Archery Strength training in the Topkapi Palace

The following text was written by Albert Bobovius (or his Turkish name: 'Santuri Ali Ufki Bey', or Wojciech in Polish) in about 1665. He was a Polish man born in 1610 in the city of Lviv (in today's East Ukraine). His life changed when he was abducted by Crimean Tatars and brought to Istanbul. He became Muslim, learned Turkish, spent 8 years in the Edirne palace and 19 years in the Topkapi palace (from which the Ottoman Empire was ruled). He completed his education in the famous 'Enderun' school in Topkapi palace. I am copying the archery related part and I will add some thoughts at the end. I hope this will give some insights on strength training. Enjoy!

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These strong 'icoglan' (people who were brought to the palace as kids to be educated) deal with mostly with archery and they master it by going through all the training stages. To achieve this, the first tool they use is a pulley attached to a wall. There is a bag, filled with stones weighing 10 okka (= about 12,83 kg = 113 lbs) attached to a cord. The cord, which goes through the pulley, is pulled with their right hand as much as their strength allows. The left hand is held against the wall. When they gain strength in this way they add more stones to the bag every day. In the end the weight of the bag can be 40 okka (about 51 kg). After they trained enough in this manner and their arms have developed, they are given soft and easy to bend bows, but with chains instead of a bowstring. They don’t use this bow to shoot, but to develop their arms at each training by pulling it with their right and left arms until their arms are tired. After that, softer or harder bows are given to each according to their level. These they use without shooting, just pulling the arrow, until the tip touches the grip (full draw). They make bets on who pulls the bow more times without a break. Many of them are strong enough to do this 200 times. They train their arms with this training such, that some are given the title ‘kemankes’, which is only given to people who can pull iron bows. Actually this bow is not made from iron, but from such a strong horn, that an untrained person, can’t pull the bow as much, so that a coin would fall out, which was put under the string and string bridge. They make shots with this strong bow as a strength or mastership demonstration e.g. either pierce a horse shoe, or put an arrow through glass, without cracking or breaking it, just making a hole as big as the arrow. They shoot at glass with slim arrows from reed without arrow tips. In terms of marksmanship, they hit a coin between their friend’s 2 fingers. About these brave archers I heard fairytale-like, hard to believe things. They told me there were people strong enough to pierce a 3 finger thick copper plate.

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• First thing you notice is that they did not care about the different FD curves between a real bow and the pulley (- the pulley has a flat FD curve vs a gradually increasing weight of the bow). I tried this a lot in the past and found it challenging and reverted to elastic bands attached to the wall, to replicate the bows FD curve. 
• Increasing the weight by small increments (putting extra stones every day in the bag) will get you quicker to your goal and reduce risk of injury. One of the biggest problems these days for heavy bow archers is the limited number of bows you have (as they are expensive), so you have to jump e.g. from 80 lbs to 100lbs, which might cause injury. Imagine it like 'benchpress' in the gym, where you can add or remove small weights to fit your training.
• 40 okka is about 51 kg/113 lbs (assuming the conversion is right (1 okka = 1,283 kg)). 
• 1665, the year this was written seems 'late' for archery. One might have thought during those years, archery might have lost it's importance in the battlefield due to gun powder advancements. Yet it is nice to see such professional training description, which means, archery was not dead at all during that time. 
• Interesting to read they pull the bow with an arrow nocked until the tip touches the grip (=full draw). This creates also muscle memory to achieve full draw. Without the arrow e.g. with Kepaze training or with elastic bands, it is harder.
• And here again you see that they trained both arms, which is often mentioned in other sources.
• This is one glimpse of how they were training in the palace. There is different Ottoman historic texts with different methods. It is good to know the context. E.g. they might have trained differently in the Okmeydani (for flight archery) vs in the Timars (counties that needed to provide warriors at any time for the Sultan) 

Suleiman the Magnificent's Culus (Enthronement) Ceremony in the Topkapi Palace by Matrakci Nasuh

Albert Bobovius / Wojciech / Santuri Ali Ufki Bey

Archery strength exercise

ARCHERY STRENGTH EXERCISE: DRAWING SEVERAL BOWS

Historic anecdote:

''Famous Ottoman Archer: Cullu Feruh 

He was a strong and big archer and one of Veziriazam Albanian Ahmed Pasha's servants (Ahmed Pasha, who was executed by Sultan Suleyman the magnificient (Reign: 1520-1566)). When drawing the bow, he was superior to his peers/fellow archers. 

