Why is Primitive archery so popular?

[Asiertxu]

Nice thread!!

I second what you have allreadyly said guys.. .

Kegan,

I really am with you mate, so I think as you when I was looking for some traditional bows/arrows (these wooden arrows with plastic feathers that are available in some shops...). Then when I asked for the price of these, I finally thought of making my owns!!.

The same came out with the bows!! ...then with the quiver armguard, tab/globe etc...

Hopefully internet is AWESOME, and find sites like this and guys as you are mates made the rest I needed to finally to be hanged in this for the rest of my life...thatīs FANTASTIC.

I also think as Steve (Badger), I think many of us, if not all, have a "talen" inside us that have to come outside and our brain and hands are the  place where the talen have to come out, in our case in form of bows arrows etc...

Cheers...

Asier.

[George Tsoukalas]

Popular? Where? Honestly, I'm getting a bit discouraged. Back in the early 90's at 3d trad shoots I'd be the only one shooting a selfbow. Then by the late 90's early 2000's I'd see a fair amount  of selfbows at trad 3d shoots. At Denton I don't think I saw 10 selfbow shooters. I actually had a shooter wait around to watch me shoot an "old time bow". BTW composite all wood bows and wooden backed bows not included. I hafta work harder to get more people interested. Jawge
http://mysite.verizon.net/georgeandjoni/

[Justin Snyder]

Popular? Where? Honestly, I'm getting a bit discouraged.

I'm with you George.  There are approximately 6,677,563,921 people on this plannet with a growth rate of 1.159%.   Where are the throngs of people making this a popular sport/hobby.  Some of us are addicted for sure, but we are a rare minority.  Justin

[Badger]

   I wonder what the growth rate of this hobby is? maybe sales of books such as traditional bowyers bibles, PA magazine, and online bow sight registrations would be a fair indicator. Steve

[Rich Saffold]

I think our popularity is hard to measure accurately  since like archery many do it by themselves...I think the forum numbers are a microcosm when one considers 120,000+ PA mags go out every few months..Heck the ten they get in the local store here sell out every time, and I try and find out who is buying them just to meet more local folks..

I also think it's growth is also part of what makes us human...since not too long ago humans had to be good at these skills to eat..., and it is a lot of "fun", and that's integral in our make-up as well..

[GregB]

I think it's great that so many different folks from different area's of the world speak the same language through primitive archery!
For me, hunting with a primitive bow seems so right...it's like what I should be and was meant to do.

[ThimoS]

For me it must have been imprinted in my dna. Since as far back as I and even my grandparents can remember I have been obsessive about finding arrow-heads and making bows. When other little boys would say they wanted to grow up to be firemen and such, I'd say that I wanted to grow up to be an Indian. That meant going deep into some vast forest and living the entire life. Now I'm married with children, but my wife beads and my kids shoot bows that we make together. So making bows for me now is a way to exist in both worlds. However if the stuff ever hits the fan they all know where we can go and live, and in style.

[Pappy]

I'm with George,I love it and try to get others into it but usually they build one or 2 and then for some reason they just move on,I guess just the every once in a while that someone gets hook and stays with it is worth the effort.I haven't always done it but I like Thimo have always thought about as long as I can remember and now can't think of anything else I would rather do.
It does seem to be growing from time to time and then it all seem to go away.As for me
I like doing it with others but if no one else was doing it I can promas I will keep it up.
   Pappy

[TRACY]

For me it was an internal calling from the age of 7. On my way to school one snowy day I noticed rabbits in the neighborhood and thought about how exciting and fun it would be to stalk them with a homemade bow and arrow. I never forgot that day. There is so much satisfaction and ownership in the overall experience of the hunt using tools crafted from mother nature. I can't imagine doing it any other way!

Tracy

[bobnewboy]

For me it has been a great voyage of rediscovery.  I didnt take too well to woodworking at school, preferring metalwork instead.   During the summer holidays we used to make bows and arrows out of anything we could find, and there was something about the ballistics and the inherent danger that took root right there and then.  When I started college I stopped doing all that stuff, and archery / outdoors pursuits of any kind just went away.  Girls, bikes (motorcycles), and partying just used up all my free time 

A few years back I decided that I needed to do a new hobby outdoors, and I looked into archery again.  Here in the UK my main interest was field archery, and I've been lucky to have an active club near enough on my doorstep, so I had a play, and then joined up.  Since then, enjoying being back in the woods, I moved from bought FB recurves to bought ELB, all the while learing to make better and better arrows.  As my confidence improved I decided to have a go at a bough-bow using a yew branch.  That went ok too (nothing special), but then I took a 2 day course with Chris Boyton (to make an ELB), and a course with Hilary Greenland (to make a primitive ash flatbow).  Then I discovered you guys here at PA.  I was hooked.  .  I got the full set of TBB, and there's no limit.  Tbb IV just turned up as a birthday present too.

A while back 'markinengland' started on-line discussions about having a primitve class in our field archery society.  It sounded good to me, so I got on board with him, and now there's quite a few people competing in the class when I go to shoots in my area (SE England).

