Yabusame
Yabusame ( Japanese 流 鏑 馬 ) is - next to the modern Kyūdō - a traditional form of Japanese archery that is practiced from the horse. The shooter shoots a wooden target with a special arrow with a "beet-shaped" tip.
This form of archery has its origin at the beginning of the Kamakura period . Minamoto no Yoritomo was concerned about the poor skills of his samurai . He organized yabusame as a kind of exercise.
Today yabusame is practiced at the Tsurugaoka Hachiman Shrine in Kamakura . It is also practiced in Samukawa and Zushi Beach and other places. Overall, however, Yabusame is much less common than Kyūdō. In Japan, even renting a horse for a day is unaffordable for many. In the big cities it is only possible to practice on a kind of "training horse" in halls. However, the main reason is that in many cases only family members are accepted as students by the masters. Today there are said to be only 50 good shooters in all of Japan.
history
Japanese arches have been known since prehistoric times, the Jōmon period . The asymmetrical longbow with the handle in the lower third appeared in the Yayoi period (300 BC – 300 AD). The bow became a symbol of authority and power. The legendary first emperor, Jimmu , is always depicted with a bow.
The bow was initially only used on foot in the 4th century, until elite soldiers began to fight on horseback with bows and arrows and swords. In the 10th century, samurai fights consisted of one-on-one fights on horseback. They rode towards each other and tried to shoot at least three arrows. These duels did not necessarily end in the death of one of the opponents as long as the honor was satisfied.
One of the most famous events in Japanese horse archery occurred in the Gempei War (1180–1185). At the Battle of Yashima , the Heike withdrew after their defeat on their boats at Yashima, the pursuing Genji were stopped by the sea. When the Heike were waiting for a favorable wind near the shore, they hung a fan on the mast of one of the ships and asked the Genji to shoot him down. One of the Genji samurai, Nasu no Yoichi, accepted the challenge, rode into the sea, and hit the fan with the first shot. He is still famous for it today.
In the Kamakura period (1192-1334), mounted archery was used as a military training exercise to keep the samurai ready for war. Bad marksmen could be induced to commit seppuku .
Inuomono was popular as a leisure activity. Live dogs were shot at with special blunt arrows in a kind of arena. The dogs were irritated or slightly injured, not killed.
Yabusame
Yabusame was created as a way to entertain and favor the myriad Shinto gods, thus calling down their blessings on the land, people and crops.
The shooter gallops along a 255 m long track at high speed. He steers the horse mainly with his knees, since he needs both hands to draw the bow.
As he approaches the target, the archer puts on the arrow, pulls the bow up behind the ear and shoots the arrow with a scream.
The arrowhead is blunt and beet-shaped to create a louder sound on impact. Experienced archers use arrows with a V-shaped forked tip, which splits the board used as a target and drops it on the ground. Hitting all three goals is considered an admirable achievement.
Yabusame is viewed as a ritual rather than a sport because of its seriousness and religious aspect. It is often performed at special ceremonies or official occasions, for the entertainment of foreign personalities and heads of state. Yabusame demonstrations were given during official visits by US Presidents Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush . A screening was held for Prince Charles in the UK .
To be selected as a Yabusame Sagittarius is a great honor. In the past they were only chosen from among the best warriors. The best archer receives a white cloth as a prize, a sign of divine favor.
Jinba Ittai ( Japanese : horse and rider are one ) is the ideal of Yabusame. Because only when horse and rider form a perfect unit will the arrow hit the target.
Famous schools
There are two famous schools of horse archery practicing yabusame. One is the Ogasawara-ryū (school), whose founder, Ogasawara Nagakiyo , was asked by the Shogun Minamoto Yoritomo (1147–1199) to found a school of archery. Yoritomo wanted capable and disciplined soldiers, and archery was seen as a good way to practice the skills required to be a samurai.
Zen spread among the samurai during the Kamakura period . Although a direct connection between Zen and archery is seen mainly in Europe under the influence of Eugen Herrigel , it can develop properties that are helpful in shooting. In the heat of battle under fire, repeatedly pulling out, aiming and firing the bow was a sign of the true samurai who had mastered his practice and his fear.
The other famous school was founded as early as the 9th century by Minamoto Yoshiari on the orders of Emperor Uda . This school became known as the Takeda School. The Takeda style has been featured in classic samurai films such as Akira Kurosawa's The Seven Samurai (1954) and Kagemusha (1980). The famous samurai performer Toshirō Mifune was a student of the Takeda School.
Decline and revival
With the arrival of the Portuguese in the middle of the 16th century and the firearms that were soon to be copied in Japan, the bow began to lose its importance. The battle of Nagashino in 1575 can be given as a turning point , in which around 3,000 strategically placed arquebus archers nearly destroyed the Takeda cavalry.
Mounted archery was revived in the Edo period (1600–1867) by Ogasawara Heibei Tsuneharu (1666–1747) under the command of Shogun Tokugawa Yoshimune (1684–1751). Since the country was at peace, archery, like the other martial arts, was seen as a means of personality training rather than military training.
Today, yabusame is typically shown at Shinto shrines at different times of the year .
Web links
- Takayama Shigeru: "Yabusame" . In: Encyclopedia of Shinto. Kokugaku-in , February 20, 2007 (English)
- Takeda School