Saturday, November 18, 2023

Short girl or absurdly long bow? Or both?

 


7 comments:

  1. I'm going to guess that it's both...

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  2. Japanese bow - asymmetrical limbs, the upper limb of the bow is much longer than the lower limb. As I understand the anchor point for the shot is behind your ear vs the US/European anchor point of cheekbone.

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  3. That girl doesn't look particularly short, and that's the normal length for the bow. I'm 6' tall, and my bow is as tall as I am standing with my arms extended straight up. It's kind of funny to see people carrying their bows on the train, which I see a lot.

    As the previous poster wrote, the bow is asymmetrical, the grip is about one-third from the bottom, and the string is pulled past the ear. The leather glove on the shooting hand has a hard ledge at the base of the thumb that holds the string during the draw. When the string is released, the bow twists to the left in the grip hand so that the string arcs outward and does not hit you in the face. The string hits the back of your grip arm at the end of its arc, which is very satisfying.

    I wonder where this dojo is. It looks fully covered rather than only the shooters' position having a roof. Nice for shooting in the winter and in rain.

    Pictures like this are what makes DTW my favorite website. I especially like the Friday Open Road series. Where does CW consistently get so many great pics?

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  4. The nice thing about that bow is it can be fired from horseback or from kneeling.

    The length is required to generate power out of the bow material, which is bamboo.

    Same reason the longbow was created, to maximize the power out of the available materials (and using only a straight piece of wood.)

    Contrast that to the shorter laminated composite recurve bows of the Mongols and the Koreans. Using laminated wood, bone, with sinew and using curved limbs, you can develop a huge amount of power.

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  5. Beans' explanation is spot on. The bow's length compensates for the simple materials used to make it, and it can be used kneeling despite being really long because the lower limb is shorter.

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  6. length of bow can also be compensated by "canting" the bow. it was how i was taught traditional archery when younger.

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    Replies
    1. Normal canting won't really work with a Japanese bow because the arrow is held on the right side of the bow, resting on the thumb, not on the left. You could try canting to the left, but it would be clumsy. The bow looks canted in this picture because it is not yet raised, but when shooting it is vertical.

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