Re: (TFT) Re: TFT Digest V4 #348

[raito@raito.com]

>To
> say
> that the IJA is a second job or a wash is fine but I find it impossible to
> believe it take them several years to learn how to stay astride a horse in
> a
> joust.  I also imagine some if not many of them are also much better than
> the
> average knight from the middle ages.  What I am saying and almost every
> account backs me up is that a fine archer takes longer to develop than a
> fine
> man at arms.

So what about those laws mandating weekly practice? Part of my point is
that a guy who only shoots the minimum isn't going to progress as quickly,
no matter how many years he takes.

> there just aren't that many.  Would a modern day fighter win a battle?
> Maybe,
> but the wealth of experience and the ease of training with experience
> trainers
> more readily available you would be hard pressed to say that they wouldn't
> be

Always hard to say whether the modern guy would win. On the one hand,
modern training methods are truly remarkable. On the other, the medieval
guy, unless he's a complete novice, has seen death at close range and
knows the stakes.

My favorite anecdote about modern training is to point out that Johhny
Weissmuller set world records for swimming that are regularly surpassed by
12 year old girls.

> ready faster.  Maybe an example here will show my point, some of my
> buddies
> are hunters they hunt every year and are good shots it has taken them a
> long
> time to get really good.  Most worked with their dad or a friend,   A few
> might even be to sniper level, now in the Army you go through boot and if
> you
> show promise you can go to sniper school if you go through that program
> again
> much less than year you come out a marksman.  Sort of the amateurs against
> the
> professionals sort of thing.

Exactly my point, too. See my point about only shooting once a week.

>  Third point I got that what you were saying but again physical evidence
> shows
> that archers had overdeveloped muscles from pulling a bow so often.  The
> fact
> that the range had to be a minimum of 220 yards puts a little more light
> on

And swordsmen had overdeveloped wrists. I'm also pretty sure that there's
some other professions that leavetheir mark on the body. But I'm also as
sure that those muscles don't show a degree of skill. A degree of
dedication, certainly.

> the subject.  The simple fact was that English archers were simply
> empirically
> better than other archers because they practice more.  The same was true
> of
> English ships because they practiced using gunpowder, and 1800s English
> foot
> soldiers were generally superior to their opponents because they fired
> live
> ammo unlike most other nations.

The English bowman is remarkable for a number of reasons. I don't think
they could have developed anywhere else, if for no other reason that
Britain is an island(s). And certainly the best at what they did. I'm less
certain about labels like 'best at archery'. There was certainly some
remarkable skills documented elsewhere. But when you start getting far
enough east (Poland, Hungary, etc.), it almost stopped being European.

It would have been very intereting to see an English bowman at Sanjusangendo.

For those who care, that's a Buddhist temple hall that's 120 meters long
and 2.2 meters high. A traditional archery thing to do was to shoot as
many arrows as possible down the hall in 24 hours. The record is
(depending on your source) 8133 hits out of 13053 shots. That works out to
about 9 shots a minute for 24 hours. Hitting the target wasn't as much of
a problem as shooting flat enough to not hit the ceiling. I've seen
pictures of the interior, and there's still arrows lodged in the rafters.

>  Nothing I am saying is earth shattering more practice equals better
> preparedness.

Absolutely.

Neil Gilmore
raito@raito.com
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