How to reduce interference with the bowstring? — Arrow pinching

At present, the most commonly used methods of hanging strings in traditional bows are Mediterranean (finger method) and Meng style (thumb method). These two methods will not be elaborated here because they have been popularized and everyone knows how to use them. The details can be solved by practicing more.

All the methods of archery are nothing more than to shoot accurately. The core of shooting accurately is smooth and stable movements, which are divided into many points, such as smooth bow raising, smooth bow movement, smooth and consistent release, stable confrontation, etc.

The string hanging method to be discussed today was previously called "Yi style" in Liangshan, Sichuan. This name is because in a photo before liberation, there was a Yi warrior holding a "bangbang bow" with his left hand holding an arrow. It was a shooting method that held the arrow tail with the thumb and index finger, so it was called Yi style shooting. Some people also call it "pinching arrow and pulling method" or "original release method", and the specific details will not be verified here.

It should be emphasized that it is a bow opening method for release, and some people have applied it to the field. Its characteristics are small interference, clean, neat, smooth and stable release. When casting, there is no problem of changing the center line of the string and the bow body, which can make the string rebound almost perfectly. This string hanging method now has a general name - pinching arrow style.

Look at the picture above, is it familiar? Most people use this for the first time, right? Of course, the picture above is just the prototype of the pinching arrow style. Although it is real pinching, unless you have strong finger strength, you will open a bow that is not too heavy, and it is easy to misfire at any time. If you don’t practice for a long time, you can’t ensure the consistency of the pulling distance. But with the spirit of continuous exploration and knowledge-seeking by various predecessors, the pinching arrow method has evolved into the following picture:

Yes, it is a finger guard specially designed for pinching arrows. Just like the Mediterranean needs a finger guard and the Montessori needs a ring, the pinching arrow pulling method also has a special auxiliary tool. The principle of this tool is to change the way the force acts.

Use the thumb and index finger to clamp the force, and the main force is the tiger’s mouth, index finger and thumb. In this primitive pinching arrow method, the fingers act with equal force, and the reliability is very low.

The whole hand holds the load-bearing handle, which acts about 60% of the force, the load-bearing rope acts about 10%, and the thumb acts about 30%. This changes the way the force acts, and the force used by the thumb to clamp is particularly small, and most of it acts on the load-bearing handle.

From the structural point of view, the production of the arrow-holding finger guard is very simple and flexible. The maker can determine the length of the load-bearing rope and the length of the load-bearing handle according to the size of the hand. The width of the string-hanging leather case can be slightly narrower than the thumb. The load-bearing handle is wrapped with a tennis sweat-absorbing band, which will have a very good sweat-absorbing and anti-slip effect. If the finger strength is strong, the string-hanging leather case can be folded by only one-third, so that the load-bearing handle has two layers, and the string-hanging place has only one layer, which is even cleaner and neater.