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("art of archery") is the traditional Japanese martial art of wielding a bow (yumi) as practiced by the samurai class of feudal Japan. Although the samurai are perhaps best known for their swordsmanship with a katana (kenjutsu), kyūjutsu was actually considered a more vital skill for a significant portion of Japanese history. During the majority of the Kamakura period through the Muromachi period (c.1185–c.1568), the bow was almost exclusively the symbol of the professional warrior, and way of life of the warrior was referred to as "the way of the horse and bow". The beginning of archery in Japan is, as elsewhere, pre-historical. The first images picturing the distinct Japanese asymmetrical longbow are from the Yayoi period (ca. 500 BC–300 AD). The first written document describing Japanese archery is the Chinese chronicle Weishu (魏書; dated around 297 AD), which tells how in the Japanese isles people use "a wooden bow that is short from the bottom and long from the top." The changing of society and the military class (samurai) taking power at the end of the Heian period (794-1185) created a requirement for education in archery. This led to the birth of the first kyūjutsu ryūha (流派, style), the Henmi-ryū, founded by Henmi Kiyomitsu (:ja:源清光) in the 12th century. The Takeda-ryū (:ja:武田流) and the mounted archery school Ogasawara-ryū (:ja:小笠原流) were later founded by his descendants. The need for archers grew dramatically during the Genpei War (1180–1185) and as a result the founder of the Ogasawara-ryū (Ogasawara Nagakiyo), began teaching yabusame (mounted archery). During the Kamakura period (1185-1333), when Minamoto no Yoritomo established the Kamakura shogunate, archery became more and more popular, especially the three types of mounted archery: yabusame, inuoumono, and kasagake. From the 15th to the 16th century, Japan was ravaged by civil war. In the latter part of the 15th century Heki Danjō Masatsugu revolutionized archery with his new and accurate approach called hi, kan, chū (fly, pierce, center), and his footman's archery spread rapidly.

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Related concepts (7)

Kyūjutsu

Mounted archery

A horse archer is a cavalryman armed with a bow and able to shoot while riding from horseback. Archery has occasionally been used from the backs of other riding animals. In large open areas, it was a highly successful technique for hunting, for protecting the herds, and for war. It was a defining characteristic of the Eurasian nomads during antiquity and the medieval period, as well as the Iranian peoples such as the Alans, Sarmatians, Cimmerians, Scythians, Massagetae, Parthians, and Persians in Antiquity, and by the Hungarians, Mongols, Chinese, and Turkic peoples during the Middle Ages.

Yumi

弓 is the Japanese term for a bow. As used in English, yumi refers more specifically to traditional Japanese asymmetrical bows, and includes the longer 大弓 and the shorter 半弓 used in the practice of kyūdō and kyūjutsu, or Japanese archery. The yumi was an important weapon of the samurai warrior during the feudal period of Japan. It is typically shot with Japanese arrows known as ya. The most famous style of yumi is an asymmetrically shaped long bow with a length of more than , characterized by the archer holding the part of the bow below the center to shoot the arrow.