Eugene equestrian brings traditional Japanese horseback archery to Oregon

Yabusame is a form of Japanese horseback archery that dates back centuries. It’s traditionally only been practiced in Japan, but in recent years, students outside the country have been allowed to participate — including in Oregon. As reported in Eugene Weekly, Carey Norland participated in one of the first yabusame clinics outside Japan last summer. He then traveled from Eugene to Japan to compete in the World Yabusame Championships in October.

Norland is now one of the first certified yabusame instructors outside of Japan. He joins us to talk about bringing the practice to students in the Pacific Northwest.

Note: The following transcript was transcribed digitally and validated for accuracy, readability and formatting by an OPB volunteer.

Dave Miller: From the Gert Boyle Studio at OPB, this is Think Out Loud. I’m Dave Miller. Yabusame is a form of Japanese horseback archery that dates back centuries. Traditionally, it’s only been practiced in Japan, but in recent years, students outside that country have been allowed to participate. Now, as reported by Eugene Weekly, an Oregonian has joined those ranks. Carey Norland is only the second foreigner and the first American to become a certified Yabusame instructor. He joins us now to talk about the sport and the spiritual practice of Yabusame. Welcome to Think Out Loud.

Carey Norland: Hi, thanks so much for having me. I’m happy to be here.

Miller: How did you first get into just horseback riding itself before all the other stuff enters into it?

Norland: That is a great question. It was actually quite difficult for me to get into horses. I have always loved horses. I think I said in the Eugene Weekly article, I was quoted as saying, I don’t think I remember being conscious before loving horses, which is true, but horses are quite expensive. So my first interactions with horses were actually my neighbor who had a bunch of stallions and half-handled horses, and that’s how I began with horses.

Then I got into some riding lessons. I got a rescue horse who was a really great teacher in that she was very not a good fit for me. I learned a lot of really great lessons about why we do things the way we do with helmets and boots and safe equipment.

Miller: Did you get thrown a lot?

Norland: I did, and it was all my fault, of course. It’s always the person’s fault and never the horse’s fault.

Miller: Wait, is that just because people say like the customer’s always right, and which is sort of a good line, but I just don’t believe that. Sometimes can’t you blame the horse?

Norland: No, this is actually a very important guiding principle of horsemanship.

Miller: OK, teach me.

Norland: It is never the horse’s fault because as soon as you start blaming the horse, you always blame the horse. Because we’re humans, right, and we have a bigger brain, we have more capability to think about things, we’re asking horses to do stuff for us. We’re saying, hey, animal, we want to ride on you. We want to do all these things on you, and the horse has their own stuff going on. They’ve got pain. They’ve got past history. They’ve got their own wants and needs, their own evolutionary behaviors that they have been built to do for a very long time. And if they do something, like let’s say buck, it’s not their fault because they’re the animal and we’re the human, so it’s our responsibility to create an environment for the horse where they behave in a way that is safe for us. Does that make sense?

Miller: Makes perfect sense.

Norland: Yeah, so it’s kind of a principle of horsemanship. It is not the horse’s fault. It is our privilege to care for these horses and an honor to do so as well.

Miller: How did you end up adding archery to horseback riding?

Norland: It’s kind of funny. You would think I would have added it a lot earlier because I actually started archery first. Archery is a lot more accessible because the cost of archery is quite cheap. Bows don’t eat anything, whereas horses, they eat quite a lot. So I started archery when I was 10 because my dad is an archer. He used to do hunting, and in 2017, I went to a Renaissance fair and I saw people doing mounted archery, and I literally walked up and I saw an arrow flying up into the air and it felt like a very important moment and it really was and I just looked up as this arrow was flying and I said, I’m going to do that.

Miller: At that point you already were a horseback rider and an archer?

Norland: That’s right. Not a very good one of either, honestly,

Miller: OK, but you saw that and you realized you wanted to do that?

Norland: Yeah, yeah. I’m gonna do that, and then I do. I’m very good at making things happen, so I went home, I got a new bow, and I began to practice, and then I began to desensitize my horse to the shooting. I began to add the two. I found instructors actually up here in Portland and traveled to learn from them. I had an instructor who would travel down to me, and then I got to learn from a person who was actually the 10-time world champion in the IHAA system for a while, and yeah, practicing, practicing, practicing.

