yabusame

Baseball may be the jewel of Japanese sports, but this field of dreams -- a boggy expanse of plowed-up rice paddies bisected by a soil embankment approximately two hundred meters long by four or five meters wide -- is set up for something else: a display of horseback archery, known as yabusame

Time's Arrow 2009

"Our skill level has risen these past few years," says Mr. Tanaka of the Takeda School, one of two groups performing yabusame in Japan and the organizer of this event.

Time's Arrow 2009

Nami Kaneko Mr. Tanaka, whose day job is in a high-tech division of Toshiba, joined yabusame to reconnect with his Japanese roots.

Time's Arrow 2009

To find a yabusame event, visit www. yabusame.or.jp

Time's Arrow 2009

Traveling back 1,500 years through yabusame -- archery on a galloping horse.

Time's Arrow 2009

Inside, Setsuko Kaneko, the twinkling, birdlike widow of Ietaka Kaneko, the Takeda headmaster who died in January at age 87 (and rode until the month before his death), bustles to make sure everyone is looked after as they change, drink tea and remark on the day's performance -- and tell stories about the late headmaster, who as the son of the 34th Takeda leader made his debut as a yabusame archer in 1935.

Time's Arrow 2009

"There was no such dimension to yabusame before Meiji," Dr. Kondo says.

Time's Arrow 2009

Takeda receives modest financial support from the government, but a life in yabusame isn't easy.

Time's Arrow 2009

Inviting new members from all social levels -- and overseeing the admission of women, traditionally excluded from most sacred Shinto business -- Mr. Kaneko revitalized yabusame after World War II, taking the sport abroad (particularly to the Middle East), and even teaching the sons of a former commander of the U.S.

Time's Arrow 2009

One of the lesser-known martial arts, however, is yabusame, in which archers on horseback shoot arrows at targets.

Matsuri report » Japundit Blog 2005