Yabusame Archer 2016-10-05

Yabusame is a type of mounted archery in traditional Japanese archery. This style of archery has its origins at the beginning of the Kamakura period. Minamoto no Yoritomo became alarmed at the lack of archery skills his samurai had. He organized yabusame as a form of practice.

With the arrival of the Portuguese and their guns in the mid-16th century, the bow began to lose its importance on the battlefield. At the Battle of Nagashino in 1575, well-placed groups of musketeers serving Oda Nobunaga and Tokugawa shot in volleys and practically annihilated the cavalry charges of the Takeda clan.

Mounted archery was revived in the Edo Period (1600–1867) by Ogasawara Heibei Tsuneharu (1666–1747) under the command of the shogun Tokugawa Yoshimune (1684–1751). Given that the nation was at peace, archery as well as other military martial arts became more of a method of personal development rather than military training.

- Wikipedia

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