Preparing the bow for shooting part 2a BRACING THE BOW ON-FOOT by two persons

Before stringing the bow it's a good habit to take a good look at it, especially if it was left unused for some time. Small damages, like twisted limbs, small cracks or hit marks from bumping on some hard object are often easy to fix if you notice them, but can quickly become much worse if we bend the bow. Natural composites you can not only inspect visually, but also tap the sinew layers with some round metal object. Hollow sound will indicate delaminated places.
The bow should not be heated before stringing. Especially when we remove it from a car trunk under direct sun, we have to wait untill it cools down.

Bracing the bow by two persons.

The more reflexed is our bow, the more carefully it should be treated. There is a number of ways to string it - we can count at least twenty of them, and taking into consideration some minor differences, about a hundred variants - but some of them can be used only with less reflexed bows, some are not very practical and other difficult or even a bit dangerous and suitable only in very specific circumstances: like stringing while running (probably running away from your enemy) or while standing in deep water. To know 3-4 most practical methods is enough in everyday life.

Definitely the safest way to string a bow is a two-persons method.



Archer should find a helper (whose task is not complicated, so you can use any person, after brief explanation), ask him to stand close, but to the side and give him one end of a string. Other end is fixed at the end of bow limb. In every method we are going to describe it does not matter if you put top loop of the string on top limb, or bottom loop on the bottom, as long as you do not mix the ends. Now the archer grips the limbs ends with both hands, from underside (fingers on belly side of the bow), and the thumb of one hand (on this end where the loop is already in place) is pressing the string, to keep it centered on the limb.

Now we have two variants:

• either our archer kneels on one knee and rest the grip of the bow against and little below other knee - kneeling position is very stable, but bow resting on one point can be little shaky.

• or the archer is squatting down and place both knees in the middle of working parts of both limbs. Please remember, that many reflex bows have a limbs consisting of a flexing part ("sal") and rigid section at the end ("siyah") - we should place each knee not in the middle of whole limb, but in the middle of "sal". Squatting position is a bit less stable, but the bow is held more firmly. Also, in case if the bow do not "like" to bend evenly, archer can try pressing a bit more with one of his knees.

Both variants are working well, you can choose whatever suits you best.

Next, regardless of kneeling or squatting position, archer start to pull limbs back and little upwards, with one fluent movement until his helper will be able to put the second loop of the string into place. It is important that this second person should all the time stand to the side, so in case our archer will loose his grip and limbs spring forward, helper will be out of harm's way.

You should be especially cautious at the beginning, when limbs tops are in forward position, long way in front of the grip; then the bow "would like" to twist toward the archer rather then bend correctly. When limbs tips pass the line of the grip (marked blue on our photos) bow become more stable and you can proceed with more confidence.

After the string is braced archer SHOULD NOT RELEASE HIS GRIP ON THE BOW untill he carefully check, that the string on both sides is correctly centered and fixed, loops are not twisted and both limbs are bending to roughly the same shape. Only then he can safely remove his knees and hands from the bow.

When unstringing the bow we make the same movements in reverse order (with a little practice we can do this without helper, pushing one loop of the string out of the limb tip with a thumb). This time we should be extra cautious at the end of movement, guiding limb tips carefully untill fully relaxed, to avoid sudden twist after we cross axis of the grip.

If you are dealing with very powerfull bow, close to our strength limit, it's best to support your kneeling or squatting position by sitting with your buttocks on something low - a little stool, a stump, a log or a stair. Then we can pull the bow not only with hands, but also using our back muscles, leaning back the torso without loosing ballance.

As for the bows made from natural materials the bracing technique is identical, but you must execute it reeeaaalllyy slooowly, much, much slower than in case of "plastic" bows. Which means, that you'd better make your position as comfortable as possible to better deal with holding your bow for a long time. It is best to bend the bow not only slowly, but also "two steps forward, one back" - especially if the bow was not used recently. It means, that we pull it carefully only a little, relax it even slower, then bend it again, a bit more this time and repeat those steps untill it will be possible to put the string on. After checking and correcting it's shape (more about this later) we let the bow rest for some time to "set" and then we start to pull it, again working in steps until we reach full draw.

Bow made from natural materials should be used regularly, at least once a month and better more often, or else it will "loose the habit of bending"; it is a bit like a living person getting stiff without regular exercises.

In case of "plastic" bows unstringing is a simple reverse of stringing process, but it is not exactly so in case of "naturals". First of all, relaxing of the limbs should be even slower than bending; whats more, this time we are not using "two steps forward, one back" method but rather make stops along the way: we allow the limbs to relax several centimeters, stop, wait for a dozen or so seconds to level away stress, then again relax them a bit and stop. The whole process takes about a minute or even little longer and keeping a heavy bow under control for so long is not an easy task for the archer, but it's very important. Sudden relaxation can cause small cracks to develop in the horn layer, which then will break spectacularly later, during one of the subsequent stringings. Because bow breaks when bending, it's owner often don't realize that this damage happened actually earlier, during unstringing.

In the next part - bracing the bow by one person