{"id":1513,"date":"2010-05-04T00:44:44","date_gmt":"2010-05-03T15:44:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/regex.info\/blog\/2010-05-04\/1513"},"modified":"2010-05-04T00:44:44","modified_gmt":"2010-05-03T15:44:44","slug":"yabusame-mounted-archery-rite-at-the-shimogamo-shrine","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/regex.info\/blog\/2010-05-04\/1513","title":{"rendered":"“Yabusame” Mounted Archery Rite at the Shimogamo Shrine"},"content":{"rendered":"\n\n\n
\nNOTE<\/b>: Images with an icon next to them have been artificially shrunk to better fit your screen; click the icon to restore them, in place, to their regular size.\n<\/div>\n\n\n
<\/a>\nNikon D700 + Sigma “Bigma” 50-500mm OS @ 170 mm — 1<\/sup>\/<\/big>400 sec, f<\/span>\/6.3, ISO 1000 —\nmap & image data<\/a> — nearby photos<\/a><\/span>\nTraditional Japanese Mounted Archer<\/span>\nRitual “Yabusame” Archery at the Shimogamo Shrine, Kyoto Japan\n<\/div>\n\n

We went to a traditional “yabusame” archery rite today at the Shimogamo\nShrine, part of the month-long “Aoi Matsuri” Festival<\/a>,\nwhose most well-known part is the Aoi Matsuri procession<\/a> in\nthe middle of May.<\/p>\n\n

<\/a>\nNikon D700 + Sigma “Bigma” 50-500mm OS @ 500 mm — 1<\/sup>\/<\/big>400 sec, f<\/span>\/6.3, ISO 1250 —\nmap & image data<\/a> — nearby photos<\/a><\/span>\nArchery At Full Gallop<\/span>\n<\/div>\n\n

You can read about\n“Yabusame” on Wikipedia<\/a>, but in short, this yabusame<\/i> mounted\narchery involves an archer on a horse<\/span> at full gallop running a 280<\/span>-yard\nstraight track with three small targets at equal intervals. The archer<\/span> has\nbut a few<\/span> seconds between each one to grab an arrow, prepare it, aim, and\nshoot, and then must do it again two more times, all the while riding a\nhorse<\/span> at full gallop on a very<\/span> thin track, without using his hands (because\nhe's using them for the bow and arrows). As a specific<\/span> discipline, it dates\nback about 800 years.<\/p>\n\n

The targets are small (today's were about one square foot) but are\nfairly close to the track, so hitting them from that distance is not much\nof a challenge.<\/span> The tricky<\/span> part involves the whole “horse at full gallop”\nthing, as well as the “hands-free riding” and “just a few<\/span> seconds between\ntargets” bits. It's apparently<\/span> a heady<\/span> combination, because even though\nthis particular shrine's yabusame<\/i> rite is the most famous in Japan,\nwith 15 presumably-elite riders from around the country (mostly from Tokyo\nand Kyoto) getting one run each, I think<\/span> only four were able to hit all\nthree targets.<\/p>\n\n\n

<\/a>\nNikon D700 + Sigma “Bigma” 50-500mm OS @ 50 mm — 1<\/sup>\/<\/big>400 sec, f<\/span>\/6.3, ISO 1800 —\nmap & image data<\/a> — nearby photos<\/a><\/span>\nBreakneck Speed With the Long Bow<\/span>\n<\/div>\n\n

What surprised me the most was the speed... I've seen countless\nfull-gallop horses in movies, and I've been to a horse<\/span>-racing track, but\nnothing prepared me for the explosive speed of these horses flying by at\n35mph. It took several<\/span> riders before I could<\/span> even start to follow them with\nthe camera.<\/p>\n\n

For a better sense of the action, here's a link<\/span> to the middle of a video<\/span>\non YouTube from the event at this same location a couple<\/span> of years ago: Yabusame video<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n

<\/a>\nNikon D700 + Sigma “Bigma” 50-500mm OS @ 500 mm — 1<\/sup>\/<\/big>500 sec, f<\/span>\/9, ISO 6400 —\nmap & image data<\/a> — nearby photos<\/a><\/span>\nFirst Rider Heads To the Start<\/span>\n<\/div>\n\n