Miller: What is the IHAA?

Norland: The IHAA is one of the mounted archery organizations that does international sport. There are several. The primary ones are the International Horse Archery Alliance and the World Federation of Equestrian Archery.

Miller: But those are separate from what you ended up exploring more recently, Yabusame?

Norland: That’s right.

Miller: How did you become a yabusame practitioner?

Norland: I have always loved yabusame since I learned about it, which was about 7 to 10 years ago. I thought, oh my God, that is the most beautiful thing I have ever seen. That is so breathtaking. Unfortunately, yabusame has not been open to foreigners. It is a very important practice when it comes to Shintoism, and it’s done primarily as a Shinto ritual at shrines. That’s one of the oldest uses of yabusame. Now, more recently, yabusame has begun to be used in sports as a sport activity.

A couple of years ago, I saw on a Facebook group, somebody posted they were going to have the first ever yabusame clinic outside of Japan, and I went, oh my God, I didn’t know that was possible. So I emailed them right away and I got my spots. In July, we went up there and we did that clinic with Ayuko, who is the instructor from the Tawata Riding Club. And I adored it.

Miller: Can you describe what it actually entails?

Norland: Yabusame?

Miller: Yeah, what it looks like, and then we’ll get to what it feels like.

Norland: Sure. So yabusame is umayumayabusame. That’s what it’s called in Japanese. So “uma” is horse, “yumi” is bow, “yabusame” is shooting arrows successively off a horse. So you shoot arrow, arrow, arrow. Yabusame is that practice. You’re shooting arrows off of a horse while you are running down a track, which is sometimes straight, it’s sometimes a little bit curvy. It just kind of depends on where you’re at and what is available. And there are multiple different targets.

In nanbu yabusame, which is sports yabusame, they have three different tiers. One where there are just three targets organized as side shots. One where one of the targets is a kakarudo, I think is the word, but don’t quote me on that, I’m still learning. And that’s a target low to the ground. And then one where it is a side shot, the low to the ground one, and a shot on the opposite side of your bow, which is quite challenging.

Miller: So you did this first workshop in Washington state?

Norland: No, this was in Canada.

Miller: OK.

Norland: This was in Radium Hot Springs in Canada.

Miller: How did you go from there to actually being in Japan?

Norland: I went from there to actually being in Japan because I asked. I really wanted to learn more, very, very desperately, and I wanted to teach it. It’s something that feels very right to me and it makes a lot of sense, and it feels like cold water, you know.

Miller: No.

Norland: You don’t know what cold water feels like?

Miller: Well, I mean, I know, I have experienced cold water, but I guess, I don’t feel like I knew what you meant when you said that in a positive way.

Norland: I see, I see.

Miller: Yeah.

Norland: Have you ever gotten into cold water on a hot day?

Miller: Yes.

Norland: It feels like that.

Miller: OK, like a kind of relief.

Norland: Yes.

Miller: And that was immediate for you?

Norland: Yes.

Miller: And different from your other experiences, because at that point you were used to being an archer on horseback, but yabusame was different.

Norland: Yes.

Miller: Do you know why?

Norland: I couldn’t put my finger on why, but it makes sense if you’re there. There’s something about the purpose of yabusame is different than the purpose of other forms of mounted archery. And purpose makes such a big difference in performance and in the air of what you’re doing.

Miller: Can you describe what the best version of your yabusame rides feel like?

Norland: I think best is a difficult word for yabusame. I think that when I perform yabusame, with a good reflection of the spirit of yabusame, I am focused on performing beautifully for the people and the spirits around me. A good example of this and kind of what we were talking about just a second ago. Well, what’s different about yabusame? Why is yabusame special? So last night I actually was able to use the yumi at the barn for the first time.

Miller: What’s a yumi?

