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Kyudo - 1st weeks with my first bow

This will be more of a normal journal entry. I think it is worth stating these things, but it doesn't feel very formal or informational.

Here are some things I've encountered so far:

  • Humility
    • Not knowing all of the terms for the associated equipment
    • Equipment mistakes (poor tsuruwa construction)
  • Concerns
    • Storage and blind-spots in care/maintenance
  •  Excitement
    • New "toy"
    • Learning new things and overcoming some of the above
    • Knowing I still have even more to learn

So, yeah "humility".  I will admit now that I was not properly prepared for this moment. I think that, for next year, I will recommend more equipment maintenance lectures. There is definitely more for me to learn with regards to how to maintain my equipment and even what all of the individual items are.

The first mistake was confusing the uchifukuro with a yumibukuro. To be fair, we only use the uchifukuro in the dojo and they both have the same basic form. In fact, both even have VERY similar dimensions. To the point where it is a bit of a pain to extract the uchifukuro when inside the yumibukuro. But I'm not trying to make excuses. I didn't know that they were even 2 different things and I really feel like I should have.

The second was, my tsuruwa wasn't sitting right during practice, so I adjusted it, but the knot was too big and the bow reversed during practice. Thankfully, it does not appear to have damaged the bow. The knot was similar in size to what I used with my 10 kilo dojo bow. Again, that doesn't make it right or excuse me. It means that I didn't know enough before and was potentially risking harm to dojo equipment. I think the lighter draw weight and different characteristics of that bow saved it from me.

This whole experience has lead to me being more concerned about everything including storage or even worried about what else I might not know.

On the flip-side, there is also excitement. The word "toy" above is in quotes because I very much know that this is not a toy. Just that the excitement is similar. 

I'm also excited to learn these new things and hopefully to overcome some of the above and to know that there is yet more that I have to learn. Humility is a good thing. I want to take good care of my new equipment. And I'm not upset about the lack of knowledge I had going into this. Realistically, we all start somewhere and the beginning is where the greatest risk lies. I aim to keep this bow in good shape for some time, but I also don't buy things with accepting that tragedies can happen. 

In the process though, I think I may have also uncovered why another bow in the dojo failed. Most bows in use in the dojo are dojo bows and they either stay in the climate controlled space where we practice or spend briefs stints in a heated vehicle traveling to where we practice kinteki. The bow which failed, failed in winter and belonged to one of our members who doesn't have a car and it failed his first hitote of arrows. 

I suspect that during his commute from his house to the kinteki space that the bow got quite cold. Our kinteki space is quite cramped and we rarely do things like kataire which might help to warm up the limbs of the bow before shooting. So, the combination of low temperature and low humidity likely put the glue/resin between the layers in a much less stable state. Without a lot of time to acclimate or time spent slow doing partial draws to warm up the bow, it seems highly plausible that this lead to delamination of the bow. 

By contrast, my bow leaves my house and goes straight into the car. It spends maybe 1-2 minutes in the cold and the car is warmed within a minute or so even without preheating. Then it spends another half hour in the car before I take it back out and quickly bring it indoors. In my case, the bow doesn't have a ton of time to lose heat. But if I had to take a bus to practice I could be waiting outside much longer only to get into a vehicle which is not as warm as a car, and then get off the bus and have to walk in the cold from the bus stop, which would drop the temps once again. 

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