Main Discussion Area > Shooting and Hunting
History of Canting?
Rhinegold:
I tried doing a search on this but didnt find much on the technique of tilting the bow slightly at full draw...called 'canting'.
Is there any evidence in the old literature that medieval archers used this method...or native americans...or even the various asian styles?
Del the cat:
There are pictures of natives shooting like that, there's a famous one of Ishi squatting down with the bow at about 45degrees.
Google Ishi if you've never heard of him (a well documented native american, he was the last of the Yana because his tribe was slaughtered by white men as they put telegraph poles across the US)
I'd stand the question on it's head... "Why on earth would you want to hold a bow absolutely vertical?"... unless of course you have a truck load of modern paraphenalia bolted to it?
Another point, stand relaxed with your eyes closed, think Yoga or Tai Chi, gently raise your arms out sideways, fingres and thumb lightly spread... relax, let them float... now don't move... open your eyes look at you left hand? Is the thumb at about 45dgrees or is it vertical? That would seem to me to be a natural angle to hold a bow.
So finally to answer the question, there is no reason to believe that canting the bow hasn't always been the way of shooting it, I don't expect early man stood up straight and tall with a vertical bow to try to shoot food, he'd likely scare everything in the vicinity.
Del
zeNBowyer:
Shooting the bow in various position is natural to the weapon, I'm sure this practise was around long before it was recorded for history, looking forward to any archealogical evidence posted
Rhinegold:
--- Quote from: medicinewheel on October 22, 2009, 03:18:06 am ---Never heard of neither 'tilting' a bow, nor 'canting' a bow!
Are you talking about some aspect of the bow building process?
If it is in the shooting process, yes, I hold my bow slightly tilted to the right. (See below)
That what you mean??
--- End quote ---
Yup...is that a badger? Cute!
The Koreans cant like that too, but they are shooting on the right side of the bow...which seems odd to me because you'd think the arrow would just fall right off.
Rhinegold:
--- Quote from: zeNBowyer on October 22, 2009, 04:01:07 am ---Shooting the bow in various position is natural to the weapon, I'm sure this practise was around long before it was recorded for history, looking forward to any archealogical evidence posted.
--- End quote ---
Well theres some ancient bas relief sculpture of Egyptian and middle eastern archers who dont appear to cant...but that could just be a limitation of the medium.
The Japanese dont do it...but thats probably because they use such long top heavy bows.
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