Here's my definition:
Traditional Archey
Where a bow is drawn and held unaided by any mechanical device using only the digits/fingers of the drawing hand on the string combined with the strength of the body, and where the loose of the string/arrow is accomplished by the digits/fingers of the drawing hand releasing the string.
Finger protection in the form of a glove or tab may be used.
I posted this over at AT also, but I thought I'd copy it here just for fun. And just to be clear, I'm NOT trying to pick on Rick (rhyme!). It's just that a couple of things in the OP jumped out at me and I couldn't resist taking a good-natured shot at them.
Just because I'm a professional nitpicker...
It seems to me that shooting a compound with sights is "traditional" by your definition, as long as you're using your fingers and not a mechanical release. Go back and read it again -- it doesn't say you have to hold the bow's full draw weight with your fingers.
It also appears that the one-armed man I saw shooting a recurve by holding a tab in his teeth and using that to draw the bow does NOT meet your definition of "traditional".
Maybe it's time to try again. Or not. This is why I don't bother trying to define "traditional" anymore.
To me, "traditional archery" is sort of like "organic food". (No, really! Hear me out.) The foodies decided to use the word "organic" to describe food that has been grown/raised in a certain way in order to distinguish it from food grown/raised in the conventional way, but it has nothing to do with the actual definition of the word "organic". Well, at some point recurve and longbow shooters decided to call what they do "traditional archery" to distinguish themselves from compound shooters, but it has nothing to do with the actual definition of the word "traditional". It's just a descriptor that somebody chose, and it happened to stick.
Just as there are all kinds of issues with defining exactly what qualifies as "organic food" (I periodically hear reports that some "organic farmers" use more pesticides than many "non-organic farmers", for example), there are also all kinds of issues with defining "traditional archery". One guy says it's all recurves and longbows, another guy says takedowns aren't really traditional, another says anything goes as long as you don't use a sight, another says metal risers aren't traditional, another says carbon arrows aren't traditional, another says carbons are okay as long as they look like wood, and yet another guy says too many people are confusing "primitive" with "traditional". Oh, okay, so now we need to define the descriptor "primitive" as well. It gets kind of ridiculous.
