In your own words, why is it so important to connect with "the past"

[luvnlongbow]

I don't think there is anything that makes me feel better than shooting my Longbows and Recurves. I am taken back to a time that seems to be simpler. The flight of a wood arrow from the bow is absoulutly one of the finest sights there is.

Joe

[LONGSTYKES]

Enjoying all the parts of traditional archery. The bows, the making of arrows, the tuning process, shooting my bows, and the people. Everything is in the package that is a major part of me and has been for a very long time.

[Steve Clandinin]

Barry,Your words summed it up about right,plus it takes me back to my early years where things were differant with real valus.
I just find it amazing to hunt with basically the same equipment as all the primitive cultures did for thousands of years and still today in remote places in our world.

[magnus]

Charlie. That's how that was meant.

[stringstretcher]

For me it is a walk with my ancestors.  It is more personal for me to be one on one with the bow, and not have aids to be proficient. The challenage is greater for me to hunt/shoot more with just the body and the surroundings telling me it is right and be able to see the shot, rather than just making a shot.

[Roy Steele]

K I S S

[Javi]

To connect with myself, not the past..

One of my students (a new convert to the longbow) said it this way..  “I love the feel of the bow. It’s just me, a stick and a string. When the arrow goes where I look, it was “ME” who put it there not a bunch of gadgets.”

[Bill Carlsen]

Modern manufactured longbows and recurves are much better today than they were 50 years ago and the same could be said for the bow and arrows fifty years before those. However, shooting them, making my own strings and arrows, sharpening my new modern stainless steel broadheads, etc. make the whole trad bowhunting thing more personal and rewarding. It isn't so much staying connected with my past as remembering it. We have come aways, since then and most of it has been good. Knowing where I was 50 years ago keeps today in perspective.

Changes/improvements in materials, designs and opportunities have not changed attitude. I know for sure that if archers I knew in the 50's could have gotten ahold of what we now have in their future...they would have thought they died and went to heaven. It's the attitude and challenge of bowhunting with trad gear that hasn't changed.

[Earl E. Nov...mber]

Most of what we think is new, is actually the old revisited.. Interesting that when reading the history of old broadheads, most of their inventors did so because they couldn't find one on the market that was adequate.. However most all of those have fallen by the way side years ago. Yet we keep coming out with "new and improved." A precious few are, but most are, just as the old ones..and they too will fall by the way side..

Today as we remember our fallen freedom providers it is good to know the trails our archery forefathers traveled to get us where we are today.

In the last 100 years the basic stick bow has survived two major attempts to put it by the way side too.. Gun powder in the early 1900's and the wheel bow in our times..

The hearts of a few in the early 1900's kept it alive, until the likes of Fred, Ben, Howard,and a few others gave it a jump start in the mid century.

Now we can lay claim to keeping it alive in the face of advanced technology.

It's always good to know where you come from, it makes it easier to know where you are going.

[hvyhitter]

I get a strong connection with the past as hunting with traditional equipment requires me to use good, solid, basic hunting skills that were taught to me by my grandfather. Always watch the wind, move slower than slow, and keep your eyes moving ahead for any movement or anything odd or out of place. And when I get busted or blow a stalk or watch "flags" waving bye bye its because I ignored one of those three. Combine that with the KISS method and it makes me a happy camper.

[Swinestalker]

I get the same feeling of exitement and adventure that so easily gets lost in this age of gadgets and gear driven hunting industry. I feel 10 years old again when afield with my longbow.

[PaddyMac]

This is the sort of question one should think twice about before asking a writer ...          

Connection. Truth. Simplicity.

I like a reasonable shot at being as good at something so vital as hunting as someone on the same ground 18,000 years ago. True, I'm using Fastflite string and razor sharp broadheads and carbon arrows, but 20 yards is 20 yards.

I like seeing a mule deer crossing the highway in front of me and seeing "food" not "Bambi." And thinking of food walking around basically happy and free and not being shrink wrapped on styrofoam after a short miserable life in a feedlot or confinement shed.

I like eating venison and reliving that day, how hot it was, what it smelled like, the wet thwack of the arrow, how hard my heart was pounding, how I felt, that horrible doubt of a miss suppressed, that awful wait when you really want to run,run, run after it, the equal measures of regret and elation and thankfulness all happening at the same time when I walk up on it. And I like knowing that the only really honest way I have to interact with those beautiful animals is to kill and eat them. (And work hard to protect them from the less honest, less direct ways we interact with them.)

It's important for me to realize that I am an animal and that for me to keep living, something has got to die. It is important to see that for what it really is, all its beauty and savagery. It's not always easy to see what died when I open that can of green beans, and no, I'm not talking about the green beans as much as the brutalized ground it came out of.

I do enjoy the spectacle of Lady Gaga or Las Vegas or a Harley but I need to be able to see that they are affectations and illusions. They are unreliable as compasses and not nutritional as part of a steady diet.

You really can think that arrow to its mark. You really can get close to animals designed specifically to prevent you from doing that. Even in this day where the lights are so fake and the noise is so weird and the colors so unreal, you really can see through all of it and be the animal in the world you are.

[ron w]

This is easy....it keeps the hunt in hunting and the arch in archery!!  

[Yeoman Bowman]

An interesting question, with thoughtful answers.

As others have said, for me it is a way to connect with the past. It gives me a chance to better understand the longbowman of the Middle Ages and the native hunter of the Stone Age.

It brings out the wildness in us, and allows us to enjoy the wildness of nature. It is when we are truly free.

[T Lail]

"  if you don't know where you came from, how do you know where you are going "......it's just keeping that connection that is important to me......  

[Bonebuster]

Those who come to a forum such as this KNOW how much dedication goes into what we do. We know the hero shots that show up on here are backed up with genuine personal effort.

There are many shortcuts that can be taken to achieve the same results, but we choose to "connect" with the past and do it without the shortcuts.

We rely on ourselves not the latest gadget.

My first bowhunt occured at the age of twelve, in 1978. Back then, a deer felled with an arrow was a rare and revered event. ANY DEER!

By staying connected, we hold on to the romance and the honor. By staying connected, it is indeed about the hunt and not the kill.

[Outwest]

It is important to remember the past so that when the present and future are so screwd up we have something to look back on to guide us.

John

[Hit-or-Miss]

A bow and arrow, much like an axe, a campfire, a hot cup of tea, or the smile on a child's face, reminds me of what counts in life; the simple pleasures.

[myshootinstinks]

Our memories are part of what we are.  I can well remember hunting with a recurve bow as a boy in the 60's & 70's. I was absent from bowhunting for 25 years or so but those memories rekindled are the reason I've taken up hunting with a recurve once again. It's a simple, time proven method that works. While I've owned most of the excellent,currently built, big name bows, I prefer to shoot old bows from that era.  
   If you need to kill game grab your rifle, I still do. I have even more nostalgia with firearms. But nothing is more enjoyable than hunting with an old-style bow.

[longarrow]

It's where we ALL CAME FROM!