Norland: A yumi is a Japanese bow, and it’s the bow that we use in yabusame. So I received that bow, which is the first one that I’ve had here. I have only shot them when they were provided in Canada and Japan. And I got the bow out and immediately an owl came and landed on the top of the tree, and he watched the whole time until I was finished because yabusame’s purpose is beauty. It’s to be beautiful.

So up in the clinic with Ayuko Kamimura, all the time she would say, step by step, beauty, step by step, beauty. Then every once in a while, she’s throwing a step by step, samurai. And then at one point she said, hey, do you – and she said this not in these words because she doesn’t speak English very well – she asked if I wanted to come and study in Japan. I said, “Absolutely, I do.” I went and spoke with her later and talked about some of the experiences that I’d been having in the clinic, which were really impactful, and how I wanted to learn this art form more deeply and be able to share it with other people. And through that, she said, yes, you can come, you can study, and there we go. I came, I studied, and then they kind of roped me into a competition while I was there too.

Miller: Which you ended up winning. You didn’t even realize that you were going to be competing, and then you won it, and then you were allowed to become a certified instructor, an extraordinary story. Can you describe the spiritual meaning of this activity for yourself?

Norland: Yes, absolutely. When I was in Canada, I had some really profound experiences. And I had similar profound experiences in Japan as well. And they line up with what the purpose of yabusame is. When you’re doing yabusame at a shrine, the purpose is to honor the spirits of the shrine. It’s a blessing. Yabusame is a blessing. For me to be able to do yabusame, huge blessing, huge privilege that I’m very grateful for.

In Canada, on the second day, we were getting ready, doing some shots, whatever. It wasn’t a big deal. We were just practicing, getting ready to be critiqued by Ayuko, which had been, we’d been doing that for days, but all of a sudden, I was nervous and I was shaking. So I just took a deep breath. I was like, OK, who am I nervous to perform in front of? And so I relaxed and I looked around and I saw these mountain spirits. And it wasn’t like I clearly saw like, oh, there he is, and there’s his eye wrinkle. It was more like a shape and an impression, and I knew that they were there to see the yabusame, to see the beautiful performance that for 1,000 years has been for them and for people as well. That’s an important part of it.

And so I just relaxed. And I performed my best as I could. And that same thing happened in Japan as well on the second day of the competition, where I was getting ready, I felt nervous. I started to shake, took some deep breaths, and I saw that in addition to all of the humans crowding around you, cheering and so excited to see it, there were also what I perceived to be spirits around as well there to see the performance. And so I just focused on performing beautifully. That was really the biggest win, is when I got done with that, I came and I spoke to Ayuko, and she was in tears because she said that I had performed yabusame beautifully. That was the biggest thing.

Winning the competition is very much secondary to everything else. Being allowed to teach yabusame, getting the two endorsements from Ayuko and then from, I’m going to mispronounce his name, Kikuchi Sensei. That was a really big deal, but performing yabusame beautifully to the point where Ayuko was in tears, that was huge, and that’s what I want to continue to do as we’re setting up my yabusame track at the barn is perform beautifully for the people watching and for the spirits around.

Miller: How do you teach the deepest part of what you’ve just been talking about? I can imagine how you teach the craft and the physicality of this practice, but how do you teach the spiritual side of it?

Norland: I don’t know. I think everybody’s experience is going to be different. Now for a nanbu yabusame, I don’t think the spiritual side matters as much as if you were doing it at a shrine, but for me and the couple of students that we’ve already started doing yabusame, a lot of it has just been talking about what is the purpose, what is your focus, what is your purpose? Make sure that your purpose is not to hit the target because that doesn’t matter. Hitting the target doesn’t matter. What matters is your attitude and your purpose.

And if you’re making a beautiful performance for community, yabusame is very, very community based. One of the biggest differences between the yabusame barn in Japan and just equestrian culture here in the United States is it’s all about community, everybody coming together, pitching in, helping each other, encouraging each other, whereas here it’s very individual. I think that’ll be the biggest challenge in creating the culture of yabusame in my barn is changing that culture.

Miller: Carey, thanks very much. Carey Norland from Eugene is the first American to become a certified yabusame or Japanese horseback archery instructor. He’s the owner of Ridgeline Mounted Academy.

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