The pages of this blog want to speak to all those who "feel" the archery in a different way. Or rather, tried to summarize in a simple and practical from a philosophical point of view, but at the same time articulated a progressive path exploration, a learning system of archery, and in a form quite deliberately provocative, inviting to put it into practice. The Mediterranean Archer wants to be a real proposal for a "training", based on documentation of the East and that certainly influenced our undocumented (or almost) traditional archery Mediterranean, where you draw guidelines inspired by an ancient science extremely effective and pragmatic. In summary, as best you'll see by reading and following this column, you will be in contact with examples of educational old so "real" family and construction, which will probably wonder why this idea is only now emerged.
We already asked him to us. In fact for years that we discuss this possibility: first as a beloved born academic, then as a dream application, after the project becomes more ambitious and desire to achieve it. E 'was undertaken the monumental task of deciphering (here we can not speak only of translation) of ancient treatises of the middle East who come to the school teachers of shooting (yes ...) pupils archers, officers and strategists, who specializes in short to users, through the written word, laid the foundations for a "school shooting". All coated in different centuries and cultures, but with common elements and wires parallel, taut and vibrant. Needless to say, study and discuss the teaching models proposed by these masters, it is surprising modernity (!) And the practical applicability of the method, which emerges from the unique culture (psychological, anatomical, medical, physics, mathematics, pedagogy and teaching) which are carriers. A well-deserved praise for Culture of the Near East, never before has misunderstood a Cultural environment in an era when the West was not so ... subtle.
The work of synthesis necessary, very challenging, provides us with cues to direct a school of archery quite profound, coherent and interesting. These treaties (in the West have to wait maybe Ascham, but we are ... what kind of western?) Ranging from the year one thousand in the early sixteenth century, exposing the fundamental rules, practices, workouts, moral conduct, specializations up to a subtle but persuasive esotericism, in which the values \u200b\u200bof the doctrine is declared an integral part of training and learning the art. What is the figure
the archer who emerges? A man able to face the enemy in a variety of situations and able to control fear, "strong and effective against a hard but structured teaching" step by step. " A leading warrior, with a specialized role, which is listed and valued differently from the medieval Central Europe which, although effective and necessary in the economy of the facts of war, fades in the literature as the protagonist in the face of the "gentleman" to whom everything is due.
The teaching model, then, faced with a work of modernization (in terms of communication) required, it becomes an integrated system based on man and on his "improvement" as never before Today, we believe, necessary.
Forget ideological preconceptions, but basiamoci facts: the arc was created as a weapon, and as such it has properties that make it "revolutionary" than other weapons. Striking distance, of course, is his strong point. But do it with power, precision and skill (which would be the total mastery of the target more communion with the body or the bow and arrow that become part of one's corporeal) become the mission to accomplish as a whole. Today, needless to say, only the precision (and the parabolic dish) is the end, that to be achieved needs drugs and technological illusions.
treaties teach various schools, but none of them deviated from the target synthesized by Arkan (the Pillars) which are the basic grade. No person should be forgotten, all cultivated with patience. The framework that emerges naturally from archery beautiful lines of these texts, when describing the archer who overcome difficulties and ordeals "not placing" Another problem of the fluidity in the achievement of shots and quality impacts, practicing exercises fun (!) common to certain games that - I challenge you all to deny it - we certainly have done in the past with friends or family of roving (maybe then shame, almost Peter Pan syndrome was a time to heal disease in our recursive to the sound of the official competitions and regulations "serious") here become the rule.
is not "historical archery" as today it intends to play or re-enactement - cultural. This is not an "alternative" or sporting a new tout court martial discipline. Nor is it an academic approach. It is all these things together, to a certain extent, but also something so old (ancient), which is conspicuous by its ontological modernity. It seems paradoxical, but today one of trends, fashions and attitudes of a party, you do a "great dancing around" on old concepts (the pull of arc is a prince among these concepts), but it is limited, often, to live them through marginal aspects, spectacular. At best you make a new game, but often it will lose the links with the tradition and roots.
Wanting to explain, our sport is such a little over two centuries, or rather it is celebrated as such only since the end of "hitting a target" quota has ceased to be a need, life and death, to the or similar to their game. A sport that evolved, it has lost control over the subject and the process (the individual, and improvement) to move the object (the tool) as a parent, emphasizing self-performance that has nothing do with the base motivation that has led man to invent an efficient system to hit at a distance.
Yet we should show more respect to the arch. Even his birth is a symbolic element in itself, not around that precise time window that sees the abandonment of subsistence based on hunting-gathering and-for those of farming and intensive land use. It has its beginnings in the Upper Palaeolithic as a sophisticated and innovative process to become gradually perfected venation system to fight their own kind, spanning the Neolithic revolution which represents the first shocking and radical transformation of human society. Man loses since then and always to a greater extent, contact with the root wild, natural. The arrow is the protagonist and witness, a means of supporting and accelerating. Far from being the place to discuss the role (in this "revolution") but also an element on which to meditate: the bow and arrow as if they were the last reminiscence of a diverse, perhaps uncomfortable, but certainly more integrated with the original bases.
highly symbolic element, and then, without detracting from the fact that fifteen thousand years (at least) are far more powerful than a few centuries, although recent decades have seen, really, the sorts of things. What
means "Archery Mediterranean"?
