World Traditional Archery Association (WTAA)

Murat ?zveri · Post by **Murat ?zveri** » Mon Oct 06, 2008 4:41 pm

Dear Atarn member,

Please be informed that World Traditional Archery Festival (WTAF) gave a birth to a child this year. The proposal for foundation of an association to promote the traditional archery in the world and provide information flow between the participants and organizers of the WTAF has been accepted by the representatives of 29 countries.

Bede Dwyer has been elected the first president of the World Traditional Archery Association (WTAA). The organisation chart consists of a chairman, a president and three Vice Presidents, who will be in charge for the next two years.

Murat ?zveri

robno · Post by **robno** » Mon Oct 06, 2008 7:25 pm

Tell us more! Even more importantly, was Sweden among those 29 countries?

M Hardman · Post by **M Hardman** » Mon Oct 06, 2008 9:03 pm

Would the 29 countries be the nations present at the WTAF?
I look forward to hearing more on this interesting development.

Murat ?zveri · Post by **Murat ?zveri** » Tue Oct 07, 2008 8:36 am

II. WTAF had been held in Busan, Korea this year. Appearently, the Organisation Committee had evaluated the feed-backs from the last year very well. This year's event was much more better organised with the participation of 29 countries (last year 22) including Korea. Peru and Tanzania, as the representatives of South American and African traditional archery enriched the festival this year. We got information about these less-known archery traditions and saw the archers perform.

Unfortunately some of the VIPs were not present this year, i.e. Stephen Selby, the founder and the moderator of Atarn, Chinese archery expert and author of two books (who I really wanted to see again) as well as Steve Allely, one of the authors of Traditional Bowyer's Bible series. We all have been sorry to be informed that Steve had lost his mother and had to cancel his trip.

Yes, Sweden was one of the represented countries and it was a good surprise to the representatives that the music band of the openening ceremony played a bundle of ABBA songs too.

In the first day of the event the participants demonstrated their archery technique in historical/traditional costumes, mostly by using their traditional targets. The tackle had been exhibitied on the booths provided by the organisation committee for each country. Second and third day were scheduled for competition at which Korean (145 m) and Mongolian traditonal targets (80 m), a deer target (20 m?) and a moving target (that had been brought by he Hungarian team and set at 40 m) were shot. Contrary to the last year's event this year's festival arranged a sightseeing and visits to museums and buddhist temples.

The Korean hospitality was awesome again, food was excellent (at least for most of us), the friendship and new relationships established were exceptional. I personally found the chance to make new friends, to spend time with the old-good ones and learn more about traditional archery. The foundation of WTAA was a bonus, something nobody was expecting. I think, Bede will be giving more information about the details, how all that happened and what the purposes and goals of the new association are. And we all will see how it works.

Thomas Duvernay · Post by **Thomas Duvernay** » Sun Oct 12, 2008 11:19 am

Murat,

I'm glad to hear things went on well, after I had to leave the organizational meeting to get back to my city that night. I hadn't heard anything until I read your message here. Congrats to Bede!

Thomas