Question: What do most archers wear to protect the inside of their arm from being  hit by the bow string?
About the article "Archery", section "Protective equipment".

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Most archers wear a bracer (also known as an arm-guard) to protect the inside of the bow arm from being hit by the string and prevent clothing from catching the bow string.
The bracer does not brace the arm; the word comes from the armoury term "brassard", meaning an armoured sleeve or badge.
The Navajo people have developed highly ornamented bracers as non-functional items of adornment.
Some archers (mostly women) also wear protection on their chests, called chestguards or plastrons.
The myth of the Amazons was that they had one breast removed to solve this problem.
Roger Ascham mentions one archer, presumably with an unusual shooting style, who wore a leather guard for his face.
The drawing digits are normally protected by a leather tab, glove, or thumb ring.
A simple tab of leather is commonly used, as is a skeleton glove.
Medieval Europeans probably used a complete leather glove.
Eurasiatic archers who used the thumb or Mongolian draw protected their thumbs, usually with leather according to the author of "Arab Archery", but also with special rings of various hard materials.
Many surviving Turkish and Chinese examples are works of considerable art.
Some are so highly ornamented that the users could not have used them to loose an arrow.
Possibly these were items of personal adornment, and hence value, remaining extant whilst leather had virtually no intrinsic value and would also deteriorate with time.
In traditional Japanese archery a special glove is used, provided with a ridge which is used to draw the string.
A bracer (or arm-guard) is a strap or sheath, commonly made of leather, stone, or plastic that covers the inside of an archer's arm to protect it while shooting.
Bracers protect the inside of the archer's forearm against injury by the string of the bow or the fletching of the arrow.
They also prevent loose clothing from catching the bow string.
They normally cover part of the forearm only, but chest-guards are sometimes worn, usually by female archers, and other areas have at times been protected.
With some combinations of non-baggy clothing and bows with a larger distance between the bow and the string, the archer may not need to wear any bracer. 
It gives a narrower grip on the string, as only one digit is used, and this may help to avoid "string pinch" with shorter bows such as the composite bows normally used from horseback.
Mongol archers would wear a thumb ring made from leather, bone, horn, and in some cases silver to protect the thumb.
It may also avoid a problem occasionally faced by archers using the Mediterranean release, when the three fingers do not release at exactly the same time and thus foul the draw.
This release is normally used with the arrow on the right side of the bow for a right-handed archer, and on the left side of the bow for a left-handed archer. 
The "yumi" (Japanese bow) is exceptionally tall (standing over two metres), surpassing the height of the archer.
"Yumi" are traditionally made of bamboo, wood and leather using techniques which have not changed for centuries, although some archers (particularly, those new to the art) may use synthetic (i.e.
laminated wood coated with glassfibre or carbon fiber) "yumi".
Even advanced "kyudoka" may own non-bamboo "yumi" and "ya" because of the vulnerability of bamboo equipment to extreme climates.
The suitable height for "yumi" depends on the archer's draw ("yazuka") which is about half the archer's height.
The kyudo archer wears a glove on the right hand called a "yugake".
There are many varieties of "yugake", they are typically made of deerskin.
Practitioners can choose between a hard glove (with a hardened thumb) or a soft glove (without a hardened thumb); each has its advantages.
With a hard glove, the thumb area is not very flexible and has a pre-made groove used to pull the string ("tsuru").
With a soft glove, the thumb area is very flexible and is without a pre-made groove, allowing the practitioners to create their own, based on their own shooting habits.
Typically a "yugake" will be of the three- or four-finger variety.
The three fingered version is called a "mitsugake", and the four-fingered version is called a "yotsugake".
Typically the primary reason an archer may choose a stronger glove like the "yotsugake" is to assist in pulling heavier bows.
The Three-finger "mitsugake" is generally used with bows with a pull below 20 kilograms of draw weight, while the four fingered "yotsugake" are used with bows with a pull above 20 kilograms.
This is only a generalization and many schools differ on which glove to use for their bows and glove use often varies from archer to archer and school to school.
The practical reasoning for the extra finger on the glove stems from having more surface area available to the archer for the heavier draws.
During the draw, the thumb of the archer is typically placed on the last gloved finger of the drawing hand, with the first (or, in the case of a "yotsugake", the first and index fingers) being placed gently on either the thumb or the arrow shaft itself.
