Event report

World Traditional Archery Festival

Young Korean re-enactors with crossbows

(Photograph: Andrzej Abratowski)

Dr Murat zveri reports on the first ever world traditional

archery festival, the way forward in traditional archery

BACK TO THE FUTURE

O
n 12-15 May 2007, the first World
Traditional Archery Festival (WTAF)
was held in Cheonan city, in Korea.
The event was a great success,
with 22 countries participating, including Korea. Asian countries have organised
a similar event in recent years involving
Asian countries, but this time many European countries, as well as North America,
were represented.

Back to basics
In recent years there has been a comeback of traditional archery (TA). More and
more people are going back to traditional
bows and arrows, wanting to hold a piece
of history in their hands, rather than the
hi-tech shooting machines which simply
guarantee higher scores on the target
face. They simply trade accuracy with a
warm piece of romance surrounded by
the history of the human being.
Interestingly, even the meaning of TA
varies between countries and cultures.

The arrow
launcher cast
the arrows
with the help
of gunpoder.
Impresive
stuff!
(Photograph:
Andrzej
Abratowski)

In the USA, for instance, some people call

barebow shooting with bows made of synthetic materials TA, and refer to archery
with old technology bows as primitive
archery. Most enthusiasts, however, agree
about its common characteristics and it is
generally accepted that TA is not only about
a summary of archery technique and equipment but also a kind of cultural wealth
that is associated with the character of the
land and the people that gave birth to and
have fed it. Today, TA equipment has also
been strongly influenced by technological
inventions, and fibreglass bow replicas are
widely acceptable. There are inexpensive,
good-looking and low-maintenance replicas of many kinds of bows on the market.
Besides the countries like Bhutan, England, Japan, Korea and Mongolia, where
TA has survived uninterrupted till today,
there are some countries that are trying
to recover this part of their national/
ethnic culture. Countries like Hungary
and China seem to have succeeded

to revitalise their TA to some extent, while

Turkey is now revealing a renaissance. In
North America, TA is somewhat a hybrid,
with a mixture of Native American archery
schools and the Anglo-Saxon bowmanship
which was brought to the continent by immigrants. The USA is worth highlighting
for its effort in populising TA in general, in
spite of its non-orthodox, heterogeneous
TA culture. Thanks to many bowhunters
using traditional equipment, the American flatbow has found fans and become a
standard, even for some European enthusiasts like those in Germany. Another very
important country is undoubtly Hungary
with its world-famous bowyers and mounted archers.
In Europe there are many horseback
archers who follow Kassai Lajos school.
Kassai Lajos is a Hungarian bowyer and
horseback archer who is known worldwide. Mounted archery is a very important
component within TA and plays a prominent role in increasing its popularity. There

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Janissary in
action: the author
represented
Turkish traditional
archery in an
Ottoman foot
soldier outfit

are various mounted archery

schools all over the world. Japans Yabusame and Mongolian
horseback archery have survived
for centuries. In Europe, other
then Germany and Greece which
follow Kassais regulations and
concept, Czech Republic and Poland have also mounted archers.
Lucas Novotny in the US and Stephen Selby
in Hong Kong are other renowned enthusiasts who perform and teach shooting on
horseback.

Mongol bows
(Photograph:
Andrzej
Abratowski)

Theatrical feel
The World Traditional Archery Festival was
organised by the National Association of
Archery for All with great support from the
Korean government. The Korean government supported many participants with
50% or even 100% sponsorship. Each
team was asked to bring archery-related
items, including a bow, and to trade them
for a modern Korean bow replica provided
by the Organisation Committee.
At the first day of the event the participants were transferred from the Incheon
airport to the National Youth Training Centre
of Korea, a cultural complex located in Cheonan which is approximately 1.5 hours away
from the capital, Seoul. This complex not
only fulfilled all the daily essential needs but
also provided places for ceremonies, lectures
and demonstrations. On the first evening the
opening ceremony was held in a congress
hall and was followed by two demonstrations. The first was about gluing the horn
laminate to the core of Korean composite bow. The second demo was by
a fletcher and about fletching the Korean bamboo arrows with pheasant
feathers. Both the bowyer and the
fletcher used fish bladder glue and
the fletcher fletched the arrows by
hand, without using a fletching jig.

World Traditional Archery Festival

Event report

The second day was scheduled for archery

exhibitions and demonstrations by all of
the teams. We were all transferred to the
city stadium where booths for each team
had been constructed. National costumes
were obligatory and each team brought its
national flag. Booths were decorated with
bows, arrows, quivers, arrowheads, books,
brochures, and traditional targets in only
a few minutes. This exhibition created a
beautiful, colourful and even theatrical
atmosphere. The Korean military band and
students in national costumes were present
too. One of these groups consisted of Korean high school children who had crossbow
and repeating crossbow replicas,
demonstrating the use of these
weapons. Adding to the amazing
Korean hospitality that we found
from the first moment we arrived
in Korea, all the people were so
warm and friendly that socialising started quickly and naturally.

The event was a great opportunity to make

friends and meet some old internet friends
personally for the first time.
Other than the full-day exhibition of
archery equipment, each team demonstrated its shooting technique one by one. The
teams of Bhutan, China, Japan and Turkey,
the latter being represented by me, used
their traditional arrow targets. The Hungarian teams demonstration was awesome.
In their eighth century Magyar costumes
they played a shamanic ritual by beating
small shamanic drums, singing songs and
shooting their accurate arrows from various
standing and kneeling positions.

