Yabusame

流鏑馬(Yabusame) is a traditional but rather unknown Japanese sport. Most Japanese don't know it either and can't even read the Kanji, but as a well informed gaijin Saturday was my second encounter with Yabusame. The husband of my host family Tetsu is part of a Yabusame team and practice once a week. Once a year they gather with other teams and show the ancient art of Yabusame and I was lucky enough to be in Japan at that time. The main attraction is when horseback riders ride on a narrow track and tries to hit 3 targets at full speed. Both shooting and reloading while riding a horse is extremely difficult and only people who do it as a living is any good at it.

A man and his horse
One of my Japanese teachers had asked me to introduce two Korean girls to some of my friends, because they wanted to make some Japanese friends. I had invited Asuka and together with Rieko the 4 of us "enjoyed lovely Yabusame". Rieko and Asuka hit it of immediately and the Korean girls seemed happy as well. I feel like the perfect match-maker. Next time I will try to see if I can't fix up some couples :-)