I hadn't been particularly interested in going, but we wanted Anthony to\nsee it, and while he enjoyed it very much as we expected, we were surprised\nat how much we enjoyed it as well. It was quite<\/span> exciting.<\/p>\n\n

I almost didn't even bother bringing the camera, but am glad I did.<\/span> The event<\/span> wasn't really set up for photography (at least not good photography),\nand my primary concern was Anthony, and indeed, none of the shots I've seen\nso far could be called “quality”, but I'm happy for the memories. (I\nhaven't<\/span> even seen most of the photos yet... I don't<\/span> have time for a proper<\/span>\nwriteup this evening, so I'm just sharing a few<\/span> of the snapshots from early\nin the bunch.)<\/p>\n\n

<\/a>\nNikon D700 + Sigma “Bigma” 50-500mm OS @ 380 mm — 1<\/sup>\/<\/big>400 sec, f<\/span>\/6.3, ISO 1600 —\nmap & image data<\/a> — nearby photos<\/a><\/span>\nYoung Archer<\/span>\ngoing much, much<\/i> faster than his composed expression belies\n<\/div>\n\n
<\/a>\nNikon D700 + Sigma “Bigma” 50-500mm OS @ 116 mm — 1<\/sup>\/<\/big>400 sec, f<\/span>\/6.3, ISO 2000 —\nmap & image data<\/a> — nearby photos<\/a><\/span>\nBetter Look at His Horse<\/span>\n( in the 3.6 seconds since the previous picture, he's shot one target and is already loading the next arrow )\n<\/div>\n\n\n
<\/a>\nNikon D700 + Sigma “Bigma” 50-500mm OS @ 380 mm — 1<\/sup>\/<\/big>400 sec, f<\/span>\/9, ISO 2000 —\nmap & image data<\/a> — nearby photos<\/a><\/span>\nHeading Back<\/span>\n<\/div>\n\n
<\/a>\nNikon D700 + Sigma “Bigma” 50-500mm OS @ 240 mm — 1<\/sup>\/<\/big>400 sec, f<\/span>\/9, ISO 2200 —\nmap & image data<\/a> — nearby photos<\/a><\/span>\nHelpers<\/span>\n<\/div>\n\n
<\/a>\nNikon D700 + Sigma “Bigma” 50-500mm OS @ 116 mm, cropped — 1<\/sup>\/<\/big>400 sec, f<\/span>\/6.3, ISO 1000 —\nmap & image data<\/a> — nearby photos<\/a><\/span>\nDirect Hit<\/span>\none down, two to go\n<\/div>\n\n

The shot above illustrates what I got<\/span> most of: people's heads. The original<\/span> is even worse, but I cropped<\/span> out most of the crowd in this one.\nBut, at least it shows the target (what used to be a square<\/span> of wood held by\nan upright of bamboo) and the bunt-end arrow.<\/p>\n\n

A miss is silent, but a hit makes a loud<\/span> and satisfying\nwhap!<\/i> sound.<\/p>\n\n\n

<\/a>\nNikon D700 + Sigma “Bigma” 50-500mm OS @ 500 mm — 1<\/sup>\/<\/big>400 sec, f<\/span>\/6.3, ISO 640 —\nmap & image data<\/a> — nearby photos<\/a><\/span>\nLooking Down Track<\/span>\nworkers in yellow replace a target; scrum of cameramen await next rider\n<\/div>\n\n\n
<\/a>\nMe<\/span>\nwith child shoulder weight added to steady the camera\n( photo by Fumie with her cell-phone camera )<\/span>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

Continued here...<\/a><\/i><\/p>\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

We went to a traditional \"yabusame\" archery rite today at the Shimogamo Shrine, part of the month-long \"Aoi Matsuri\" Festival, whose most well-known part is the Aoi Matsuri procession in the middle of May.<\/p>

You can read about \"Yabusame\" on Wikipedia, but in short, this yabusame mounted archery involves an archer on a horse at full gallop running a 280-yard straight track with three small targets at equal intervals. The archer has but a few seconds between each one to grab an arrow, prepare it, aim, and shoot, and then must do it again two more times, all the while [...]","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1,2,6,10],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/regex.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1513"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/regex.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/regex.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/regex.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/regex.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1513"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/regex.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1513\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/regex.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1513"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/regex.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1513"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/regex.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1513"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}