Know no boundaries
This section of the event clearly showed
that TA has no boundaries. Stephen Selby,
an Englishman who has been living in Hong
Kong with his Chinese wife and three kids
for decades, and who is the founder and
moderator of the Asian Traditional Archery
Archery and aesthetics: Kyudo
(Photograph: Andrzej Abratowski)

A good physical
condition
and the right
mental outlook
are just as
important as
the proper
equipment

Korean
arrowheads
(Photograph:
Andrzej
Abratowski)

Jaap
Koppedrayer
demonstrated
how to make
the Japanese
bow, yumi

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Event report

World Traditional Archery Festival

The Hungarian teams demonstration was theatrical and very

impressive (Photograph: Andrzej Abratowski)

Research Network (ATARN www.atarn.

org), represented Chinese archery with his
Chinese friend Fox. Thomas Duvarney, an
American who lives in Korea with his Korean wife and son, took part in the US team,
but shot a Korean traditional horn bow in
Korean style. Heon-Ku Kim, a Korean guy
who had moved to the US, took part in the
US team and used Korean equipment. Peter
Dekker, a Dutchman who lives in Beijing,
was in Chinese costume and shot a Chinese
bow while representing the Netherlands.
Jean-Baptiste Behar, who si half Turkish,
represented France and shot a Turkish bow
in Turkish-Ottoman outfit. Aristotle Kalentzis, a journalist from Greece in his national
costume who follows the mounted archery
school of Kassai Lajos, shot a Hungarian
bow. When I saw this cosmopolitan distribution I recalled what Stephen Selby once told
me: I want to make the bow and arrow the
weapons of peace! Words of wisdom
A multi-barrelled arrow-shooting device that reminded me of modern missile
launchers was part of the show. Each arrow
was bound to a sparkler and they were all
fired at the same time, making the arrows
fly with a long tail of flame behind them.
The rest of the day was for visiting the other
stands and accepting visitors. It looked like
a big stage with the whole worlds history
being re-written: a samurai was examining
Turkish bows and a Janissary was learning
how to draw in Kyudo. A Chinese warrior
was chatting with a Viking warrior while an
American mountain-man was laughing at a
joke a Mongol archer had told.
That evening another demonstration
was scheduled. Jaap Koppedrayer demonstrated how to make a yumi, the Japanese
bow, with a special wedge-technique, in
only 45 minutes (of course, tillering the
bow requires more time). His high skill was

notable and much appreciated by the audiences.

The next day, there was both a competition and seminars. The two activities
clashed, so you couldnt do both, but a
seminar book was released after the seminars. Anyway, both the seminars (as far as I
was told) and the competition were great. I
was the only Turkish archery representative
in the competition because my companion,
Cem Donmez, is mainly a bowyer and preferred to go to the shooting range where
Korean bowyers were sharing technical
know-how.
The competition was, however, another
occasion to enjoy the festival and to make
new friends. Far from being a serious event,
all of us had a good time and enjoyed
various traditional targets that we were
not used to: an American 3-D deer target
at 20m, a Japanese Kyudo target at 60m,
a Mongolian traditional target which, in
fact, consisted of a line of small baskets
on the floor at 80m and finally, the traditional Korean target, a 260cmx200cm
rubber-coated metal shield at 145m!
What I liked was shooting at the Korean
targets after the competition. It was disappointing that I couldnt reach them
with my 60lb Grozer Turkish fibreglass
bow all my arrows landed just in front
of the target. The Korean archers suggested cutting the fletching into a lower
profile, and the same arrows begun to hit
the 145m target. Reducing the air drag just
a little bit at the back of the arrow made a
big difference at this distance.
Korean archers shoot either the famous
Korean composite bow or its beautifullymade modern copy. The regular bow is very
similar to the Turkish bow in shape: a short
recurve made of bamboo, sinew and horn.
Their draw is quite long, about 31-32 and

Re-writing
the history:
a Magyar
warrior and
an American
mountain
man have
never come
so close to
each other

Below:
Hungarian,
Dutch, Mongol, Chinese,
American,
Turkish,
Korean,
Australian,
Japanese, and
Czech
traditional
archers at the
WTAF
Korean
archers at
full-draw
(Photograph:
Aristotle
Kalentzis)

the release is made with a thumb-ring.

The thumb-rings are named according
to their shapes as male (sugkagji) or
female (amkgakji). Amkgakji looks
very similar to Turkish and Persian-type
thumb-rings. Both the morphology of
the bow and the female thumb-ring
show how Korean and Turkish histories
have intertwined with that of Central
Asia.
Although the crown of extreme
distance shot with a traditional bow
seems to belong to Koreans, it does not.
The king is the Bhutanese archers. This
isolated Himalayan kingdom with a population of only 800,000 gives great importance
to archery, its national sport. Their targets
are put at 145m like in Korea, but the dimensions of these rectangular wooden
plates are 110cmx28cmx5cm. only! Their
selfbows made of bamboo have amazing
efficiency with pyramidal limbs. The bamboo arrows are fletched with four extremely
low-profile pheasant feathers and fly like
bullets from these simple bows!
At the end of the day a big farewell
party was held. The time had come to trade
the archery equipment we brought to Korea
with the modern Korean bows that the Organisation Committee provided. The modern
Korean bows are really cool. The horn on the
belly has been replaced with carbon fibre
and on the back there is another synthetic
material substituting the sinew. These bows
can be drawn as long as horn bows, and
are fast and beautiful. During the farewell
party the award ceremony also took place.
The Korean-American Heon-Ku Kim took
the first place, a Magyar archer took the
second place and the bronze medal went
to Mongolia. Then there was everything that
belongs to a party: fireworks, beer, and
friendship.
We left Korea with great memories and new friends. The festival can
be summarised by exceptional Korean
hospitality, excellent organisation, good
food, and a great opportunity to meet
enthusiasts and make friends from all
over the world.

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