I had the rare opportunity to watch the ancient sport of equestrian archery recently. Horseback archery is as old as the art of war, I presume, yet it is hardly practiced any more, except for a few enthusiasts around the world. Fortunately there is a training school for world class mounted archery on my travel route here on the south coast of Africa, and so I went to observe the training and an actual world ranking competition.
Traditionally the pastime of equestrian archery is very much a part of the Hungarian and Turkish history, as well as others in Central Asia. Curiously South Korea also participates tot his day more avidly than many other nations in this fascinating sport. Obviously in previous ages horseback archery was a crucial skill for survival in the days of feuding tribes, before the use of guns and bullets.
Naturally those nations prolific and skilled in horse breeding would have fared well. The Arabs were historically a famous nation of horse breeders and they traded their horses with most other nations, including the Chinese and Indians. Mongolia has a history of famous mounted archer warriors, like Genghis Khan, who ravaged the world with his warriors throughout the earlier centuries.
Today, however, you may not even find mounted archery in the Olympic Games. Fortunately those who are still practicing this sport hold their own local and international tournaments. There are two distinct schools or styles that I know of. One is the more conservative or traditional Kashai school, led by a master from his home in Hungary. And the other school is basically the rest of the world. The difference is merely in the technique and the points scoring systems.
The local training school here on the south coast of Africa, in the Cape province, follows the traditional Kashai school from Hungary, and is run by a world ranked mounted archer who is a student of Master Kashai in Hungary. In fact the local South African teacher is ranked in the top seven in the world in this Kashai system of horseback archery.
The local school has about ten students who train a few times a week and hold bi-annual tournaments amongst themselves. Even if there are only a few students to compete, still one can attempt to beat the rankings, because you are essentially competing against scores, or levels of skill and competence, so you can actually compete alone, as long as there is someone official, like a certified trainer, to witness your shooting at the target on the day.
You are limited in time to 19 seconds in which to trot along the track and shoot as many arrows as you can in a target which rotates as you ride past it. Top rated archers hold all their arrows in one hand and fire them from the bow as they ride past the target. At the top of the score board, they can fire maybe eight or nine arrows within that time, some on approach and some while the horse has already passed, in hindsight, while facing backwards on their saddle as the horse trots along.
You can imagine the amount of skill required to be able to fire at a target, without holding any reins, all while your horse is moving at a fast trot. This tests the traditional skills required for a warrior, who had to be able to shoot at pace, at a moving target, both approaching and retreating from the enemy. So the conditions for the sports men and women today are tightly controlled and there are rules and a system in place.
Thus even a single competitor could pitch themselves against the track and against their own high score and the high scores of the others who participate in the same system globally. As in any sport, you can achieve a high score on a certain day, and yet under the pressure of an actual tournament, your score may drop slightly. It happens in all sports. Nevertheless, with years of practice, one can up one’s score and skill level so that on the day of an actual tournament you can get as many arrows into the bull’s eye as possible.
You score higher points for hitting close to the bull and less points at the outer rim of the target, and all are added up for each attempt. After three attempts, your total scores are added up and you can see if you achieved a new high score or came close to the top ranked equestrian archers in this particular system all over the world.
As you can see in the photos here, the sport is suitable for your women and old men too. In fact anyone with a skill on horseback might enjoy this sport. You naturally need to be good with horses, which is a skill in itself. Then you need to be an accurate target shooter from a distance. Finally, you need to combine these two skills so that you can fire from a moving horseback without holding the reigns and score enough hits on the target to be considered successful.
This is not an easy sport to master, as it’s quite dangerous. Yet even a teenage girl can master it if she has a way with hoses. And on tournament day, you might have a difficult horse and that could could limit your achievement. So it’s a team sport – with you and your horse on the same team.
And essentially you compete against yourself and your high score, as well as the scores of others. Overall, this sport is quite a meditation, and I thoroughly enjoyed observing the students and their local world class teacher, all compete in the world rankings, where the teacher achieved a score that put him in the top seven globally in the Kashai school of equestrian archery.
(photos my own)