Throughout my life instinctive archery has been my greatest passion. I knew early on that I would always be a traditional archer and my bows of choice would always be longbows and recurve bows.
My heart beats for traditional archery!
Traditional instinctive archery with longbows and recurves is at the core of my personal archery experience. It has enhanced my connection to nature and taken me on many adventures.
For more than 20 years, I have dedicated my heart and soul to teaching archers all over the world about pure, instinctive archery.I have invested all my energy into developing instinctive archery courses and sharing these courses with as many archers as I could reach.
While I was teaching these classes, I learned the true needs of instinctive shooters, and I discovered that most of the longbows and recurves readily available on the market were not as well designed as they could be and that this was not serving the needs of the archers I was teaching.
With that in mind, I began my own search for solutions to these problems. I decided that I needed to design my own longbows and recurves. My quest was to design bows that would be, aesthetically pleasing, graceful and beautiful. They would be made of the best quality materials so they would last, and they would have high performance limbs to give traditional instinctive archers the power and performance they deserved in their bows.
With the coming of the new millennium several years ago, my dream for Bodnik bows became a reality.
As a teenager, I dreamed of paddling down the Yukon River and hunting with a bow and arrow. This longing for the vastness of the North American wilderness and my deep connection with the bow and arrow in its original form have been with me since my youth and have helped to guide the direction of my life. The stories of Saxton Pope and Fred Bear had a significant influence one me and pointed the way to my own unique path, my life, filled with and dedicated to instinctive archery. Because I lived and breathed traditional archery every day, it became one of the most important aspects of my life. Always, I was shooting my bows. Always, I was learning. Always I was discovering new details and aspects of controlled successful instinctive shooting. Eventually, I developed my own solid method of shooting instinctively / intuitively. In time, I realized that I needed to share this knowledge with others. I needed to help other archers with their instinctive archery journey. And so, for more than 25 years I have been sharing and teaching the Henry Bodnik method of instinctive shooting to archers all over the world.
With my kill tournaments, I have created a very special sort of archery competition. The unique format, the life-like placement of the 3D animal targets, and the special scoring rules all combine to create a feeling of actually being in the field, bow hunting. My Kill Tournaments are extremely popular and now, 12 years after our first one, these legendary archery shoots are being hosted in 6 different countries worldwide.
Instinctive archery is my life and for all my archery activities, I need a bow and arrow that I could rely on unconditionally!
These demanding requirements for the best bows and arrows possible were the driving force for me to start the development and manufacturing of my signature bow line - Bodnik Bows! My high standards and firm demands on quality and performance are reflected in every single longbow and recurve you will see from Bodnik Bows. Archers and bow hunters all over the world are impressed with and loyal to the Bodnik Bows brand. Today, the Bodnik Bows brand has become an integral part of and one of the most respected names in the world of traditional archery and bowhunting.
Founder of Bearpaw Products
In 1997 I laid the foundation stone for Bearpaw Products GmbH by founding Bogensport Bodnik. As I was teaching my courses in instinctive/intuitive archery, it didn't take me long to realize that there was a great need in this field for quality traditional archery equipment and knowledgeable, competent information and advice. The realization of this situation, this need, and the idea that I could help traditional archers around the world by filling this need, is what sparked me to start the Bogensport Bodnik company. This company would become a great wealth of knowledge and a supplier of quality, traditional archery equipment.
In just 5 short years, together with my wife Dorothea Bodnik - Beier, I restructured this original company and named the new entity Bearpaw Products GmbH. With our dedication to providing quality traditional archery equipment and competent instinctive archery equipment advice and guidance, we were able to build and expand Bearpaw Products GmbH into the world's leading company in traditional archery.
Throughout these years, we designed and developed a comprehensive product line of traditional archery items that are now well respected - worldwide - by everyone in the traditional archery community. We are proud to look back on our time and our accomplishments with Bearpaw Products GmbH.
In February of 2019, we transferred Bearpaw Products GmbH to the next generation. Tim Beier has taken over the business as the new owner and is currently the managing director of Bearpaw Products GmbH!
All of our archery courses and seminars are designed to teach archers how to use a bow and arrow in a natural, instinctive way.