traditional bow

This division (category) replaces the previous one called instinctive bow, where the riser (the central part) could be made of various materials, even non-wood (carbon, aluminum, mixed). With the new one, the riser must be made of laminate or a single piece of wood, while the bow can be monolithic (all one piece) or take-down (with limbs that can be detached from the riser; these can be made of various materials, even non-wood). The category's name change is the final step in a process that began in 2012, with some specifications on the riser requiring the use of wood or laminated wood, as the increasingly varied construction techniques were beginning to make the judges' job difficult. The change ended on September 1, 2022, with the entry into force of the current regulation. The change in category designation from "instinctive" to "traditional" bow therefore primarily responds to the need to clearly distinguish equipment based on historical materials and shapes (wood, no rest) from modern bows (recurve bow, compound bow, barebow), focusing more on bow technology than on the individual archer's shooting technique. Indeed, the technique remains unchanged: the archer cannot use reference points on the bow for aiming, and the arrow rest must be free of devices such as clickers or Berger buttons. String walking, which is permitted in barebow archery, is prohibited, while sights and balances are permitted in compound and recurve archery. • Illustration — Young female archer with a monolithic bow on a 3D course in the woods, with the hard rubber silhouettes of a wild boar and a deer in the background The category closest to the traditional one is the Longbow, in which the bow is still unattached but is longer, the limbs are straight, and the arrows are made entirely of wood. They also share the ability to use instinctive shooting, the oldest method of archery that doesn't rely on sights or collimation between the target and the bow, but instead uses the brain's ability to calculate trajectory by focusing solely on the target. Since more and more archers are using methods similar to instinctive shooting but different from them, which betray its "philosophy," the name change has resolved the issue.