“Once he has acquired control and developed a natural proficiency in shooting, he should begin to bend powerful bows that are as strong as he can possibly handle and continue shooting at the practice drum night and day with different bows.” – Ṭaybughā
Now it’s getting serious. I have found articles online suggesting many military-grade bows were rated from 70-100#. Other reports show even more powerful bows than this in routine use throughout historical warfare (fans of the English longbow will attest to this). The other point of note here is the requirement the archer practice with a variety of bows. This seems to imply preparing the warrior to be able to pick up and be lethal with any bow they came across.
Realistically, I view Steps Six and Seven somewhat optional to the modern archer. First, that’s potentially a lot of bows to buy in order to step-wise increase your strength and you would need even more “powerful bows” to be able to practice with a variety of them. Unless you have access to an armory, that just isn’t practical. It’s up to you what you want your ultimate draw weight to be and how many step-wise increased draw weight bows you are willing to buy/beg/borrow to help you get there. You can see though how it is actually realistic, through this type of training regimen, that a novice could build incredible strength and dexterity over their training. We could still reach the levels of our predecessors if we committed to attaining them, regardless of whether they are practical by modern standards.
I, for one, am happy with my goal draw weight of 50# for now.
Loosing III (increase weight) – Loosing IV (max weight) – Loosing V (arrow flight intro)