The next day, I was able to witness "Yabusame" live and in action and wow...I was super stoked to see such coolness all in one weekend. This was an all women's event that had about 30 riders. The tournament was ran in tradition style with the best riders moving to the next round with quarter, semi, and finals. Each round consisted of 3 riders with 2 passes each attempting to nail 4 targets. If the riders had the same number of targets scored, then the deciding factor was the time and average speed. YES THE SPEED WAS RECORDED!! I guess it makes sense because it would be super unfair if some riders rode really slow hitting all targets huh?
Here, let me break it down for you a bit. If you have ever tried archery, just standing still and hitting the mark is pretty hard...now mount yourself on a horse...get bucked up and down.... pull an arrow out...careful, don't drop it now... load the bow (I mean get that arrow onto the string)....then try to hit your target while blazing by. WTF!! It must take an insane amount of practice and concentration huh? I was surely impressed.I've come to find that Towada city is a great place. Theres a lot of traditional events that promote culture and uniqueness. I was glad I stumbled upon the website that had all the good info about it...sometimes you just get lucky. Also, Towada has a lot of yakiniku restaurants! Gotta love that!
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