Yabusame
流鏑馬Japanese mounted archery: three targets shot from a galloping horse. Minamoto no Yoritomo gave it its ceremonial form at Tsurugaoka Hachimangu in 1187.
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About Yabusame
Yabusame is Japanese mounted archery. The rider gallops down a straight course of roughly 250 metres and shoots at three targets set along its left-hand side. Between hits he has only seconds to drop the reins, draw a fresh arrow, nock it and release — the horse runs the whole length unguided. A claim circulates that the discipline was founded by Emperor Kammu in the year 530. It cannot stand: Kammu reigned from 781 to 806. The documented sequence is different. Shooting from horseback was practised at the imperial court as a pastime, and in the ninth century a school was established by Minamoto no Yoshiari at the command of Emperor Uda — the root of the later Takeda line. The ceremonial form known today was given to yabusame by Minamoto no Yoritomo, who dedicated it to the Tsurugaoka Hachimangu shrine in Kamakura in 1187 and appointed Ogasawara Nagakiyo (1162–1242) to instruct his samurai in archery. The Ogasawara line has transmitted the technique ever since. As warrior life receded the practice declined; it was revived in the Edo period by Ogasawara Heibei Tsuneharu (1666–1747) at the order of the shogun Tokugawa Yoshimune. Yabusame is not a scored sport but a Shinto rite: the archer wears Kamakura-period hunting dress, hits are announced aloud, and a shattered target counts as an omen of good harvest and peace. Anyone who wants to shoot must master the etiquette first — the present head of the Ogasawara school puts it that correct posture grows out of courtesy, not out of technique.
Similar styles
Selected by overlap in the style profile, not by historical lineage.