One day on the meydan (archery field), there was a discussion going on wether or not one could draw a few bows (gez yayi? Target bow?). Some were saying it was possible, some saying impossible. Cullu Feruh took his bow in his hand and the ones of kemankesh Ali Bali captain and Vezir Ali Pasha and famous pehlivan (strong athlete) Sigir Pervane’s bow (One of Vezir Ali Pasa’s servants). And said: ‘if I pull these 3 bows together, will you give me your bows as a prize?’. The owners of the bows said yes. 

Cullu Feruh pulled all 3 bows together. Then he said ‘I forgive and give you these bows back’ and gave the bows back. The others around said ‘wow pehlivan, strength to your arms’.''

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Some thoughts:

• Maybe these were lighter 'target' bows, yet even if the bows were e.g. 50lbs Cullu Feruh would have pulled 150lbs. 
• I tried the same, see pics below from 2008. I 'only' ended up with 105 lbs. 60lbs + 45lbs.

Ottoman Turkish archery bow drawing technique

What is the technique to draw an Ottoman Turkish bow?
In fact, the principles are general archery principles, valid for all types of archery, not just Turkish archery.

Ottoman Sultan practicing mounted archery on a hunt

The (common) wrong technique (A)
I will start with a common mistake which one sees a lot among beginners and today's horsearchers.
While pulling the bow, the ellbow is often kept low or horizontal.
This has many implications:

1. You cannot use your back muscles properly 
2. You have to use mostly the wrong muscle - the biceps
3. No anchor point possible. In order to anchor near the face e.g. chin, ear etc you would have to use your biceps, but this will be extremely difficult. 
4. The arrow is less aligned with your bow arm and eyes

Imagine a vector/line of power like in the drawing below. The two end points are your bow hand and the tip of your elbow. Your draw hand has to be on this vector as only in this position you do not need to use your biceps. This is the reason why a lot of people cannot come to their anchor point as they struggle to position their draw hand near the face, as this is a deviation from the vector.
This is also the main reason why full grown men struggle with 50lbs and higher while in Ottoman times 70+ lbs was the norm (only children, beginners and elderly would use below 70lbs bows). Why use your biceps and struggle with 50lbs if you could use the correct technique and back muscles and go easily beyond 70lbs?

The correct archery technique (B)

1. Start drawing your bow 
2. Keep your elbow high at the earliest stage
3. ''Roll your shoulder'' as the English longbow archers would say
4. Come to an anchor point, press your draw hand against the tip/edge of your chin for an Ottoman anchor point. The elbow should point upwards
5. Release- with the released energy, the elbow goes back vertically in a quick move but stops abruptly above shoulder height. Do not activate muscles to throw your arm back but use muscles to stop the backwards move.
6. Upper and lower arm end in a vertical position in an approximate 90 degree angle. If the draw was correct, the position of the shoulder blades will be correct and with the release the backwards moving arm will be vertical too.

The anchor point depends on the archery culture and occasion e.g. it is mostly the chin for Ottoman battle archery whereas it is the earlobe for Ottoman flight archery. Seljuks, Persian Safevids, Mughals, Mongols and Tatars had a longer draw and their anchor point ranged from under the ear to above the shoulder of the draw arm.

Comparison to modern archery
In modern archery it is exactly the same principle, if you want to learn more about Asian style historic archery, I recommend looking at the technique of top class recurve or compound archers:

 Modern Compound bow technique

Last example: 
Below you see a group of Mongols shooting arrows in battle, two are in full draw and two in the release position.

Historic Mongol archery

Ottoman Turkish hornbow drawing technique 

upon request I am adding a video with a sideview of the drawing technique. Note that the elbow never drops  and the bow is drawn purely with the back muscles. Excuse the outfit, this was on a horsearchery competition in Jordan where I tested a hornbow of a famous bowmaker :)

Drawing ''in the bow''

Drawing ''in the bow''

I admire the English Longbow archers in many ways. They are one of the few groups within the archery world who do archery as historically accurate as possible. This includes arrows, hand forged historic arrow heads, shafts, fletchings, nocks, the bows, bow design, bow length and also historic draw weights and the technique to pull and release.

These are some websites I really like and recommend:
English Warbow Society: http://www.englishwarbowsociety.com/
Dutch Warbow Society: http://www.oorlogsboog.nl/

The draw weights they use are typically from 100lbs to 160lbs with some individuals shooting even more powerful bows.
One thing they always say is the "Drawing in the bow".

