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By Ryan Whitwam
Danish painter and writer Lars Andersen has been on a quest to rediscover the ancient secrets of archery in recent years. You’ve probably seen videos of him firing off arrows rapid fire, but he’s got a few new tricks to show off. Andersen demonstrates just how stale modern archery has gotten by splitting incoming arrows and shooting three arrows in 0.6 seconds...while in mid-air. Wow.
According to Andersen, movies and TV have given us all unrealistic ideas of how archers shot arrows in the past. Modern archers shoot at stationary targets most of the time, and in fact, the archers themselves are usually stationary too. Real archers would have been moving. For an ancient English longbowman or Mongolian horse archer, firing at long range would have been common, but records of warfare from centuries before the invention of gunpowder show that faster short-range archery was common as well.
Andersen has worked to perfect a method of holding arrows in the drawing hand, which saves him from reaching into a quiver after each shot. He also places the arrow on the right of the bow, which he suspects was more common in the past. Keeping the arrow on the left makes sense when you’re squaring up for a straight shot, but not when you’re moving. The upshot is he can load an arrow and draw the bow in one fluid motion. That’s the key to his incredible speed.
You can see from the video he’s not doing a full draw for each shot, but at close range that’s still enough to pierce light armor when using both hands to increase power. Andersen is also accurate enough to strike unarmored areas while moving. He can even split an incoming arrow, which you can see at the end of the video.
Keep in mind, this is a hobby for Andersen. An archer in the past who lived and died by his bow might have been even more skilled.
Danish painter and writer Lars Andersen has been on a quest to rediscover the ancient secrets of archery in recent years. You’ve probably seen videos of him firing off arrows rapid fire, but he’s got a few new tricks to show off. Andersen demonstrates just how stale modern archery has gotten by splitting incoming arrows and shooting three arrows in 0.6 seconds...while in mid-air. Wow.
According to Andersen, movies and TV have given us all unrealistic ideas of how archers shot arrows in the past. Modern archers shoot at stationary targets most of the time, and in fact, the archers themselves are usually stationary too. Real archers would have been moving. For an ancient English longbowman or Mongolian horse archer, firing at long range would have been common, but records of warfare from centuries before the invention of gunpowder show that faster short-range archery was common as well.
Andersen has worked to perfect a method of holding arrows in the drawing hand, which saves him from reaching into a quiver after each shot. He also places the arrow on the right of the bow, which he suspects was more common in the past. Keeping the arrow on the left makes sense when you’re squaring up for a straight shot, but not when you’re moving. The upshot is he can load an arrow and draw the bow in one fluid motion. That’s the key to his incredible speed.
You can see from the video he’s not doing a full draw for each shot, but at close range that’s still enough to pierce light armor when using both hands to increase power. Andersen is also accurate enough to strike unarmored areas while moving. He can even split an incoming arrow, which you can see at the end of the video.
Keep in mind, this is a hobby for Andersen. An archer in the past who lived and died by his bow might have been even more skilled.
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