None of these are forgotten archery techniques. Some of them are acrobatic, some are silly, some are unreliable. (Some fall into more than one of those categories.)
Modern Olympic archers are all about accuracy, with no points for speed other than an overall time limit.
If you want to learn archery with both speed and accuracy, you could do worse than to find your local SCA group.
A Royal Round is a set of six arrows (or bolts from a crossbow) shot at round targets at 20 yards, 30 yards, 40 yards, and then as many shafts as possible at 20 yards in 30 seconds. That gives a maximum score of 90 (6 arrows x 5 points for each bullseye x 3) plus the 30 second score.
A rank of "Bowman" is awarded to someone who can average 60 points over three Royal Rounds.
Master Bowmen average 80 points.
Grand Master Bowmen average at least 100 points.
And the Ludicrous Bowmen -- there have been 25 of them, so far -- have managed an average of 120 or more over three Royal Rounds. I've met five of them.
I'm not an archer of any rank. But my take on this is that he's trying to represent or reproduce the skill of archery when archery was essential to war and hunting. Great skill in an Olympic competition is certainly an impressive achievement but it may be worthless outside the clearly defined rules of competition.
Between your 120 bowman and this guy, which one wins in battle and which one brings home fresh meat for dinner. I think I'd rather have this guy on my side.
Being able to reliably hit a very small target at 70 yards at full draw is exactly what I would want for hunting. That game is easily spooked and can likely evade you better than you can chase it. Why in the world would you want to get any closer than necessary and be moving while attempting to shoot it?
Not to mention that his 10 shots at the beginning of the video are no where close to full draw. I'd suspect that even if he did hit an animal with hide that it would not be a lethal shot.
That's exactly my point. Olympic archery is at 70 yards, and they are very consistent at hitting the inner rings of the target. That extra distance would be great for hunting.
When archery was essential to war, it was still only "stand and loose" - foot archers typically planted stakes in front to ward off cavalry, or would be on hills or in front of woods. Basically stand still, shoot the buggers, run and hide if anyone charged.
As for hunting, that is extreme slowness, and perfect accuracy because you won't get a second shot, and if you move at all before loosing the animal moves too. Hunters wait.
So apart from firing in the saddle, archery was and is about stillness, accuracy and yes, in war, speed.
The guys able to put 30 arrows into the attacking targets at 50 paces will win the war, and the guys setting snares will fill the pot ;-)
It's weird that you don't see the benefit of being effective while moving when your rebuttal includes 'run'. Not to mention that there are plenty of situations where stakes/hills/woods as a static defense don't apply - if you're attacking; if you're sieging; attacking a town, fighting in the streets; if you're not taking part in a large set-piece battle; so on and so forth. If you're part of a small patrol and encounter the enemy, you fight them then and there, no time to plant stakes or move the site of the battle.
Likewise, you need to be able to move around as the battle progresses. There's no point standing behind your stakes if the enemy you need to put pressure on is 200 yards away over a meadow. All the zen-like calmness in the world and impregnable field position isn't going to help you if the enemy doesn't come within range.
The Commanche were also particularly effective at it. The combination of their horse riding and archery skills made them more lethal than the US Army, until the revolver was invented. Before the revolver, firing on horseback was a non-starter because reloading was almost impossible; a Commanche could fire dozens of arrows in the time it took one reload. I read about this in the book "Empire of the Summer Moon" by S. C. Gwynne.
While the notion that "stand and loose" was important in war seems sensible to me, the implication that mobility and shooting speed were irrelevant does not. Being able too shoot fast seems like an immensely useful skill when confronting a mass of enemies that move, have armor and actively try to avoid getting shot. More shots per minute would mean more chance to actually inflict damage.
Also, what about smaller confrontations that did not involve a wall of charging cavalry/footmen?
While the acrobatics is silly, what this guy is doing is impressive and indicate skills that could be applied more broadly.
> Modern Olympic archers are all about accuracy, with no points for speed other than an overall time limit.
I'm pretty sure his point is that "Modern Olympic" archery isn't as useful for hunting or fighting, given that it's been heavily optimized for stationary shooting.
The acrobatic/silly/etc. things he's doing in the video while using a bow aren't the technique he's learned; it's the actual bow-work itself (the binocular sighting, tweaking which side of the bow the arrow is on, being able to move quickly from unarmed to shooting, using a thumb-release technique, moving the bow itself to add arrow velocity, etc.) that - from what I gather - allows him to maintain that sort of demonstrated accuracy despite the non-archery things he's doing in the meantime.
IMHO, he is shooting a bow that's too light for hunting or fighting. I'd say he shoots below 30 pounds, which works for what he does, but nothing else.
Could you or anyone share some youtube videos of such events, possibly? I've managed to find only some crossbow one, it didn't look very fast in comparison, but also crossbow is inherently slower. I'd be very interested in seeing the examples of what you're talking about.
Also, I'm confused by the explanation you provide for the score counting. Is it 90pts max over 3 rounds, + 30 seconds extra? Is the bullseye during the 30s also counted for 5 points? If so, then score 120 means 30 points over 30 seconds, means 5 seconds per arrow on average, yes? If so, then the show by Lars Andersen is much faster. If not, then can you please explain it more clearly to me?
Also, can you explicitly say which techniques are silly, which are unreliable, which are "acrobatic"? It's hard to discuss (either disagree or agree) when you're so vague. For example, as to handling the bow, in some video about "ancient Japanese archery" (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=egiXLXwhvzs#t=10m45s) they seem to be also keeping the arrow on the same side of the bow as Lars, and keeping more than 1 arrow between fingers; while some random SCA bowmen guys I've googled up on youtube seemed to be handling it "on the inside".
Of course Lars is much faster: he's showing you an edited compilation of the best things he's ever done. A Ludicrous Bowman can reliably hit the bullseye on each of thirty shots in a row, and then also shoot somewhere between 6 bullseyes and 12 lesser shots in 30 seconds... and then do it all over again.
Modern Olympic archers are all about accuracy, with no points for speed other than an overall time limit.
If you want to learn archery with both speed and accuracy, you could do worse than to find your local SCA group.
A Royal Round is a set of six arrows (or bolts from a crossbow) shot at round targets at 20 yards, 30 yards, 40 yards, and then as many shafts as possible at 20 yards in 30 seconds. That gives a maximum score of 90 (6 arrows x 5 points for each bullseye x 3) plus the 30 second score.
A rank of "Bowman" is awarded to someone who can average 60 points over three Royal Rounds.
Master Bowmen average 80 points.
Grand Master Bowmen average at least 100 points.
And the Ludicrous Bowmen -- there have been 25 of them, so far -- have managed an average of 120 or more over three Royal Rounds. I've met five of them.