The difference between traditional shooting and Mediterranean shooting

From a technical perspective, what is China's traditional archery? According to traditional Chinese archery, the hand that hooks the string should hook the string with the "back fist phoenix eye is the most suitable" (excerpted from "Wu Jing"), and the hand that hooks the string should use the thumb to hook the string. Our neighbors South Korea, Japan and Mongolia all use this technique. This is what we often call traditional archery or Mongolian archery.
Thumb shooting is an ancient skill. It is a method of archery summed up by our ancestors in long-term production and war practices. It is a precious cultural heritage of the Chinese nation. We have the responsibility to protect it, pass it on, and promote it.
According to research by Mongolian archery experts, the traditional Mongolian archery method is to pull the string with the thumb. "Erihei Morigen" often appears in Mongolian history books. Its meaning is: "Erihei" refers to the thumb, and "Morigen" means that archery is particularly accurate. Together, it means a master archer who uses the thumb to pull the bow and shoot arrows. According to Mongolian history, Mongolian boys start to learn archery at the age of three or four. When they first learn archery, a ceremony is held in which parents smear butter on their children's thumbs and say some blessings, hoping that they will grow up to be archers. This excellent cultural heritage is now not known by many people in Mongolian areas. Now almost no archers in Mongolian areas can use this ancient archery technique, and the wonderful archery art of "bending the bow to shoot the eagle" of the Mongolian people is on the verge of extinction. The loss of technology is accompanied by the loss of traditional culture, and with it the loss of traditional morality. The practical significance of restoring traditional archery lies in reshaping traditional moral values.
At present, there is another shooting method in the traditional bow competition held in our country, which is the "Mediterranean shooting method" that everyone often talks about, that is, the modern shooting method of hooking the string with three fingers. This shooting method was introduced to China from abroad more than 50 years ago in order to connect with international archery competitions. When we first learned archery more than 50 years ago, we learned traditional Chinese archery. When foreign archery technology was introduced to China, we learned modern archery, namely Mediterranean archery, and found that this method was more accurate than traditional archery. Since then, we have abandoned traditional archery, which has been abandoned for more than half a century. Now some archers use modern archery to shoot traditional bows, which is the same path we took back then. If we do not take resolute measures now, fewer and fewer people will use traditional Chinese archery. The efforts to restore and inherit traditional Chinese archery will be shattered again.
In the traditional bow archery competitions held in the past two years, it is abnormal that these two shooting methods exist at the same time. It violates the principle of fair competition in sports competitions and also violates our original intention to restore and inherit traditional Chinese archery. Mediterranean archery is more accurate than traditional archery. Archers who insist on traditional archery have great opinions and think that such competitions are unreasonable and not orthodox traditional Chinese archery competitions. There is a reason why so many archery enthusiasts use the Mediterranean shooting method with three fingers to hook the string. Most beginner archers, especially those in the mainland, do not know what the real traditional Chinese shooting method is and have never seen it. Because in the past 50 years, our country has been promoting the Mediterranean shooting method with three fingers to hook the string. These newly emerged archery enthusiasts can neither find the teaching materials of traditional shooting nor the coaches of traditional shooting, which has led to the current situation.
With the promotion of traditional archery in recent years, the majority of traditional bow archery enthusiasts have gradually realized that the archery method of pulling the bow with the thumb is the traditional and national Chinese method. After traditional archery athletes have a good sense of bow, they will find that they are not only training physical strength, but also a kind of physical and mental training, because the traditional bow is a bare bow without any accessories to learn from. To shoot an arrow well, you need to feel the fine muscle force and the technical movements of striving for excellence. When you devote yourself to archery, you will enter another realm, a realm of selflessness. At this time, you feel that archery is a kind of enjoyment and a spiritual experience. Only traditional archers can fully experience this feeling. This is why the ancients listed archery as one of the "Six Arts". According to the requirements of traditional archery, it is no longer a competitive sport in the general sense, but also has the requirements of Confucian moral cultivation. Confucianism believes that archery and virtue are the inside and outside of each other. "The Book of Rites: The Meaning of Archery" says, "The archer must be right in advance, retreat, and return. The inner will is upright and the outer body is straight. Only then can he hold the bow and arrow firmly. Only then can he say that he is right, and this can be seen in virtue." The inner will is upright and the outer body is straight is the gentleman's style. When I first started learning, I felt that it was more difficult than shooting with other bows. This fully reflects the charm of traditional archery, because traditional archery focuses on the process of shooting an arrow. It is a kind of "inaction" shooting, focusing on "both inside and outside", "upright ambition and upright body", and the improvement of people's ideological cultivation. This is the inheritance of Chinese culture. "Traditional Archery" and "Mediterranean Archery" reflect the differences between Eastern and Western cultures. This is not only a difference in archery methods, but also a difference in culture.
Because no one has used this method for archery for a long time, everyone will feel a little unfamiliar. Now starting from us, we will encounter some national difficulties in the process of learning archery. This is normal. As long as we persist, we will become a traditional archery master. In the future, we will also create opportunities for everyone to study and exchange together, learn from each other, and improve together to make traditional archery more popular.
Modern archery, which is widely carried out in our country, is technically the "Mediterranean shooting method". As an archery enthusiast, you can freely choose according to your own interests, but as a traditional archery competition, it should be clearly stipulated that the traditional Chinese shooting method should be used to draw the bow and shoot arrows, that is, draw the bow with the thumb. When drawing the bow, you can use the finger plate, gloves, hand leather or tape to protect the finger to pull the string for drawing and releasing the bow, provided that it cannot assist in drawing and releasing the bow. Such regulations are conducive to the restoration and inheritance of traditional Chinese archery.
For beginners engaged in archery, shooting arrows with a traditional bow is a good start, because it is simple in equipment, and you can choose bows of different pulling forces according to your own strength, and the size of the bow force has no direct effect on the hit rate. It is a sport that men, women, old and young can enjoy. Without any guidance, most beginners draw the bow and aim in the direction of the arrow, which is acceptable in the initial stage. After practicing for a while, they will notice that, especially when shooting at targets at different ranges, it is not just about drawing the bow, aiming and releasing, but there are more techniques and requirements.

Practice has proved that a good recurve or compound bow player is not necessarily a good traditional bow shooter, but a good traditional bow shooter can definitely become a good recurve or compound bow shooter.