"trad archery" is easy to define in this new millennium - essentially, a stick and a string.
don't matter if the stick part is one piece or more, or what it's made outta or what's its shape or cross section or whether the arrows rides a knuckle or rest or shelf. and as long as its string is held, drawn and released by the physically direct efforts of the archer (hands, or hand/teeth for physically challenged archers), it's "trad". neither does the arrow shaft or fletching material matter. however, for trad bowhunting, only a cut on contact broadhead is "trad" - mech heads are *not* trad. the bowstring is easiest to understand, and it only contacts either the limb tips (longbow) or limb tips and limb ends (recurve).
one can divvy up trad archery into more specific categories such as selfbows (primitive), natural material backed selfbows, and man made composites (glass, carbon, ceramic backing, facing and cored limbs ... wood, plastic and metal risers).
trad bows can be aimed "instinctively" (as in throwing a baseball or tossing a dart), or with "soft sights" (using the arrow point as an aiming reference) or with "hard sights" (a bowsight - marks on the upper limb face, or an aiming pin held by tape, or a $400 FITA olympic sight with bubble level and variable apertures).
most of all, trad archery is pure ancestral fun ... and can put meat on the table when necessary.
