Book Traditional Archery by Sam Fadala

Although it's impossible to divide the world of the bow into perfect niches, three major camps can be recognised - primitive, traditional and high-tech.

Traditional Archery, sometimes referred to as primitive archery, is explored in this new volume.

The tools of traditional archery, the recurve and longbow have remained virtually unchanged for tens of thousands of years.

In this thorough, fully illustrated guide, archery expert, Sam Fadala presents a detailed examination of this sport, which has experienced a resurgence in popularity in the last decade.

Traditional Archery gives careful attention to bow and arrow selection, equipment tuning and maintenance, shooting techniques, accessories, safety, history and traditional archery resources.

There are sections on how to select and use the classic longbow and recurve bow and detailed instructional photographs throughout.

Chapters include

• What is Traditional Archery?
• Today's Traditional Longbows and Recurves
• The Custom Bow
• Testing Traditional Bows and Arrows
• A 5,300-Year-Old Archer
• Instinctive Shooting
• Tuning Longbows and Recurves
• Setting Up Stickbow Tackle
• Bowstrings
• Gloves, Tabs and Arm Guards
• Matching Traditional Tackle
• Assembling Arrows
• Carrying Arrows
• Roving with the Stickbow
• Bow and Arrow Maintenance
• Transporting and Storing Bows and Arrows
• Bow Safety

This is what trad people had to say about the book

With a wide ranging title like Traditional Archery, Sam Fadala sets high expectations. It is not a book on a particular shooting style, like some have written, nor is it a book on a particular niche of tackle. It seems that what Mr. Fadala sets out to cover is an overview of Traditional Archery as a whole - from the history of trad archery, to selection of gear, to safety while roving with bows via bicycle. So how well does he do?

Traditional Archery has 256 pages of readable content, plus a glossary and three appendices - not a case where the author cuts subjects short for the sake of space. Chapter 1 starts out by tackling the tough question "What is Traditional Archery?", which everybody knows the answer to... right? The problem is that everyone has a different answer to that question. So what he gives is not an exact definition of what traditional archery is, rather he gives an historical background and contrasts that with some of today's advanced equipment. Coming up with an exact definition is left as an exercise for the reader.

With some of the basic background covered, the author moves on to discuss traditional archery hardware - and what better place to start than bows? A chapter on modern longbows and recurves is followed by a chapter on custom bows. He covers a variety of points, from bow materials (different bow woods and the explanation that each may affect "feel" and performance, synthetics and their role in bowmaking today) to the parts of a bow (throat, shelf, strike plate, etc). The section on custom bows should be helpful for beginning archers, explaining what exactly makes a longbow or recurve "custom", then giving advice on what a person should do before deciding on a particular custom bow. The author takes a relatively large section to discuss "ten general characteristics" of modern longbows and recurves. He doesn't number them as he goes so I may be wrong, but I ended up with a good deal more than 10 in the list I kept. Maybe some of them are supposed to be sub topics rather than topics.

After talking a bit further on testing bows and arrows (chrono, arrow weights, etc), Mr. Fadala revisits a story that he touches on in the introduction - chapter 5 is on Otzi, the 5,300 year old archer found frozen in the Italian Alps in 1991. The story is not a complete aside, since the details of this ancient archer show that many aspects of traditional archery have not varied much in those last 5,300 years. Necessary reading? Probably not, but it is certainly an interesting story that adds to the character of the book.

Earlier, I mentioned that Sam Fadala takes care to cover each topic in-depth, not short changing the reader in order to keep things brief. If you want a good example, flip a few chapters further and find the section on "Matching Traditional Tackle." A major topic in this chapter is, of course, properly matching arrows to your bow. After discussing spine, fletching, feathers and nocks, he still follows up with an entire chapter on "Assembling Arrows" (19 pages), which then carries into a related chapter on "Carrying Arrows" - overall, a thorough treatment of the subject of arrows.

One of the more interesting additions to this book which I mentioned earlier, is a topic given 3 whole pages in the "Roving" chapter - bows and bicycles. May be it is living in the upper midwest in the United States that makes this such a novel idea to me (bicycling here, merely gets you closer to one corn field and a bit further away from another), or maybe that still remains a rather uncommon combination in general. Either way it sounds like it would be kind of interesting to try.

So does the author manage to cover "traditional archery" in all its aspects? Let's check. If a person wants to try and cover all of this field, they would need to hit a few key points, including the history of archery, gear (bows, arrows, etc), shooting the bow, safety while shooting, building arrows, building bows and... that's all I can think of at the moment, so there may be more. But if those are the key categories, then Mr. Fadala covers all of them but bowbuilding. So he skipped one topic that has consumed volumes worth of space in other books, which I would say is acceptable on his part. Overall this book is a good read, especially for beginning archers - but I would not limit it to being a beginner's book. There is enough history involved to keep experienced archers reading. Given the length, it may not fit into a weekend of quick reading but it is worth the time. Review by TradShops.com

This is a well written, thoughtful text which focuses primarily on traditional archery principles. It is a good resource for those who wish to shoot instinctively and provides useful information regarding the set-up of the bow, the shaft, fletch and nock as well as a trouble shooting guide for those wayward arrows. There is little information regarding sights, stabiliaers and elevated rests - the primary focus of the text is as stated - traditional archery. It also contains technical information to assist the archer in bow selection, materials, preparation, instintive technique and repair. A good resource for primitive, longbow and recurve enthusiasts. Review by Dave Clarke.

All you need to know about trad archery is in Traditional Archery by Sam Fadala. Get a copy today. Paperback 22.9cm x 15.2cm or 9" x 6", 170 black and white photos, cover design by Caroline Stover, 256 pages.

Sam Fadala's own profile - "I live mainly in Wyoming and part-time in Arizona, not for snowbirding as our cabin house in Arizona is at 8,000 feet elevation in the pine country of the White Mountains.

I have been a full time author for 30 years with 30 books, including one novel and a couple more in the mill. I live with my wife, Judy in both Wyoming and Arizona. I have my own professional hunting licence in South Africa and hunt and guide two plus months every year.

I started shooting the longbow as a child, tried the compound for a time but went back to sticks. My favourite bow of the hour is a Herb Meland three piece takedown longbow with two sets of limbs. My favourite bowhunting is simply backpacking into a spot and "living off the land" for a week or so on game in season. My longest trek was two months in Mexico with my partner, the late Ted Walter. We ate well. I love the stickbow!"