Aomori Autumn Festival & Horseback Archery

2013 Event Flyer

The 7th Annual Aomori Autumn Festival (Aomori Aki Matusuri, 青森秋まつり), took place on a warm sunny day on October 14 in Gappo Park (合浦公園). It featured a fun variety of things to see and do. Families and children could try activities like balloon art, making bopan (棒パン, bread on a stick or “bannock”), riding up high in the basket of a cherry picker (basket crane), and more. Entertainment included live musical performances such as shamisen (三味線, traditional Japanese three-stringed instrument), as well as lively dance performances like yasakoi (よさこい, a unique style of Japanese dance). The variation was great and it was nice to see lots of families out enjoying the festival, but the best part for me was the yabusame (流鏑馬), or horseback archery event.

Like so many other times this year, I was fortunate to go on a day when the weather was fantastic—lucky considering the previous days had been filled with pounding rainstorms. As such, the fresh blue skies and slight breeze provided me with a pleasant bike ride to the park, located on the east side of Aomori and less than half an hour from my apartment. Once there, I spotted the yabusame event on the beach and quickly rode over. I had heard about this kind of Japanese archery before, but never had any chances to see it. I was amped and excited. I parked my bike, pulled out my camera gear, and walked up to the horse lane set up for the event. But when I took a closer look I was surprised to see an old man riding slowly atop a horse, gingerly shooting a bow at a close target, and missing badly. I said to myself, “are you kidding me?” I though must have missed the show and I felt deflated. 

As it turned out, I had arrived early before the actual event started. And a friend I ran into there told me the organizers were letting ordinary people try, and that we should too before the main event began. Needless to say, we jumped on the opportunity and gave it a shot (literally!). With several organizers guiding us along the beach, we slowly rode the horses and shot rubber-tipped arrows at three consecutive styrofoam targets. Even at a slow pace, it was awesome! I hit all three targets easily, but honestly it wasn't much of a challenge at that speed. After hitting the targets, we then rode back to the starting place, unmounted the horses, and said thanks for the unique opporunity. 

Me trying yabusame; very fun!

With an hour before the main yabusame event would start, I walked to the main festival area to see what has happening and caught the last few minutes of yasakoi. This is a type of Japanese dance that originated in Japan more than 60 years ago from a fusion of traditional dance and modern music. Dances are generally choreographed by large teams of men and women of all ages, and popular during various events. The high-energy dance is perhaps most importantly characterized by the colorful costumes participants wear, and the small wooden clappers called naruko (鳴子) used during the dances. Unfortunately I missed most of the dance performances that day at Gappo Park, and I still have yet to see yasakoi in all its glory. Hopefully I'll get another chance to see it soon.

Yasakoi at the 2013 Aomori Autumn Festival

Back at the beach, the real horseback archery event was about to kick off. This part of the festival was called the Uto Hama Yabusame Taikai (善知鳥浜流鏑馬大会, or the Uto Beach Horseback Achery Tournament). The organizers of the event came from a relatively small but diverse yabusame group from Aomori City, consisting of young amateurs, old veterans, and both women and men. As the participants prepared and did some target practice, I found a good viewing spot near one of the targets. Soon after, the event began.

Sequence of female archer, direct hit

Yabusame is said to have it's origins from the Kamakura Period (1192-1334), which at that time was used as a way help train and prepare samurai for war. Today, it's purpose has obviously changed, but it still follows the same basic principles. As such, horse-mounted archers race down a narrow track (about 250 meters long) on a galloping horse and attempt to hit three consecutive targets while passing by. It's nothing short of impressive and clearly takes a high level of skill.

Although the event was called a "tournament," it wasn't really a competition. Instead, it was a showcase of a really cool part of Japanese culture. I'm thrilled to have tried it myself, and realized how difficult it must be to quickly and accurately shoot multiple arrows at targets while bouncing around on a running horse. Yet this is a defining part of the culture which I've seen many times before--Japanese have an amazing ability to choose a craft or specialty and truly master it.