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Jun. 9th, 2007 10:11 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
camwynI know I did this last year, but I can't find my original post. Several of the RPers I know of have recently had characters take to archery, or else have started playing expert archers, so I figured it might be a good idea to put this out for them to use.
1. Your shooter is probably going to be starting off with either a longbow or a recurve bow if they have any interest in traditional archery. A longbow is basically a stick with tapered ends and a D-shaped cross section, and it's probably made of one piece of kind of wood, except for the bit your hand goes on. That's probably a second kind of wood held on with leather. A recurve bow has flat, thin limbs and a big section in the center, and it'll be very, very clear that your arrow goes on one side specifically, because I have yet to see a recurve bow designed for ambidextrous use. Robin Hood used longbows. Archers on horseback generally used some type of recurve bow. The Native Americans and First Nations generally used short bows of the same kind of design as a longbow whether they were on horseback or on foot, since their bows didn't have to be as powerful because they made a point of getting very close to the target before shooting.
2. Your shooter is going to have the bow in one hand and the string in the other. The dominant hand gets control of the string. There are exceptions, usually having to do with the dominance of the eyes, but that's a real world complication we won't need to worry about here. Assume a righty archer holds the bow in his/her left hand and the string in his/her right.
3. Bows are not stored with the string on. A bow left strung but unshot for more than a day or two loses much of its springiness. They are strung either by use of a stringer, where one puts a looong string with caps on the ends in such a position that the caps hold onto the ends of the bow as the archer steps on the middle of the stringer and pulls the bow upward, or by putting one end of the bowstring in place and bracing that end of the bow against the archer's foot while pushing the bow into bending properly, then coaxing the string into position. Be careful while doing this; a stringer that comes loose, or a bow that gets out of the archer's control while being pushed into position, will make a male archer wish that he had stuck to using swords.
4. As long as we are on the subject of pain, your archer should not have poofy sleeves. If he or she does, have him or her bind them up or tuck them out of the way. The string will tangle in the poof, the arrow will fly upward, and there will be HURTING AND DAMAGE. I speak as someone who managed to /hit herself in the head /this way. Also, if your character is supposed to be buxom, they are going to get bruised on the breast on the side with the bow hand. Trust me on this. Women with serious chests need to wear something to compress the breasts a bit.
5. The arrow goes, somewhat counterintuitively, on the side of the bow hand and not the string hand. It has to do with the spinning of the arrow as it leaves the bow.
6. When you are nocking the arrow on the string, do so in such a way that your arrow and the string form a ninety-degree angle. An experienced archer with a much-used bow will have worn a spot on the bowstring by doing this. A newbie archer would be well advised to assume that his or her bowstring, if purchased from a modern store or gotten from the Bar, has a small bead clamped on the string. The bead is meant to indicate 'nock your arrow above or below me', depending on how the original person who fastened the bead wanted you to do it.
7. Nock your arrow securely and do not pinch it or put pressure on it with your fingers. The best grip is one that has your index finger above the arrow and your middle and ring fingers below. Tuck your pinky underneath your thumb to assist in a clean release, and KEEP IT THERE.
8. As long as we're nocking the arrow, you will probably have to deal with the feather question. Most traditional arrows have three feathers or vanes. Two feathers will usually be of one color, and the third feather will be of another. The odd feather goes /out. /If all three feathers are the same colour, then whichever direction of nocking puts one feather on the same side as the bow arm is the right direction.
9. The string goes across the middle of your fingertip pads, not in the crook of your knuckles. Too much fingertip and your shot will wobble and fly all wrong. yes, this is going to hurt. You may want to obtain a small leather finger-tab or an archery glove for this if your character does not already have an archer's calluses. Also? Don't have your character put a bow hand finger over the arrow. This not only screws up the arrow's flight but HURTS LIKE HELL. On a sufficiently powerful bow it will draw blood.
10 When you move to draw the bow, begin with the bow arm straight. Do not contract the shoulder muscles or raise it high. Just keep it straight and steady. Your string arm will draw straight back, and should also do this steadily. The elbow should wind up as perfectly parallel to the ground as possible, and the string hand should come to rest in such a fashion that the nocking bead or the end of the arrow is just against the corner of the archer's mouth.
11. Drawing an absolute beginner's bow of twenty-five pounds' draw weight is equivalent to picking up a bicycle with one hand and holding it at chest height. Drawing a bow of just barely legally sufficient strength to kill a deer requires around thirty-five or forty pounds of draw weight; that's the equivalent of a three-foot-tall child. A bow that could respectably used in hunting will probably be around fifty pounds of draw weight or more; to get an idea of what this requires, find a way to fasten six gallons of milk together, and then lift this straight up to chest height and hold it there. Your average medieval longbow had over a hundred pounds of pull, and the bows used in warfare in the time of Henry VII had around 140-160 pounds of pull each.
12. The current world record for most powerful bow pulled and fired is a 200 pound longbow shot by a man named Mark Stretton. Believe it or not, an archer capable of doing this will not have immense muscles; most of an archer's strength is in the tendons and ligaments, because a bow fights back rather than being dead weight like lifting iron. They will also have more impressive back strength than arm strength, because pulling a bow properly is done with the muscles of the back, the shoulder, and the upper chest more than anything else. The arm muscle most involved in pulling a bow is the triceps. To get an idea of what you are asking your character to do, find a weight of the appropriate amount and take it in your dominant hand, then bend over and put your other hand on a step or a chair or something and lift that weight up by raising the muscles in your shoulder, then your upper arm. The best training exercises other than lifting weights involve either rubber bands, pulling springs, or doing push-ups.
