It is famous for its huge forest, and May is definately the best season to view it. This ritual of archery has been held , with some halts in the past, for about 1000 years, in a riding ground inside the forest, 12 days ahead of the main festival called Aoi Festival. Needless to say, it's one of the most attractive traditional events in Kyoto.
It's been on my To Do List for these couple of years, and I finally could see it!!
The purpose of this type of ritual is to pray for the safe execution of the festival, and to entertain the deities of the shrine.
A young archer in court noble's kimono.. he is coming back from his first turn. So cool!!
Best archers from all over Japan are selected for this. So he must be the one with great skill.
Usually Yabusame is held in warrior's style, but this event includes noble's style, which makes it very unique and attractive.
Actually, there were about 25,000 people who came here to see Yabusame.
There were lots of foreigners too, therefore ,the annoucement was made in several languages,
which surprised me a bit.
This was taken after the ritual. You can see how long the tail of the archer's costume is.
When he rides on a horse, he folds it up around the hip. Plus he had to put on a pair of wooden shoes!
This is the starting point of the gound.
The guy in the middle is showing the sign that the next archer is ready to go, waving a holding fan gracefully.
Start!!
Good picture, huh?
This archer is in warrior's style. Once horses enter the riding ground, they break into a trot and dash about 500m straight to the end. Archers have to shoot the arrows to the target at 3 different points. This whole movement is really fast, exactly like an arrow. I wanted to capture the moment where the arrows pierced the targets, but soon I realized that I was in a wrong position to do that. I should take revenge next year and surely I will reserve the special seats that are offered to spectators.
I love how they yelled before and after their shooting arrows, "ye---------!!!!" "yo----------!!!!" I wish I could have recorded the scene.
It was such a lovely day, I was lucky I could see Yabusame ritual under good weather in a beautiful green forest. I enjoyed myself in many ways..
I will try to post the main festival, Aoi maturi in a next few weeks!
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