Shortly after that point I decided that I wanted to make all of my own gear.  On Friday I finished my second quiver, and went to a shoot with it yesterday.  It works great, and got a fair few comments (some asking what kind of animal was climbing my back....).  So, all I have to make now is:

1. A knife (but I have two bought gorgeous lappish knives already)
2. a bag to hold some of my stuff in, and
3. a new tab. 

Give me a week, and I hope to have #2 and #3 done     The knife will take a little longer, but a friend of mine is a blacksmith, so that will something else to try........

I just love the challenge of making things with my hands.  The more I make, the better I get.  The more things I see on PA, the more I want to make too.  It's a vicious circle that I cant seem to get out of 

Keep up the good work my friends!

//Bob

[salad days]

I think that the global sharing of knowledge has got to be one of the biggest reasons for the expansion of this craft. Word has it that I live about twenty minutes from Gary Davis but I've never met the man. My buddy Rick in New York told me about this site one day when we were chatting on the phone. He is the only other bowyer that I know. It would have taken me years of broken sticks to learn what a few months on this site have taught me. When I shot my first bow I felt invigorated as though I had climbed a mountain and ascended toward my ancestors. It also bent my memory back to cub scout camp and playing "cowboys and Indians" as a child. When that bow broke I felt the sting of defeat but the challenge had a lasting allure. Without the web I'd be in the woods this season with my heavy wheelie arrow flinging machine, no escape from metal, machines, and tech fibers. My soul would be crying out for the romance of the almost weightless feel of the bent stick and the beauty of the natural wood. It doesn't get any simpler than a stick and a string.

[DirtyDan]

I wholeheartedly agree with everything that has been said here.  I love the inexpensive aspect, the return to ancestral skills, the magic of making a piece of wood into a functional weapon, the sense of history, the sheer love of a smooth piece of wood, and all the other things.   I think Hillbilly kind of hit on something that all of us feel, though.  I am fed up with the artificiality that you see everywhere in today's society.  Everything has to be a quick fix.  There is very little true craftsmanship.  When I see the mastery of the contributors on this site, I am so inspired with the genius, patience, and ingenuity of these men and women.  Primitive archery is one of the last vestiges of genuineness in our society.  Of course, it is ironic that we communicate with such a modern engine as the internet, but without it and the wonderful people at PA, many of us would never get to know and appreciate each other.  The appeal of primitive archery is also very contagious.  I cannot tell you how many people have met me at a demonstration or festival and have come over to my shop to learn how to make a selfbow.  They are so proud when they leave with a beautiful, slender, tapered weapon that only hours before was a ragged piece of a split log.

Dan Spier

[PepeLep]

I think in the last few years the internet has give us as a whole a chance to give something back that we all seem to get from primitive archery.

I think you're right. That's really ironic, too.

It took something as advanced and modern as the Internet to revive something as primitive and simple as primitive archery. There's poetry in that somewhere.

[whitewoodshunter]

wow guys never expected such good feedback!!! Thanks.

[Sidewinder]

My personal opinion is that it isn't very popular. When you look at a cross section of the population vs how many of us actually do it, I'll bet it is a super small percentage. I mean really, you look at archers in general I don't think there are that many around here that do it. Here is a good example. I have only been doing this since August of Last year. I studied everything I could get my hands on, thank God I found this and a couple other sites and I learned alot from this media but still no one I knew had any interest in it. When spring time rolled around I found out about a club called the Ninescah Bowhunters Association where they shoot 3-D. I went out there and found they had about a dozen traditional shooters ( FG Longbows and recurves) and mostly all the others ( at least a hundred guys) that shoot compound.  It was fun just to be around guys that were into archery period. The grounds are great and the membership is only $40yr unlimited fhishing and camping, so I signed up. I have been to about 6 shoots there this summer and when the cyborg shooters ( my pet name for compound bows) started seeing that I could actually hit the target and was doing pretty good they started asking questions. Yesterday I took my paleo buddy/bowyer Jimmy Egger and we had several guys asking us how much to make them one. I think we are starting to generate some interest, but we wil see. My plan is to either recruit or find 3 more guys that will go with us on a regular basis and make have the club  start a selfbow class. The thing I am noticing about primitve archers is they are more likley to not be online as they are more prone to be anti technology, and we as a group tend to be alot less likely to be running with the herd and whether anyone else is doing it or not we will. For me this is how I have acted out my midlife crisis. Instead of a shiney red sports car and a trophy wife 15yrs my younger, I have chosen to contiue to love my wife of 23yrs and also answer the call of the wild. Now I spend most of my non family time either in the woods or in the shop scrapping limbs or stalking around the yard shooting at my black bear ( given to me by a 70yr old primitve shooter/knife maker( I met camping that can't draw more than 30lbs now that his shoulder is all worn out). There is nothing I have done in my life up to this point that has given me greater satisfaction than making and shooting my own bows and the guys I have corresponded with on the net and some of whom I have met in person are with out question some of the most generous, helpful, considerate and intelligent people I have ever known and I for one am grateful for having been blessed enough to have found this passion.   Danny