WATCH: incredible archer shows his skills

[Skeptic]

@Medievalist

Also, some of us can knock arrows out of the air in flight, so we can only be shot when we’re not looking or busy with somebody else.

I imagine that would be harder to do, though not necessarily impossible, against full 90-150 pound draw weight warbows.

[daneel]

[Marktech]

http://www.shamusyoung.com/twentysidedtale/?p=1071

[mcv]

@Boundegar

Isn’t forgotten pretty much the opposite of historical?

Why would it be? These are techniques that were used long ago, and recorded in art and writing of that time, but nobody today knows the techniques anymore. Well, except Lars Anderson obviously, who recreated them.

Same thing happened with medieval swordfighting; also a forgotten art that has been reconstructed from old manuscripts.

[mcv]

I think Anderson’s style is more related to the eastern archery styles of Saracens, horse archers, etc, than to the English longbow.

[Skeptic]

@mcv

I think Anderson’s style is more related to the eastern archery styles of Saracens, horse archers, etc, than to the English longbow.

Yes, but he is using a finger loose rather than the thumb loose common to Asian horsebow archery, which is the only reason his shooting from the right side of the bow is notable. Bows shoot using a thumb loose (hooking the string with the thumb, often with an assist from the fingers to his the thumb back) are pretty much always shoot on the right side of the bow.

[miasm]

Damn! We need a new term that transcends ‘badass’.

[Lexicat]

Picking my jaw up off the floor.

[mcv]

@Skeptic

Yes, but he is using a finger loose rather than the thumb loose common to Asian horsebow archery, which is the only reason his shooting from the right side of the bow is notable. Bows shoot using a thumb loose (hooking the string with the thumb, often with an assist from the fingers to his the thumb back) are pretty much always shoot on the right side of the bow.

Are you sure this is such a universal rule? I know it’s what Matt Easton said, but Lars Anderson is clearly the superior archer here. There was a lot of variation in Asian horse archery.

[Skeptic]

Universal? That I don’t know. But it’s the rule in my limited experience.

[mcv]

Is he actually using the fingers, though? His older video (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2zGnxeSbb3g) has close-ups where he seems to be using the thumb.

[Eksrae]

There’s one archer who knows how to ride into the…

_{…Danger zone…}

[aeon]

@mcv

His older video (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2zGnxeSbb3g) has close-ups where he seems to be using the thumb.

The available youtube videos show him reloading from a back quiver; hip quiver; use draw hand held arrows; use bow hand held arrows; found arrows; catch arrows in flight and use them and use right and left handed pull. So the implication is that he’s practised so much and has such mastery, that he instinctively uses whichever release method suits at the time.

I love watching slow-motion video of unconscious mastery, it doesn’t really matter what the skill is.

[JoshuaP]

You and me both.
I love the fact that he has all the charisma and looks of your average couch potato (like myself of course) and yet he completely outcompetes the fictional Hollywoodised Legolas in a side by side comparison.

[Medievalist]

@Skeptic

I imagine that would be harder to do, though not necessarily impossible, against full 90-150 pound draw weight warbows.

Yep, it can be done, but only by highly trained, physically gifted individuals in peak condition. Which rules me out! But bows used in sport combat are required to have low draw weight and padded arrows fly relatively slowly. I can manage those OK.