Bajutsu (Japanese military horsemanship)
馬術Japanese military horsemanship: according to Nipponica it long developed as mounted shooting combined with archery. The Ogasawara-ryu and Otsubo-ryu schools, yabusame, kasagake, inuoumono.
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About Bajutsu (Japanese military horsemanship)
Bajutsu is not a school but a branch: the art of riding and handling horses. The Nipponica encyclopedia, in its article on Watanabe Ichiro, describes it as originally a military technique now practiced purely as a competitive sport, and states that Japanese horsemanship long developed as mounted shooting, kisha, combined with archery, and was the martial art most valued in ground combat. According to Nipponica and Maypedia, the custom of riding reached Japan via the mainland and the Korean Peninsula at the end of the fourth century and spread in the sixth century. The Nikkoku dictionary cites the earliest evidence of mounted shooting from the Nihon shoki chronicle, and Britannica dates the earliest mention of mounted target shooting to 680.
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In the Heian period, according to Nipponica, mounted shooting was popular among the higher nobility, and from the Genpei era to the Kamakura period practical riding skill spread. Minamoto no Yoritomo supported horsemanship, and among the Kamakura warriors the trio of yabusame, kasagake and inuoumono became popular. In the Muromachi period, according to Nipponica, practical horsemanship was systematized into schools: from the Ogasawara family, the teaching house of mounted shooting, came Otsubo Sukehide, who founded a new branch emphasizing military horsemanship, the Otsubo-ryu. According to Nipponica it formed, together with the Hachijo-ryu, the mainstream of early modern horsemanship, and Tokugawa Ieyasu was its master and supported horsemanship as an indispensable martial art. Heibonsha states that, unlike the Ogasawara-ryu, which focused on customs, the Otsubo-ryu specialized in horsemanship and was open, so it had many students. Under the fifth shogun Tsunayoshi horsemanship declined, according to Nipponica, and the eighth shogun Yoshimune revived mounted shooting, yabusame, dakyu, kasagake, inuoumono and suiba, the crossing of water on horseback, imported Western horses and invited foreign teachers. After the arrival of the Black Ships, according to Nipponica, the Western style of riding began to be practiced, and with the fall of the bakufu Japanese horsemanship ended as well. Modern sport riding arose around 1872 under French and German instructors, and today's Nihon Bajutsu Renmei, established in 1946 according to Nipponica and in 1948 according to Heibonsha, is a sports federation that joined the Japanese physical education association. Of the ceremonial disciplines, kasagake, dakyu and yabusame are preserved under the name koshiki bajutsu, according to Heibonsha and Maypedia, and the only school of archery and riding among members of both Nihon Kobudo Kyokai and Nihon Kobudo Shinkokai is the Ogasawara-ryu.
History
The Heibonsha encyclopedia states that the horse had long been the basis of military equipment in Japan and that warriors of bow-and-horse houses had to train in riding. According to Nipponica and Maypedia, riding came to Japan at the end of the fourth century and spread in the sixth. The Nikkoku dictionary attests mounted shooting from the Nihon shoki chronicle, and Britannica dates the earliest mention of mounted target shooting to 680. According to Nipponica, ceremonial riding events were held at court in the Heian period, and mounted shooting took place before the emperor on the fifth day of the fifth month and apparently gave rise to the warriors' later yabusame. Heibonsha adds that in ancient Japan cavalry was not worth mentioning, that fighting on horseback was common from late Heian and in the Kamakura period, but that whole mounted units were rare.
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According to Nipponica, Minamoto no Yoritomo supported the way of bow and horse, trained in riding himself and held yabusame, and among Kamakura warriors the trio of yabusame, kasagake and inuoumono became popular. In the Muromachi period, according to Nipponica, practical horsemanship was systematized into schools: the son of Ogasawara Sadamune obtained a bakufu office and his house became the teaching house of mounted shooting, and from its school came Otsubo Sukehide, who founded the Otsubo-ryu with an emphasis on military horsemanship, though Nipponica's Otsubo-ryu article gives three theories on the origin of its teaching. According to Heibonsha, the founder of the Otsubo-ryu served the shoguns Yoshimitsu and Yoshimochi at the turn of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. At the end of Muromachi, according to Nipponica, Saito Yoshiharu, called the reviver of the Otsubo-ryu, presented shogun Ashikaga Yoshiteru with a thirty-volume work, and his students spread the school to the han. According to Nipponica, Tokugawa Ieyasu was a master of the Otsubo-ryu and supported horsemanship as an essential martial art, other ways of riding spread after the Kanei era, horsemanship declined under Tsunayoshi, and Yoshimune revived mounted shooting, yabusame, dakyu, kasagake, inuoumono and suiba in the Kyoho reform and invited foreign teachers. After the arrival of the Black Ships, according to Nipponica, the Western riding style was practiced, and with the fall of the bakufu Japanese horsemanship ended too.