Sometimes a type of resin powder, called "giriko" is applied to the thumb and holding finger to assist in the grip during the pull.
The extra finger allows for a stronger hold on the thumb, as it is then placed on the "third" finger of the hand instead of the second.
Some schools, such as Heki-ryū Insai-ha only use the three-fingered glove, even with bows above 40 kilograms.
The one-finger glove, called an "ippongake" is generally used for beginners and covers only the thumb.
Some versions have a full wrist covering and others simply cover the thumb with a small strap and snap around the wrist.
Because it has no glove over the fingers, it is typically uncomfortable for the archer to use "giriko" powder.
"Ippongake" are generally not used by advanced archers, and cannot be used in Kyudo Federation competitions.
The five-finger glove, called a "morogake" is used almost exclusively by Ogasawara Ryu practitioners, and is not typically used in competition or by any other school.
A practitioner's nock and grip of the arrow can be dictated by the glove and bow being used.
It is not uncommon for practitioners who have upgraded or downgraded bow weight to continue to use the same glove and not change.
With the exception of the "ippongake", the "yugake" is worn with an underglove called a "shitagake" made of cotton or synthetic cloth, mainly to protect the "yugake" from sweat which would degrade the deerskin of the glove over time.
The "shitagake" comes in two varieties, three fingered and four fingered, depending on whether it is used under the "mitsugake" or the "yotsugake".
Because of the unique shooting technique of kyudo, protection on the left (bow) arm is not generally required.
The bow string, when properly released, will travel around the bow hand, coming to rest on the outside of the arm.
However, on rare occasions a bow hand glove, called an "oshidegake", is used, which serves to protect the left thumb from injury from the arrow and fletching.
A fore-arm protector can also be worn, primarily by beginners, to protect the left arm from being hit by the string.
Powder made of burnt rice husks called "fudeko" is applied to the hand that holds the bow to absorb sweat, allowing the bow to turn in the hand.
Female archers also wear a chest protector called a "muneate", which is generally a piece of leather or plastic which is designed to protect the breasts from being struck by the tsuru (bowstring) during shooting.
Because the yumi is a very strong bow, and repeated usage tends to weaken the "tsuru" (bowstring), it is not uncommon for a "tsuru" to break during shooting.
Because of this, many archers carry a spare bowstring in what is called a "tsurumaki" (literally "bow string roll").
Traditional tsurumaki are flat yoyo-shaped carriers made of woven bamboo, typically with a leather strap.
Recently, however, plastic tsurumakis are also coming into use.
Many archers also have small containers of "fudeko" and "giriko" attached to the end of the "tsurumaki" strap; these containers are called "fudeko-ire" and "giriko-ire" and are traditionally made of horn or antler (though many modern kyudoka have "fudeko-ire" and "giriko-ire" made of plastic). 
Combat Archery allows the introduction of bows and crossbows to Heavy Weapons combat.
Strict rules are in place to limit the launch force of field weapons and the projectiles are specially built with large blunted tips and special backs to minimize the risk of true injury.
Consistent with other SCA combat, arrow strikes to shields are considered blocked, while strikes to armored areas of the body are not.
Judging the effects of blows is left to the honor of the combatant struck.
The current Society-wide rules for Combat Archery specify that missile strikes are judged just as any blow.
That it is up to the fighter to determine if it hit them properly and with enough force.
It is stated however that strikes from arrows, by their nature, will be with less force than that with a sword.
Due to requirements of larger safety zones to protect spectators from ricochets and overshots, combat archery is usually limited to large melees.
All archers are considered to be exactly the same as any other Heavy Combatant (though historically this hasn't always been true).
They are physically struck down to defeat them and they wear the same armor with the exception of the hands which can be more lightly armored half-gauntlets to be flexible enough to use their equipment.
Do note however that as always any combatant on the field may yield to his opponent in lieu of being hit.
Thus, many combat archers who have no other way to defend themselves will therefore yield when charged by another Heavy Combatant (instead of taking a blow from which they cannot defend themselves).
In some kingdoms, archers properly authorized, are allowed to carry melee weapons and to switch from bow/crossbow to the hand weapon.
However they must properly retire their bow or crossbow before making the switch and meet safety requirements which protect any half-gauntleted hand (such as using a basket hilt).