[Archers] New Bow Classification (Period)

[Siegfried]

> I have what may be a less then brilliant question.
> 
> What is the drive for the "Period" Classification?
> 
> I guess I am asking is, why people feel there is a need for a "Period"
> hand bow classification?
> 
> It might help to understand the reason to help us understand the intent
> of the rules on what is and what is not a "period" bow.

Ok, you had to ask, and therefore, I will write; however, bear with me, 
it's a bit of a story...

Originally this whole topic did not begin as 'lets add another 
category'.  Let's even take a step FARTHER back in fact ...

Back to 2 unevents ago.

When at the time, it was announced that Archery, being a 'Martial 
activity', was going to need to meet the same 'nothing that looks 
non-period' requirement that Heavy/Rapier is needing to meet.

This of course, would have HUGE ramifications for the target archery 
field (targets, modernish bows, kicking people off the range because 
they wore tennis shoes, etc)

After MUCH discussion, it was decided that in fact the ruling only 
applied to 'field disciplines', ie, list-field, and therefore 
Heavy/Rapier/CombatArchery/Siege ... Not Target Archery, Not Thrown 
Weapons, Not Equestrian, etc.

However, us 'other disciplines' were encouraged to, in fact, encourge 
presenting a more period appearance at events.  So that newbies, 
mundanes, etc would walk by and say: "Wow, that's a bunch of medieval 
archers."   Not: 'Hey look, a bunch of people in funny clothes shooting 
recurves at Barney'

Hence a letter I put in the Acorn a while back, about just thinking 
about what you bring to the archery field.  I know that I myself used to 
always show up with this bright yellow, huge, tacklebox on wheels to 
every archery shoot I attended.  No attempt to hide it, throw a bit of 
cloth over it, etc.  Things like that are easily changed, and make a 
huge appearance difference.

Ok, now keep that in mind.

Now, at a similar time, another set of thoughts were surfacing.  The 
fact that currently there were some issues that people were seeing in 
the current 'longbow' vs. 'recurve' classification.

In that you can have VERY different types of bows grouped together. 
You've got a true English Longbow (ELB) as well as a modern flatlimbed 
laminate longbow in the same category ... Longbow

You've got a Mongolian Recurve, a bent stick recurve, and a modern 
flatlimbed sight window recurve all in the same category ... Recurve

When you look at that, the problem there is that the modern(traditional) 
styled bows, whether recurve or longbow, have rather similar shooting 
characteristics to them.  Also a the ELB, Mongolian, Bent stick, etc are 
all much more similar in their characteristics than they are to the 
flatlimb laminates.

Therefore, add those two ideas together ... and an idea was formed and 
discussed (No, we aren't yet to adding the period category, bear with me)

The original idea therefore, was to CHANGE the two categories of longbow 
and recurve ... to two different categories ... call them for lack of 
better terms right now: 'Traditional' and 'Modern'

The idea was to group the like shooting bows together.  All the 
flat-limbed laminate style bows would fall under 'Modern', be they 
recurved or not.  And all the period style bows would fall under 
'traditional'.

This would have the benefit, of also encouraging more folks over time to 
obtain the more 'traditional' looking bows, and not Martin X-100's (No 
effense meant to folks with Martin X-100's, My Lady and I own a PSE 
Heritage ourselves which we will both shoot on occasion - Just that I 
have seen more and more people going out and spending $100's on an X-100 
or the equivilant, instead of the same on a good traditional longbow.)

Ok, that was the idea.

When presented to a large group of marshals, there was an issue to this 
plan that became apparent.  A number of people would not be happy 
(and/or thought others would not be happy) ... who had spent alot of 
money on a Longbow that would now be classified with the recurves.  More 
to the point that the current classifications may have even encouraged 
folks who had started shooting a recurve, to go and spend good money on 
a 'longbow' to compete in the longbow category, just now to be told that 
both their bows would be in the same category.

Given this problem ... You are now seeing the 'solution' that came up.

The idea, to still gain the benefits given above ... of encouraging a 
more period appearance shooting, of truly showing someone's skill, that 
they had done that score with a 'period' bow, AND, put similar 
'disadvantaged bows' in their own category....

The idea arose to leave the current categories alone, and add the new 
category, Period ...

This way, noone would find one of their bows suddenly 'downgraded' in 
apparent status.  But only 'upgraded' and shown the respect that that 
bow should deserve.

Ok, fingers hurting ... I'm shutting up for now :)

Siegfried