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Mon, 12 May 2008 09:26:17 -0700

Traditional Japanese Archery

Over one thousand years ago, the art of yabusame, or Japanese archery performed on horseback, was used in battle during the era of the Japanese samurai. During the Kamakura Period, archery on horseback was used as a military training exercise to keep samurai prepared for war. Those archers who did poorly might find themselves commanded to commit seppuku, or ritualistic suicide.

In Japanese, the pronunciation would become saburai. By the end of the 12th century, saburai, an old word for samurai, became synonymous with bushi almost entirely and the word was closely associated with the middle and upper echelons of the warrior class. Written in 1371, the Heike Monogatari chronicles the struggle between the Minamoto and Taira clans for control of Japan at the end of the 12th century―a conflict known as the Gempei War.
Clearly depicted throughout the Heike Monogatari is the ideal of the cultivated warrior. The warriors in the Heike Monogatari served as models for the educated warriors of later generations, and the ideals depicted by them were not assumed to be beyond reach. Rather, these ideals were vigorously pursued in the upper echelons of warrior society and recommended as the proper form of the Japanese man of arms.
By the time of "Chinzei General"Imagawa Ryoshun's Regulations at the beginning of the 15th century, the Bushido ideal had already reached its balanced state.

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