Tuning in
Hello! Welcome to issue 146 of Bow International. This month is the 'Tuning Special'. Tuning has long been a bit of a personal bugbear for me and I've always found it tricky. It's taken a while to gestate, but I'm very pleased with Ashe Morgan's detailed piece this month on recurve tuning; which adds both depth (it's not a 'basic tune') and clarity to the process. The idea is to find something that is both testable and repeatable, but without tying you down into a never-ending process of second guessing. I think he's done an amazing job, as have all our contributors this month. There's an astonishing amount of valuable information on the pages of this issue. One of the eternal issues with the sport – and one I think that contributes to the churn of people starting and giving up – is that there is no universally accepted method of archery training, which would include tuning a bow. Some aspects, such as safety, are essential precepts which are usually well-taught and stick in the brain, contributing to the sport's outstanding safety record in the West. But tuning is also essential to progression, and yet most archers are not taught it in a methodical manner. Part of the problem is that many aspects have to be taught on the range, and it can take a great deal of time to complete, at least the first few times. Beginners and novices also change equipment frequently, with their tuning frustrated by developing form issues. Few clubs have the resources to go deep on tuning.
The other problem is arrows. An enormous number of casual archers are never taught explicitly how to build and tune arrows, which is a key piece of the puzzle. Indeed, many archers tune the bow to the arrows, to avoid the messy work of having to repoint and refletch a bunch too frequently, if at all. It's a difficult balance to strike between maintaining the enthusiasm of casual archers and developing technical skills to keep them in the sport and keep levelling up. We're working on some ideas to fix that.
See you on the shooting line...