Traditional bow classification and history

In fact, traditional bows include a lot of types. There are many types of bows from various ethnic groups in ancient and modern times, at least I don't know how many types of traditional bows there are. However, as long as it is a bare bow without an arrow rest, we generally call it a traditional bow. Some people think that the arrow rest is the evolution of the bow, and the traditional bare bow is outdated, and only has the value of traditional culture.
But I don't think so. How much technical content does it have to carve a groove on the bow to hold the arrow? Why has no one done this for thousands of years? Because in the past, everyone had to ride and shoot, and shoot left and right. It is most in line with combat needs to be able to shoot anytime, anywhere and shoot any arrows at will, and shoot a string of arrows at any time. I always think that technology is the most important, so as long as you have good skills, you can still shoot a hundred steps through the willow.
But it is undeniable that the traditional bare bow is more difficult to use than the modern compound bow and the modern recurve bow. The easiest to use is the modern compound bow, the most difficult to use is the traditional bare bow, and the modern recurve bow is a compromise.
Nowadays, the pace of life is fast, and many people are unwilling to spend a lot of time practicing, so relatively few people play traditional bows. If traditional bows are divided by material, they can also be divided into compound bows and single bows. Traditional compound bows and modern compound bows are two completely different concepts. Traditional compound bows refer to composite materials. Taking horn bows as an example, they are mainly made of wood wrapped with tendons and horn pieces.
Composite bows are more scientific and have higher efficiency. Compared with traditional compound bows, single bows are much simpler. They are made of a single piece of wood. Of course, if you want to make a good bow, you can't just take a piece of wood and cut it into a bow. The choice of wood is very particular, and you need to train the bow. I won't explain too much about the production here. Simply put, single bows are easier to make than traditional compound bows, and they have lower requirements for climatic conditions. The English longbow is a famous representative of single bows. In fact, it is because England is an island country with a humid climate, and horn bows are difficult to make.
Although single bows are inferior to traditional compound bows in efficiency, they can be compensated by increasing the pulling force. Traditional compound bows are more difficult to make with high pulling force. Don't think that everyone in ancient times used horn bows. The production cycle of horn bows is long and the cost is also high. In fact, ordinary soldiers used more single bows. If traditional bows are divided by bow type, they are divided into traditional recurve bows and traditional straight-pull bows. Let's first take a look at the structure diagram of the most common traditional recurve bow. Generally speaking, traditional bows in my country are basically traditional recurve bows. This can be seen from the shape of the word "bow". If the end of the bow has an arc that bends forward, it is a recurve bow. If it bends into a C shape, it is a straight-pull bow. I won't use the structure diagram of the straight-pull bow. There is no structure to speak of. It is just a pole with a rope.
Every Wednesday, we publish exquisite articles, including archery knowledge, teaching videos, bow and arrow evaluation, etc. Archery information welcomes submission of original articles, and there are rewards for adoption! As for the specific types of traditional bows, there are too many. Generally speaking, the common traditional recurve bows are hard-pointed, that is, the bow tip is a vertical wooden strip, and the bow tip is not deformed when it is partially pulled open. Like modern recurve bows, even after the bow tip is pulled open, it is deformed, which we call soft tip. In fact, although the bow types, materials, and craftsmanship of various traditional recurve bows handed down from ancient times are not exactly the same, the general appearance is basically the same. It is nothing more than the size of the curvature, the length of the bow, and the length of the bow tip. I have already talked about the difference in the length of the bow when I talked about the wheelbase of modern compound bows. The curvature is related to the length and material craftsmanship. There is no simple standard for this, so I will talk about the difference in the bow tip.
Generally speaking, short-tip bows are more efficient, so you can see that modern recurve bows are simply soft-tip, eliminating the hard and long bow tip, pursuing a higher rebound speed.
The longer and heavier the bow tip, the more it will inevitably affect the rebound speed of the bow. This is easy to understand. The bow piece is only responsible for the bowstring and the speed of the bow will be different when it is added with two pieces of burden. So why did the ancients still make hard-tip bows? First of all, although the soft tip is more efficient, it is very difficult to make a soft tip based on the materials in ancient times. This is one of the reasons why traditional recurve bows in ancient times are hard-tip. So why did the long-tip bows like the Qing bow appear in ancient times?
This is because although the rebound speed of the long bow is slightly slower, the long bow will save some effort when the bow is fully stretched, similar to the effect of the wheel of the compound bow. Of course, it is not as obvious as the compound bow. And the long bow can push heavier arrows. As we all know, if the arrow is light, it will fly farther and faster, but too light arrows will not have much power. If it is projectile, the acceleration of the heavy arrow falling and its own weight will cause greater lethality. Everyone should understand this, so the long bow sacrifices a certain arrow speed and range to pursue higher lethality. So the length of the bow depends on what performance you are pursuing.