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 The
Reinvention Of Archery ©
By Frank H. Scott
The North American Archery
Group, LLC & The Fred Bear Museum
"The more things change, the more they
remain the same." I don't know who said that or when, but when I look at some
of the old and the new archery products, I realize what a wise saying it is.
It has also been said that the bow and
arrow dates back about 50,000 years. It would seem that one of the problems
faced by those ancient archers still remains with some archers of today; that
is, releasing the bow string. One would think that pulling a bow string back
and letting it go would be as easy as falling off a log. However, the act
of releasing the string in such a way so as to achieve the highest accuracy
possible as well as delivering a maximum amount of energy possible to the
arrow, is undoubtedly the hardest single action in archery to learn. Since
the earliest times, archers have been experimenting, inventing, and reinventing
various means of releasing the bow string in order to achieve this. Hence,
we have the reinvention of the modern release aid (figure 8). As modern as
it is, the rope portion of this release is actually a take-off on the old
wrist strap that was wrapped around the wrist to form a loop. The loose end
of this strap was then wrapped  around
the string to make the draw. In looking through archery ads and  catalogs,
many release aids of all shapes and sizes can be seen. All are designed to
do the same thing; release the string.
Most of us, when we first picked up a
bow, used a "pinch-the-arrow" method also known as the primary release (figure
1). This release is still widely used today by primitive tribes in underdeveloped
parts of the world. Most archers soon learned that the weight of the bow we
could pull was limited to the strength of the thumb and forefinger of the
drawing hand when using this "pinch" method.
As time went on, an arrow was designed
with a "bump" on the nock end (figure
2). This gave the archer something to grip with the thumb and  forefinger
thus aiding him in the pulling and releasing of the arrow and could be considered
an early release aid.
In figure
3, called the secondary release, you will notice the archer is  pinching
the arrow as well as pulling the string with the ends of the fingers. This
method gave the early archers a little more control of the draw and more strength
to pull heavier weight bows.
Figure
4 shows what is commonly called the Mediterranean release and is the most
widely used method of pulling the bow string with the fingers. It is of European
and English origin and was introduced to modern archers in the U.S. in the
1800's.
Figure
5 illustrates a shooting block. Simply stated, it is a block, generally
of wood, with indentations for the fingers on the drawing hand. Extending
from the end of the block is a carved hook which was hooked around the  string
for drawing purposes. It had widespread use for many years and variations
of this device are still in use by competitive flight shooters.
Figures
6 and 6a
show the use of the Mongolian and Chinese thumb ring. These rings were very
efficient means of drawing and releasing the string; both in terms of accuracy
and  delivery
of energy to the arrow. The same can be said of the Persian and Turkish versions
of the thumb ring as depicted in figures
7 and 7a.
Rings such as these were in widespread use in countries other than China,
Mongolia, Persia and Turkey. Some have even been found in undeveloped areas
of Africa. These rings were made of many different materials including, but
not limited to wood, jade, bone, antler, quartz, gold and turquoise. Generally
speaking, archers using the thumb ring shot off of the opposite side of the
bow as opposed to archers using the Mediterranean release; that is, a right
handed archer shot off of the right side of the bow when using the thumb ring.
Archery historians would generally agree that these thumb rings could be considered
the grandparents of the modern release aid.
The next issue will discuss the reinvention
of the overdraw arrow rest.
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