30-32 WTA_rev2.indd 31
14/8/07 13:37:30
Event report
Re-writing
the history:
a Magyar
warrior and
an American
mountain
man have
never come
so close to
each other
Below:
Hungarian,
Dutch, Mongol, Chinese,
American,
Turkish,
Korean,
Australian,
Japanese, and
Czech
traditional
archers at the
WTAF
Korean
archers at
full-draw
(Photograph:
Aristotle
Kalentzis)
32 BOW INTERNATIONAL
30-32 WTA_rev2.indd 32
14/8/07 13:37:51