The BBS has a thread on Jim “I hate Lars Anderson” MacQuarrie’s 2015 screed here:
A data point:
I am not an expert, but I do shoot most days. I spent an hour this morning trying out the method in the video without any notable success.
When I nock my arrow high and release, the tail of the arrow spirals for five or six yards then it straightens out and flies normally. The path of the flight is about what I would expect, the arrow winds up more or less where it was aimed. I was not able to go around any obstacles (trash can, target, tree).
I repeated the experiment with an under-spined arrow; results were about the same.
Maybe I need more practice or there’s some subtlety I’m missing?
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Dunno, but this guy is holding his bow horizontally when using the high nocking point trick.
And he’s using a low poundage bow.
I’m not saying it can’t be done, just that I couldn’t make it work and I’m not a novice. There’s a broad consensus online that the technique works.
I held my bow at 45 degrees, I’ll try it again with the bow horizontal.
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Got it. I’ve never tried it on purpose, but when spine testing for my trad bow I’ve broken some underspined arrows that curved a bit like in the video because they landed in the target before straightening and snapped in half because of the lateral forces on the arrow.
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Holding the bow horizontal definitely helps, or at least makes the effect more obvious. I was able to get around the trashcan this time and hit the backstop next to my target. With some practice, I might even be able to reliably hit something at a known distance and with a known obstacle.
It would make a good bar bet - you know, for all those archery bars people like so much.
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I don’t need an alert. Like most archers, every single time a video like this appears, a dozen people email us or tag us on Facebook or Instragram. Every time. It’s exhausting, because we all know exactly what the trick-shooter is doing and how they do it.
Lars’ speed-shooting is nothing more than very wide-gapped nocks that allow him to hook the string without looking. It’s in the Arabic book he loves to selectively quote from, ignoring the parts that say it’s a gimmick with no useful purpose. None of what he does is in any way based on or similar to anything any warrior-archer has ever used in combat. If he presented it as a circus act, it would be great. Inventing phony history to sell his gimmicks is a different story.
I haven’t made a video because I have plenty to do teaching archery, coaching competitive archers, writing, drawing, and working as a graphic designer. Every couple of years, when a bunch of people send me the latest stunt-shooter’s act, I comment on it. Other than that, I ignore them.
Your turn. Are you an archer? If not, then one of us is speaking in ignorance.
Switch the point for a considerably lighter one than what the arrow calls for, and use an arrow considerably heavier than the bow-weight would normally be used with.
Yes, yes, and according to you “it is morally wrong not to be harsh and judgmental” towards Lars Anderson. Your vituperation is a moral duty!!!111!!!1 
What’s strange about your argument is that we also all know what target archers are going to do and how they are going to do it. From there it’s the skill of the archer that gets results. It’s the same for target archers as it is for world class trick shots like Byron Ferguson and Lars Anderson. The biomechanics and physics are known. The skill of archer is what makes the final result, not whether we know “how” they are going to shoot an arrow.
Curiously I don’t see you here bashing World Archery Recurve class target archers (Olympic style target archery) even though “we all know exactly what the” target archer “is doing and how they do it.”
Your hate for Lars Anderson has you selectively applying arguments just to Lars Anderson as you simultaneously ignore that they would apply to your own kind of archery.
That’s like saying that WA Recurve is nothing more than having Beiter nocks and skinny carbon arrows. Those are tools that aid your shooting. But just having them won’t make you a champion target archer any more than having wide nocks will let you shoot with the same skill and speed as Lars Anderson.
Ah, you have your Lars Hate Glasses on again. Here’s all the video narration actually says about history:
Now both Arabic and English sources both record that an arrow can hit a target behind an object. Did you know that it is possible for an arrow to hit an enemy that is hiding behind an object? The records also describe a form of returning arrow.
And here is what the video description says:
It is historically described that trick archery must be done with a light bow.
Any kind of turn arrows reduces speed the more the arrow turns the more loss of power.
…
It is historically described to hit an enemy with a turning arrow, but not if it is deadly.Can it have practical function in combat?
Impossible to know today, but a hypothetical example:
If a man is hiding behind an obstacle, for example. a tree and he is hit with a turn arrow so he may not be killed.
But then he will probably move and then he can next be killed with a straight arrow!But the real reason for doing this today is that it is very fun.
[Emphasis added]
Anderson doesn’t make any claims in this video that this was used historically in combat. He just says it is possible, and that it is fun to shoot around objects. The rest is just you projecting.
Mmm hmm. Yup. It’s so easy to do that anybody could do it. You just, uhm, haven’t had time in the last 5 years to do this super easy thing, that requires “no skill”. If it takes “no skill” then it wouldn’t take more than a couple of minutes of your precious time for you to demonstrate these easy no skill mechanical tricks that only require “basic archery skills”, which surely you have as a certified archery instructor. So that excuse doesn’t fly. You can’t do these tricks and you know it.
Note that not only haven’t you made a video of yourself doing all of Anderson’s easy, “no skill” tricks, nobody else has either. His video is the most watched archery trick shot video in the world, and Anderson is the most harshed on trick shooter in the world by haters such as yourself. Yet none of the haters have duplicated his full range of skills. The crickets are deafening.
Ah, there it is, after dodging the fact that you can’t duplicate Anderson’s trick shots that you say require “no skill” you resort to the fallacious Argument From Authority, that nobody but people who are in your special club consisting solely of archers can speak about the validity of any your claims.
Hey, you know who’s in the club of archers? Lars Anderson. He’s an archer. But your GeekDad polemic tries to other him, to make him part of the outgroup of non-archers you dismiss out of hand. The title of the article is Danish “Archer” Demonstrates Gullibility of Audience, putting archer in scare quotes to suggest that Anderson, who as a person who shoots a bow is clearly an archer, isn’t an archer. You try to do the same thing here in the forum where you keep trying to call him a “circus act” and never call him an archer.
But, hey, if you think claims about archery can only be made based on a hierarchy of archery authority then you are out ranked by US Olympic archer, and coach who’s certification level is higher than yours, John Magera. His handle is Limbwalker at the link:
Why can’t some of you just accept the fact that this guy has trained himself to be able to do things that possibly no other living human being can do?
I’ve been all but immersed in all things archery since before I was 10 years old. 35 years later, I can say I’ve never, ever seen anything like the shooting that I saw in Lars’ video.
There is a reason it’s had 8.6M hits folks. That’s because its f-ing incredible. Period.
…
It’s pretty sad that so many who would never even be able to do just ONE of the feats accomplished by Lars in that video, let alone try, will sit here and play down his achievements.
And finally, here is what Anderson has said about all the haters such as yourself:
“Many people have accused me of being fake or have theories on how there’s cheating involved,” Andersen says of his video, in a news release. “I’ve always found it fascinating how human it is, to want to disbelieve anything that goes against our world view — even when it’s about something as relatively neutral as archery.”
He’s a talented humble person. You could learn something from him, make that should learn something from him.
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I’m glad I never had to learn English.
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To hit a target behind an object, I would use a bazooka.
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I almost want to order some stuff, and try doing this with arrows with a second set of feathers near the front. (prob helical)
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If you do you should probably only try it at a completely empty range. Lots of drag on the back of an arrow makes the arrow stable. Putting lots of drag on the front of an arrow makes it unstable. That arrow could go all sorts of places you wouldn’t expect. I’ve read some scary stories about people bareshaft testing (arrows without fletching) broadhead hunting arrows where the arrows went in some unexpected directions - but that isn’t something I’ve tried, so I don’t know just how likely that is to happen.
Nuke it from orbit. It’s the only way to be sure.
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