What does "Drawing in the bow" that mean?
Imagine a heavy metal door with 2 sides sliding sideways to open. You can stand at arms length and try to pull them apart, but you will not be successful. Go half a step forward, arms are bent now, you will have more power to slide the doors apart. If you continue this example you will see that you can transfer energy most if you are really close to the door, basically ıf your chest touches it.
Same way with a bow, the closer you come between bow and string, the easier it will get, the better you are going to be able to use your back muscles.

Why is it important? 
Because this is the only way to pull a bow with historically authentic drawweight. This is archery.
There is no other way.

Why are the English longbow archers the only ones telling this? 
Because they are the only ones using historic draw weights. For bows lower than 50 lbs you can use any technique. And that's what you see mostly e.g. in traditional shoots or horsearchery tournaments, people pull their 30 lbs bow not with their proper back muscles but often just with their wrist, or pull it in front of their faces calling it "floating anchor". This is not historic and you can only do it with low poundage bows.

What is the sequence of the pull?
When you start pulling you put your string arm elbow high and while pulling you bring your chest (or rather the line between your 2 shoulders) as close as possible to the bow. Almost as if you are "stepping into the bow". It is important to do this as early as possible in the draw. This way you will "roll your shoulder" as the English longbow archers say.

Why am I telling you all this?
It is exactly the same in Ottoman/Turkish flight archery. High drawweights in order to shoot farther, the only way to pull these bows is to use a proper technique where you use the correct muscles. The English call it "Shooting or Drawing in the bow", others might call it differently but for certain this is the way to do it.

Longbow pull

Ottoman Turkish Hornbow pull

Gokmen

Archery Exercises

Why archery exercises?
Different archery cultures like the Ottoman, Iranian or Chinese
describe archery exercises. Main reasons are:
-To prevent injuries,
-To pull your bow easier,
-Being able to use heavier bows,
-Being able to hold your bow steadier when aiming
-To create muscle memory to pull the bow always in the same manner to
the same anchor point with the same technique automatically
And besides it is great satisfaction after a successful training when
you sit down and drink your ‘keyif’ (relaxation) Turkish coffee.



Warming up
Warming up is very very important because what good is it if you
injure your muscle and stop all training for 6 months? Main pressure
points=injury points are the sinew at the ellbow and shoulders.
First warm up your whole body by e.g. jogging, skipping ropes, (or
shadderboxing) or gymnastics. Then you have to warm up and pump up
your relevant archery muscles. Like a butterfly that just left the
cocoon that is pumping air in its wings to make them stable you have
to allow your blood to flow in the relevant muscles. This will take a
while but it will make your whole body more stable and stronger.
You can start pulling a low poundage bow, do a few repetitions pause
for 2 mins then do a lot of repetitions. You see I do not give
numbers, everybody has to assess for him/herself what is low, medium,
a lot and maximum repetitions. The same with the term heavy bow and
low poundage bow.
Do a few sets of these until your muscles are burning. At this stage I
pull the string with my whole hand. You can use a piece of leather or
a sock to protect your hand. 

Then continue with the heavy bow. Pull the bow 1/3rd a few times,
pause for a minute, pull it half way a few times and pause again
(leave the blood enough time to travel up to your shoulders), then
pull successively until full drawlength. The technique has to be
right, you pull with your back muscles supported by the triceps of the
bow arm and by both shoulders. You do NOT use the biceps of your
pulling arm. I still see ‘experienced’ archers doing this mistake
pulling with the biceps. A friend can test this by touching your
biceps with a finger while you pull; it should be soft.
I advise to stand in front of a mirror so you can see and correct your 
technique and positions. Keep your ellbows high. Now you should be warm.

The best is to have several bows in dfferent poundages, you can
meet up as well with fellow archers as described in an Ottoman
training article. If you don't have other bows available you can bind 
elastic band around the bow as seen in the picture below. The draw 
weight is controlled by how many times you wrap the elastic around the bow.








1. Exercises with the bow
Basic pulling directions:

1. basic pulling to the left side horizontally
2. Pulling to the back horizontally (as far as possible)
3. Pulling to the right side horizontally (as far as possible)
4. Pulling to the front
5. bend upper body forward parallel to floor twist upper body up and
pull upwards (training for kabak shooting)
6. bend upper body forward parallel to floor and pull to the side
7. put the left fist on your left foot, keep your legs straight and
pull the bow downwards
8. Turn back and pull the bow down
9. Pull with other hand
10. Jarmaki pull

1. basic pulling to the side horizontally

2. Pulling to the back horizontally (as far as possible)

3. Pulling to the right side horizontally (as far as possible)

4. Pulling to the front

5. bend upper body forward parallel to floor twist upper body up and
pull upwards (training for kabak shooting)

6. bend upper body forward parallel to floor and pull to the side. 