1. Your shooter is probably going to be starting off with either a longbow or a recurve bow if they have any interest in traditional archery. A longbow is basically a stick with tapered ends and a D-shaped cross section, and it's probably made of one piece of kind of wood, except for the bit your hand goes on. That's probably a second kind of wood held on with leather. A recurve bow has flat, thin limbs and a big section in the center, and it'll be very, very clear that your arrow goes on one side specifically, because I have yet to see a recurve bow designed for ambidextrous use. Robin Hood used longbows. Archers on horseback generally used some type of recurve bow. The Native Americans and First Nations generally used short bows of the same kind of design as a longbow whether they were on horseback or on foot, since their bows didn't have to be as powerful because they made a point of getting very close to the target before shooting.
2. Your shooter is going to have the bow in one hand and the string in the other. The dominant hand gets control of the string. There are exceptions, usually having to do with the dominance of the eyes, but that's a real world complication we won't need to worry about here. Assume a righty archer holds the bow in his/her left hand and the string in his/her right.
3. Bows are not stored with the string on. A bow left strung but unshot for more than a day or two loses much of its springiness. They are strung either by use of a stringer, where one puts a looong string with caps on the ends in such a position that the caps hold onto the ends of the bow as the archer steps on the middle of the stringer and pulls the bow upward, or by putting one end of the bowstring in place and bracing that end of the bow against the archer's foot while pushing the bow into bending properly, then coaxing the string into position. Be careful while doing this; a stringer that comes loose, or a bow that gets out of the archer's control while being pushed into position, will make a male archer wish that he had stuck to using swords.
4. As long as we are on the subject of pain, your archer should not have poofy sleeves. If he or she does, have him or her bind them up or tuck them out of the way. The string will tangle in the poof, the arrow will fly upward, and there will be HURTING AND DAMAGE. I speak as someone who managed to /hit herself in the head /this way. Also, if your character is supposed to be buxom, they are going to get bruised on the breast on the side with the bow hand. Trust me on this. Women with serious chests need to wear something to compress the breasts a bit.
5. The arrow goes, somewhat counterintuitively, on the side of the bow hand and not the string hand. It has to do with the spinning of the arrow as it leaves the bow.
6. When you are nocking the arrow on the string, do so in such a way that your arrow and the string form a ninety-degree angle. An experienced archer with a much-used bow will have worn a spot on the bowstring by doing this. A newbie archer would be well advised to assume that his or her bowstring, if purchased from a modern store or gotten from the Bar, has a small bead clamped on the string. The bead is meant to indicate 'nock your arrow above or below me', depending on how the original person who fastened the bead wanted you to do it.
7. Nock your arrow securely and do not pinch it or put pressure on it with your fingers. The best grip is one that has your index finger above the arrow and your middle and ring fingers below. Tuck your pinky underneath your thumb to assist in a clean release, and KEEP IT THERE.
8. As long as we're nocking the arrow, you will probably have to deal with the feather question. Most traditional arrows have three feathers or vanes. Two feathers will usually be of one color, and the third feather will be of another. The odd feather goes /out. /If all three feathers are the same colour, then whichever direction of nocking puts one feather on the same side as the bow arm is the right direction.
9. The string goes across the middle of your fingertip pads, not in the crook of your knuckles. Too much fingertip and your shot will wobble and fly all wrong. yes, this is going to hurt. You may want to obtain a small leather finger-tab or an archery glove for this if your character does not already have an archer's calluses. Also? Don't have your character put a bow hand finger over the arrow. This not only screws up the arrow's flight but HURTS LIKE HELL. On a sufficiently powerful bow it will draw blood.
10 When you move to draw the bow, begin with the bow arm straight. Do not contract the shoulder muscles or raise it high. Just keep it straight and steady. Your string arm will draw straight back, and should also do this steadily. The elbow should wind up as perfectly parallel to the ground as possible, and the string hand should come to rest in such a fashion that the nocking bead or the end of the arrow is just against the corner of the archer's mouth.
11. Drawing an absolute beginner's bow of twenty-five pounds' draw weight is equivalent to picking up a bicycle with one hand and holding it at chest height. Drawing a bow of just barely legally sufficient strength to kill a deer requires around thirty-five or forty pounds of draw weight; that's the equivalent of a three-foot-tall child. A bow that could respectably used in hunting will probably be around fifty pounds of draw weight or more; to get an idea of what this requires, find a way to fasten six gallons of milk together, and then lift this straight up to chest height and hold it there. Your average medieval longbow had over a hundred pounds of pull, and the bows used in warfare in the time of Henry VII had around 140-160 pounds of pull each.
12. The current world record for most powerful bow pulled and fired is a 200 pound longbow shot by a man named Mark Stretton. Believe it or not, an archer capable of doing this will not have immense muscles; most of an archer's strength is in the tendons and ligaments, because a bow fights back rather than being dead weight like lifting iron. They will also have more impressive back strength than arm strength, because pulling a bow properly is done with the muscles of the back, the shoulder, and the upper chest more than anything else. The arm muscle most involved in pulling a bow is the triceps. To get an idea of what you are asking your character to do, find a weight of the appropriate amount and take it in your dominant hand, then bend over and put your other hand on a step or a chair or something and lift that weight up by raising the muscles in your shoulder, then your upper arm. The best training exercises other than lifting weights involve either rubber bands, pulling springs, or doing push-ups.
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Date: 2007-06-13 05:33 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-06-13 05:53 pm (UTC)Oh, I left out handshock. Someone shooting a longbow is going to get a distinct whacking sensation in the bow hand when they shoot; this is minimized in recurve bows and certain types of longbow. It's a nasty surprise the first few times it happens.