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Post by sidheguitarmichael on Jul 7, 2020 15:40:57 GMT -5
I’m probably the only guy here who finds this as fascinating as I do, but I think this Danish archer/scholar is on to something.
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Post by fauxmaha on Jul 7, 2020 15:50:12 GMT -5
The synthetic voice really creeps me out, but speed-archery is seriously cool stuff.
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Post by sidheguitarmichael on Jul 7, 2020 16:00:14 GMT -5
The synthetic voice really creeps me out, but speed-archery is seriously cool stuff. That voice has no legit purpose. Seriously. My first thought every time I hear it in the contexts that I do hear it is: “Why are child pornographers, WitSec informants, and Russian cyber-criminals putting out a video on the Italian longsword, wooden canoe building, or how to install a reduced diameter supercharger pulley on a mini cooper S? |
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Post by theevan on Jul 7, 2020 16:36:14 GMT -5
I'm flabbergasted.
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Post by fauxmaha on Jul 7, 2020 16:37:08 GMT -5
More on point, this kind of goes back to the " different age" thread. My sense of things is that 2020 people have a really flawed view of people in history. Meaning, I think we tend to flatter ourselves as inherently "competent" compared to those rubes from hundreds (or thousands, or tens of thousands) of years ago. We are modern and sophisticated, and they were just a bunch of unwashed illiterates trying to scratch a belly's worth of something out of the ground. The more I learn, the more I am convinced that that gets it exactly backwards. We all depend on a social and technological foundation to create the illusion of our competence, but take that away, and we're as helpless as babies. We look at the relatively primitive technology of the bow and scoff. We have weapons of indescribable power compared to that. But while "we" may have those weapons, none of us, individually, has a damned thing. The guy from hundreds or thousands of years ago who, finding himself alone in a forest, could fashion a usable bow, and arrows, and arrowheads, and deploy all of that in a skillful and deadly manner, is far more competent than any of us. It's the flip side of the "I, Pencil" essay. Modern technology, modern distribution systems, modern monetary systems...those things lift us all up, but they also push us into the velvet bear trap of specialization. Each of us gets really good a doing something that would be considered useless by the standards of even a few hundred years ago. But because of the "leverage" afforded to us by the modern world, we not only don't recognize our own incompetence, we delude ourselves into thinking we have some manner of ultra competence. We're all really good at pushing our unique button on The Machine, but take away the machine, we're useless. |
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Post by theevan on Jul 7, 2020 16:47:23 GMT -5
More on point, this kind of goes back to the " different age" thread. My sense of things is that 2020 people have a really flawed view of people in history. Meaning, I think we tend to flatter ourselves as inherently "competent" compared to those rubes from hundreds (or thousands, or tens of thousands) of years ago. We are modern and sophisticated, and they were just a bunch of unwashed illiterates trying to scratch a belly's worth of something out of the ground. The more I learn, the more I am convinced that that gets it exactly backwards. We all depend on a social and technological foundation to create the illusion of our competence, but take that away, and we're as helpless as babies. We look at the relatively primitive technology of the bow and scoff. We have weapons of indescribable power compared to that. But while "we" may have those weapons, none of us, individually, has a damned thing. The guy from hundreds or thousands of years ago who, finding himself alone in a forest, could fashion a usable bow, and arrows, and arrowheads, and deploy all of that in a skillful and deadly manner, is far more competent than any of us. It's the flip side of the "I, Pencil" essay. Modern technology, modern distribution systems, modern monetary systems...those things lift us all up, but they also push us into the velvet bear trap of specialization. Each of us gets really good a doing something that would be considered useless by the standards of even a few hundred years ago. But because of the "leverage" afforded to us by the modern world, we not only don't recognize our own incompetence, we delude ourselves into thinking we have some manner of ultra competence. We're all really good at pushing our unique button on The Machine, but take away the machine, we're useless. Beautifully said. The oligarchy of the "experts" has neutered us even further. |
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Post by fauxmaha on Jul 7, 2020 17:01:09 GMT -5
Beautifully said. The oligarchy of the "experts" has neutered us even further. A real writer could have said it better. In fact, one did, when Robert Heinlein said "Specialization is for insects". |
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Post by Chesapeake on Jul 7, 2020 17:07:53 GMT -5
He is the Bruce Lee of archery.
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Post by billhammond on Jul 7, 2020 17:08:49 GMT -5
He is the Bruce Lee of Archery. .. and the Sultan of Swing ... |
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Post by millring on Jul 7, 2020 18:05:36 GMT -5
More on point, this kind of goes back to the " different age" thread. My sense of things is that 2020 people have a really flawed view of people in history. Meaning, I think we tend to flatter ourselves as inherently "competent" compared to those rubes from hundreds (or thousands, or tens of thousands) of years ago. We are modern and sophisticated, and they were just a bunch of unwashed illiterates trying to scratch a belly's worth of something out of the ground. The more I learn, the more I am convinced that that gets it exactly backwards. We all depend on a social and technological foundation to create the illusion of our competence, but take that away, and we're as helpless as babies. We look at the relatively primitive technology of the bow and scoff. We have weapons of indescribable power compared to that. But while "we" may have those weapons, none of us, individually, has a damned thing. The guy from hundreds or thousands of years ago who, finding himself alone in a forest, could fashion a usable bow, and arrows, and arrowheads, and deploy all of that in a skillful and deadly manner, is far more competent than any of us. It's the flip side of the "I, Pencil" essay. Modern technology, modern distribution systems, modern monetary systems...those things lift us all up, but they also push us into the velvet bear trap of specialization. Each of us gets really good a doing something that would be considered useless by the standards of even a few hundred years ago. But because of the "leverage" afforded to us by the modern world, we not only don't recognize our own incompetence, we delude ourselves into thinking we have some manner of ultra competence. We're all really good at pushing our unique button on The Machine, but take away the machine, we're useless. It's scary enough to see how that has affected the way the average Joe perceives ancient people. It's far scarier to realize that the greatest misunderstanding and mis-characterizations (and perhaps what led the average Joe to his conclusions) resided in the academic world. |
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Post by millring on Jul 7, 2020 18:06:04 GMT -5
btw, that was beautifully said.