How it differs
Japanese military horsemanship and modern sport riding are two different traditions. According to Nipponica, modern riding arose in Japan around 1872 under French and German instructors with the Western saddle, an equestrian association was founded in 1922, and a sports federation was established in 1946 according to Nipponica and in 1948 according to Heibonsha. The Daijisen dictionary distinguishes two meanings of the word bajutsu, the art of controlling a horse and a sports competition with three Olympic disciplines. According to Heibonsha, the ceremonial disciplines kasagake, dakyu, horohiki and yabusame are called koshiki bajutsu to distinguish them from sport riding. Nipponica writes that Japanese horsemanship long developed as mounted shooting combined with archery, and the koryu.com guide lists bajutsu, kyujutsu and yabusame side by side for the Ogasawara-ryu. Ogasawara Kiyotada states in a 2005 contribution that the archery and mounted shooting of his school are not contests in hitting a target and that he values the process of training most.
Technique
Nipponica distinguishes three components of horsemanship: controlling the horse with saddle, stirrups, reins, whip, rope and voice, military riding on the battlefield, and ceremonial or competitive riding. The core of Japanese horsemanship was mounted shooting, kisha, which the Daijisen dictionary contrasts with shooting on foot, hosha. Yabusame is, according to Nipponica, shooting in which the rider shoots kaburaya arrows with karimata heads at three targets in succession with the horse running, and Britannica describes a course two cho long with three cypress-wood targets and a rider in hunting dress. Kasagake is, according to Nipponica, shooting a hikime arrow at a fixed target from a galloping horse, it has two kinds and flourished in the Kamakura period. Inuoumono is, according to Nipponica, a technique of shooting running dogs from horseback, first attested in 1207, and it died out in Meiji. Suiba is, according to Daijisen, the art of crossing water on horseback: where the horse loses its footing, the rider dismounts and lets it swim, and Nipponica divides suiba into armed and on an unsaddled horse. Japanese Wikipedia states that horses were neither shod nor castrated and that one mounted from the right.
Training
Nihon Kobudo Kyokai states that the Ogasawara-ryu requires mastery of three things, ceremonial etiquette reiho, archery kyujutsu and mounted shooting kyubajutsu, and stresses the course of training. School representative Ogasawara Kiyotada compared this in a 2005 contribution to three writing styles: etiquette is like the kaisho script, archery like gyosho and mounted shooting like sosho, and after the basics the student learns archery and then mounted shooting, starting with yabusame. According to him the school does not call its training halls dojo, because in its view the way is not taught but walked, and technique is taught. According to Nihon Kobudo Kyokai, the school practices mounted shooting at the shrines Tsurugaoka Hachimangu in Kamakura, Omiya Hachimangu in Suginami, Shimogamo in Kyoto, Kasuga Taisha in Nara and at a riding club in Nikko.
Today
The only school of horsemanship among members of both Nihon Kobudo Kyokai and Nihon Kobudo Shinkokai is the Ogasawara-ryu kyubajutsu reiho, led by its thirty-first representative Ogasawara Kiyotada. The koryu.com guide gives its founding year as 1187, its founder as Ogasawara Nagakiyo and its seat as Fujisawa. According to Nihon Kobudo Kyokai, the school serves with shooting on foot and from horseback at shrine ceremonies across Japan, the yabusame ceremony at Tadasu no mori by the Shimogamo shrine is registered as an intangible cultural property of Kyoto Prefecture, and the school has branches in Australia and Great Britain. Nipponica states that the yabusame rules restored under Yoshimune and handed to the Ogasawara family are registered as an intangible cultural property of Tokyo's Shinjuku ward, and that yabusame is held every year on 16 September at the Tsurugaoka Hachimangu shrine. Kagoshima Prefecture lists yabusame in three places, and one of these ceremonies has been registered since 1981 as the prefecture's intangible folk cultural heritage. Britannica states that three schools hand down the yabusame rules, Ogasawara, Takeda and Miura. Japanese Wikipedia judges that traditional horsemanship almost died out after Western riding was introduced and that only a few researchers practice it.
Did you know
The Nikkoku dictionary attests the word bajutsu first in a 1733 text, according to which a certain Otsubo was a master of horsemanship in the Meitoku and Oei eras. Nipponica states that suiba, crossing water on horseback, was an annual bakufu event in Edo, held in the sixth month on the Sumida River in the shogun's presence, and that aids to increase the horse's buoyancy were proposed, for example in a Kobori-ryu treatise. Nihon Kobudo Kyokai's text on the Ogasawara-ryu lists in the section on transmitted scrolls titles of the Jigen-ryu, which apparently do not belong to horsemanship.
Frequently asked questions
What is bajutsu?
The Japanese art of riding and handling horses. According to Nipponica it was originally a military technique that long developed as mounted shooting combined with archery, and today the word also denotes sport riding.
What is the difference between bajutsu and yabusame?
Yabusame is one discipline of mounted shooting: according to Nipponica the rider, with the horse running, shoots successively at three targets. Bajutsu is the whole branch of horsemanship, to which yabusame, kasagake and inuoumono belong.
Is Japanese military horsemanship still taught today?
Of the old schools, only the Ogasawara-ryu is a member of the Nihon Kobudo Kyokai, practicing mounted shooting at shrines and serving at yabusame ceremonies. According to Nipponica Japanese horsemanship ended with the fall of the bakufu, and today's sport riding is based on Western models.
Similar styles
Selected by overlap in the style profile, not by historical lineage.