Although the arch was the heritage of all cultures and all human groups from the Paleolithic onwards in every corner of the globe, its sedimentation history and traces its most significant find in the great civilizations of the Near, Middle and Far East (Byzantines, Persians, Turks, Chinese, Hindus, but even before the Egyptians, Assyrians, Scythians, etc...) These refined civilization - united by the use of the arch-type composite (horn, wood blinds), which constituted a deadly weapon - produced over the centuries of what we call the Middle Ages, a vast literature on the techniques used and training the archery,
The unification of the Middle East under the banner of Islam and the consequent prevalence of the Arabic language as a unifying moment of the conquered peoples, promoted the flowering of a vast literature and technical-scientific, that as in many other fields of human knowledge, also interested in the military arts and especially in archery. Moreover, the Arabs were able to collect and turn in written theory also secular practical experience, but not coded, the peoples of the steppes of Asia, especially on the shot from his horse.
were translated or written in Arabic so many treatises on the techniques of shooting and training, aimed specifically treated to archers of hosts Arabs (in particular the Mamluks), which, unlike the western archers from the same period, were literate and thus able to read and study these treaties. These texts will impress with their wealth of data, knowledge, information on how to conceive the archery on training techniques and training and the philosophical and religious concepts associated with it. This "arc civilization" spread throughout the Mediterranean basin, finding fertile ground in the regions that had already been or were under the influence of the Byzantines (the "Romans" of the medieval Mediterranean), touching our shores, in particularly in Southern Italy but also in the territories that were already Byzantine Exarchate (Ravenna) or those that more be influenced by the Ottoman (Venice). There
rserviamo to deal with these issues in more appropriate locations, such as Arcosophia (on which John Amatucci began to publish a kind of Islamic history at archery episodes) here, instead, we want to delve more into more ground " political "in the sense of participation in a debate now under way for some time on the roots traditional archery.
From these my studies, in fact, reveal anything that can hopefully be a positive contribution to the ongoing debate on the concept of so-called instinctive shooting, or traditional.
A first fact that emerges strongly is that what today is called "instinctive shooting" is not a modern invention, or by fread Bear Howard Hill. In all treated the ancient concept that emerged strongly was that the archer to be regarded as such, must be able to shoot with precision, strength, speed and movement (his and / or target). These were the "pillars" (in Arabic, Arkan) of archery and the same concepts are found in the manuals Byzantine, Hindu, Chinese. These skills together formed the complete athlete. Of course, such skills are heavily influenced by the archer military or hunter, but to say that even a purely recreational activity retained these characteristics, probably because in the final analysis, the races were a form of training. It 'clear that in order to cultivate all of these features could not be "instinctive" that pull strength, precision and speed at the same time. A hunting or in battle there was no time for false purposes or viewfinders.
Things started to change in the West, when in the nineteenth century saw a revival of archery now defunct for several centuries as military activities. When the arc ceased to be a weapon of war and hunting was transformed into a tool "Sports" in the Anglo-Saxon of the word. The English Horace Ford's first major sports athlete, developing techniques and theories that finally demolished the concept of the shooting war and hunting. He and his comrades were more interested in using a weapon, but simply a tool to be fun: so farewell to the force, speed of execution goodbye, goodbye to mobility, the only factor that was developed and pursued was that of accuracy. From here began the journey of what would later become the modern Olympic archer, with rims, sights and all the equipment designed to enhance the highest degree of accuracy possible. Against this way of understanding the archery arose in the middle of last century in America, a new movement which tended to restore to its primitive archery. The deeds of Hill, Bear and his companions also enthusiastic Europeans born and experiences such as that of FIARC, and in the name of hunting practice, concepts such as force, speed and mobility once again part of the technical skills of the archer.
the long run, however, the exasperation racing related to the development of new technologies increasingly whirling, is making resurgence, even in those who had based their reason for being on the above principles, the old Ford's objections, which to paraphrase modern, it would sound roughly like this: "The bow is no longer a weapon. What is the strength of the arrow? What is mobility? In the end, the only thing that matters is making the center, no matter how and by what means. "So you go back to reassess the only parameter of precision at the expense of others. Goodbye, complete athlete!
Our idea, instead, is to give solid foundations to the principles of traditional archery. Starting a practice shot that is aimed at the revival of these ancient traditions, with a meritorious work to a tradition so ancient that, paradoxically, has been lost for some time in almost all regions of the Far and Near East (except for cases such as Japan, where the tradition was saved only at the cost of a rigid framework in precepts and forms).
it follows three basic principles of this process of historical reconstruction and anthropological novelty-martial, on which to base a revival of traditions, remember, that could escape from the false controversies and conflicts: target or collimation, instinct or reason, or technological primitivism.
1. Reassessment of the four "pillars" of archery: precision, strength, speed, mobility, proposing a figure of a modern archer can try and master the whole of such skills.
2. Decision to focus the improvement of man than the equipment.
3. Focus on the aspect of training, the course, the "way", than the performance of the result at all costs,
The first point means firstly to reassess the concept of simulation, because no war and hunting, in which adopt forms of training and competition-based evaluation systems of all four skills, together and separately.
The second is to adopt equipment as simple as possible, knowing that only by resetting the parameters of the equipment, we can bring out and keep constant human control parameter.
The third point means to define a way of understanding the practice archery closer to martial arts exasperation competitive practice of other modern sports. In short, a "way of the Mediterranean", based on research for the improvement of those psycho-physical practice, in which there is also room for the time being competitive, but as verification of the route taken as fact and not an end in itself.
Vittorio Brizzi
John Amatucci
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