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Post by Rob Hanesworth on Jul 7, 2020 19:48:55 GMT -5
I like that he uses a recurve now. I dislike compound bows. I haven't shot for years, but this is what I used back when I was actve:  |
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Dub
Administrator
I'm gettin' so the past is the only thing I can remember.
Posts: 19,914 
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Post by Dub on Jul 7, 2020 20:11:13 GMT -5
I’m probably the only guy here who finds this as fascinating as I do, but I think this Danish archer/scholar is on to something. Turns out you’re not the only one. Add my name to the bunch of people here who love this stuff. Nearly any traditional skill fascinates me. You should see my collection of 19th century woodworking tools. There are a bunch of people who make and use shepherd’s slings a la David. Neat stuff to watch. I’d love to learn that too. |
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Post by Village Idiot on Jul 7, 2020 20:21:12 GMT -5
I like that he uses a recurve now. I dislike compound bows. I haven't shot for years, but this is what I used back when I was actve: You too? My Dad would hunt with one of those years ago, I was taught to use one of those. |
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Post by robjh22 on Jul 7, 2020 20:25:00 GMT -5
If we think how complex were Dowland's and Milan's 17th and 16th century compositions for lute, and the sophistication of ancient Greek and then renaissance Italian sculpture, it shouldn't be surprising that men of the past could take archery (and everything else) to a very high level, especially if they grew up in the craft and thought about and practiced it all day ... and you know they did, undistracted by the things that distract us today.
I make the mistake -- I guess it's a mistake -- to think of soldiers of that era as rather crude and rough, all covered in mud and blood and grunting all the time. Maybe they were, with all the effete 98-pound weaklings staying back on the farm digging up potatoes or making musical instruments out of sheep gut and dried out pumpkin gourds. You can guess which group I would have belonged to, though I weigh more than 98 pounds now.
And I see that English longbows were made from yew; as were and are lutes.
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Post by Marshall on Jul 8, 2020 8:04:20 GMT -5
I’m probably the only guy here who finds this as fascinating as I do, but I think this Danish archer/scholar is on to something. Turns out you’re not the only one. Add my name to the bunch of people here who love this stuff. Nearly any traditional skill fascinates me. You should see my collection of 19th century woodworking tools. There are a bunch ov people who make and use shepherd’s slings a la David. Neat stuff to watch. I’d love to lear that too. You buy them when you were a kid? |
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Post by majorminor on Jul 8, 2020 8:07:13 GMT -5
This took me like 4 minutes to do. And as my dad likes to say "what's that yellow dot in the center for?"  |
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Post by aquaduct on Jul 8, 2020 8:11:20 GMT -5
I actually made a bow very similar to this one back in wood shop in high school. One of the few things I still have from that time. Never actually strung it up and shot (arched?!?) with it and I'd almost be afraid to now, but it's cool looking. |
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Post by TKennedy on Jul 8, 2020 9:45:06 GMT -5
Fascinating. Good post Jeff. This thread reminded me of a story an older orthopedist told me back in the 80's. He did a lot of third world medical outreach back then. If an older person snaps the ball off their hip in a fall a standard treatment is to replace the ball with a metal one that is the same size as the original and has a long stem that goes down the femur to anchor it. Back then they were called an Austin Moore prosthesis and were press fitted into the thigh bone. I think it was India where he was, and he had planned on training the local surgeons in the technique. As it turned out what they had been doing for a long time was taking out the broken ball, closing the patient up and taking the ball to an Ivory cutter who worked outdoors in a market. He would carve a new ball and a stem to fit into the femur that matched the original. They would sterilize it, open the patient back up and put it in. He said the carved prosthesis were real works of art and the patients did pretty well. Another friend who went to Africa accompanied by crates of Orthopedic supplies including casting materials was surprised to see that the local doctors had developed sophisticated techniques of splinting fractures with bamboo sticks that seemed just as good as a cast. Addendum: I actually found a link to the history of the hand carved Ivory hip prosthesis! link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11999-017-5497-0 |
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Post by RickW on Jul 8, 2020 13:45:42 GMT -5
I posted this in a writer’s group where there are people who know a fair bit about medieval arms and armor. The main observation was that that’s pretty much a toy bow. The old English long bows, or the compound bows the Mongols used would have made most of the trick shots and super rapid fire stuff impossible. On top of that, the use of missile weapons, (guns,) to lay down fire just to make people keep their heads down, which is very much a part of modern warfare, was not done back in the day. Arrows were expensive, they had to be made and transported, and for most armies, it was not the bowmen making them. They bought them by the sheaf, and a sheaf of arrows cost the same as several days wages for the average bowman. So, they aimed and fired pretty carefully. They also had recovery people to go and get them afterwards. Then you start to wonder, how the hell did people like the Mongols, with those immense long supply lines going across Asia, manage to keep their armies in enough arrows? In England, one of the Henrys forbade the use of poplar, the normal wood for arrow shafts, to be used for anything but arrows. There was also a law at one point that all goose feathers needed to be collected and forwarded to the crown. Guess the English kings liked that waterfront property and nice vineyards in Bordeaux.  |
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