7. put the left fist on your left foot, keep your legs straight and
pull the bow downwards

8. Turn back and pull the bow down

9. Pull with other hand

10. Jarmaki pull

Variations:
a) Pull the bow very slowly (variaton: pull it in 7 times and back in 7 times)
b) Pull the bow as quickly as possible one after the other
c) Pull the bow with the other hand (horsearchers used to be able to
shoot with right and left arm)
d) In order to simulate horseback riding, jump from one foot to the
other quickly doing the exercises or run while pulling if you have
space
e) while pulling go from one position/direction to the other e.g.
start pulling backwards then slowly turn after each pull and continue
pulling to the front then right

Horsearchers need to shoot in every direction, thus the different
directions above. Flightarchers just need a certain angle and dont
really need to shoot e.g.backwards or downwards.
Remember the bend should come from the hip, the ‘T’-position (=angle
between spine and shoulders) should be maintained at all times.

After a few sets doing 50% of your maximum repetitions start pulling
until exhaustion, have a longer pause e.g. 5 mins and continue
pulling until exhaustion. Do as many sets as you can/wish, the heavy
poundage-exhaustion sets should be at least 4. Be careful though as
your muscles get more tired the risk of injury increases.

At the shooting yard, you can do similar exercises (I would recommend
to do them at the end of the training):
-While the arrow is nocked, draw the bow 10 times before you shoot and
aim each time at the target
-The arrow nocked, pull the bow 15cm pause pull another 15 cm etc
until full drawlength then shoot.
-Pull the bow directly to full drawlenght and hold e.g. 10, 20 seconds
before you release the arrow (dont break the bow)

Training your thumb
You should train your thumb too as you will see that after a certain
poundage it will get more difficult to keep the thumb lock. You can do
the pulling exercises described above with a thumbring. Pulling the
string with a thumbring without a nocked arrow is not advised as the
dryfire risk is too high and the lock might slip on the string. The
old Turks used to have a special arrow with a hole near the nock. They
would put the string through the hole and then string the bow, so that
the arrow is locked with the string. In case the thumb lock releases
accidentally there wont be dryfire.
Instead of this method you can stand in front of a target with a
normal arrow nocked doing the same exercises.


2. Exercises without the bow
You can do additional weight training to train these muscles:
Deltoid (rear shoulder)
Trapezius (upper back)
Infraspinatus
Latissimus
Triceps
Neck

Do a second sport next to archery, many archery athletes in the
Ottoman Empire were wrestlers at the same time or e.g. went swimming
often.
Don't neglect your leg muscles, they are important to have a stable
position while aiming and of course for horseriding. Do sports that
will let you sweat so you won't get too stiff with all the muscle
training e.g. jogging, boxing, swimming, wrestling.


Diet
Of course you need proteins to build muscles, so low fat meat like
chicken, turkey, fish is fine. Dont forget the carbonhydrates though
and a lot of fresh vegetables and fruits and drink a lot.
Mixing honey and olive oil as a food supplement is advised in the old texts.

I tried it as well but my personal favourite is the Turkish ''Helva'', it is made 
of sesame and is very rich (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Halva).
The exercises described above are not comparable to standard bodybuilding
in the gym; while doing few pulls with very high poundages, you also
pull medium to lower poundages until exhaustion. A historic
(horse)archer would need to use his muscles maybe for hours in the
battlefield. A Turkish flight archer would not shoot many arrows but still

they describe exercises with a lot of repetitions.

A typical training week
You should not use heavy bows and train until exhaustion every day but
only every second or even third day as it is hard training and your
body needs to recover. Monday Wednesday Friday can be the hard days
and the other days can be days where you do normal (horse)archery or
do other sports or train with low poundage bows with a lot of
repetitions. Even resting and doing nothing for a day is good
sometimes. But beware, you need to train regularly and disciplined; it
is written that the old Turkish archers said: if you leave archery one
day, archery will leave you 10 days. With proper training good results
can be achieved in a short time, but if the break is too long the drop
in performance will be huge and the risk of injury will increase.



Last tips at the end
Keep your muscles warm at all times, day and
night. Be careful when you are sleeping, don't sleep on your shoulder

or arm. A famous Turkish flight archer champion had guards standing

at his bed at night time just to prevent him from sleeping on his arm.

Gokmen
gokmenaltinkulp@gmail.com