On the weekend of the 7th-8th August, 14 BHAA members from across the UK (and a guest from Ireland) met for the BHAA’s 2010 British Horseback Archery Championships. The event was hosted by the Centre of Horseback Combat in East Sussex.

Prior to competition day, competitors had time to warm-up, get their eyes in, try out and pick horses and of course catch-up with one another. Despite the odd shower, spirits were high as the grounds were prepared for the big day. An evening briefing, a good meal and fireside banter relaxed everyone for what became a fantastic day ahead.

Glorious sunshine met the campers on competition day and soon enough the track was melting under beating hooves and whistling arrows. A Reuters journalist and cameraman, plus plenty of keen photographers, caught the action which involved competitors batlling it out in the Korean style as well as the BHAA’s “hunting” style.

The Korean track involved all competitors running down a 90m track shooting at one, two and then three targets to the left of track. A 12 second time penalty saw points deducted which kept competitors on their toes. After its completion all competitors then had 2 runs in the hunting or ‘Hunt the Hare’ competition. The Hare (centre-stage above) had a small kill zone in which riders had to hit. In one of the most exciting finales, probably never to be witnessed again, Gokmen Altinkulp went face to face with Sheffield’s Damian Stenton in a “shoot-out”. With previous hits being rare, everyone was astonished to see Gokmen smack an arrow into the kill zone on his run. The crowd had prepared for the visiting guest to receive congratulations when Damian’s arrow smacked in even closer to the centre spot!

Overall winners were Neil Payne (combined Korean scores) and Damian Stenton (Hunt the Hare). Results can be downloaded here > 2010 Results.

All would agree the event was a huge success. It saw many new members competing for the first time, the development of the sport furthered and the continuation of the horseback archery family’s growth in the UK.

Watch some video of the event > 2010 Championships Video

The BHAA Championships is an annual event. Want to compete in 2011? Then join up ASAP!

The end of the 2010 competition circuit saw the BHAA represented at two major international competitions. Claire (pictured above) and Dan Sawyer took part in EOCHA (the European Championship, held in Brussels this year) in September. Only their second ever competition saw them test their skills against some of the world’s best horseback archers. The experience will be invaluable for their future progress so watch this space!

Jehad Shamis and Neil Payne attended the Mounted Archery Championships in Oregon, USA which was run by Dr Holm Neumann and MA3. Attended by competitors from Poland, Malaysia, Japan, Germany, South Korea and of course our American cousins the event was the first of its kind for many years in the US. The event drew a huge crowd on day one and a decent crowd on day two and without doubt has ignited an interest in the local people for horseback archery.No medals for the British team however it has certainly galvinised a determination to train hard and start bringing home some trophies!

A full write up on boths event will be published in the next edition of the BHAA’s newsletter, The Parthian Shot.

Turkey recently hosted its first international horseback archery (and Cirit competition) in the Anatolian city of Sivas.

Two members of the BHAA were invited and attended; they were joined by colleagues from Iran, Poland, Germany, Korea, Hungary and of course Turkey.

There will be a full write up of the event in the November issue of our newsletter The Parthian Shot. To subscribe please email us and add “Newsletter” to the subject line.

In short, the Turkish hosts used the opportunity to show case two new (yet old) styles of competition – 1) Qabaq and 2) a new style of course named the “Mamluk style”.

Qabaq is a very old horseback archery game with roots in Turkey, Egypt, Iran, Persia and India. Termed “gourd-shooting” in English is essentially involves galloping past a mast (around 6-8 metres high) and hitting a target. The picture of two Mamluk Faris below should give you an idea of what its about.

To view the scores of the competition please click > Qabaq Scores 2009

The Mamluk style competition was an new invention but based on old Mamluk furusiyya scripts which described the basic shots any Faris had to master in order to be classed as decent. Similar to the “Korean style” course however there was one target on the “wrong” side of the track (meaning the rider had to shoot over the horse’s head) plus the targets moved position after each run to properly test each riders’ archery skills.

To view the scores of the Mamluk competition click > Mamluk Scores 2009

The BHAA would like to extend its thanks to the organisers for their amazing hospitality. We hope to visit you again next year!

Videos:

Some footage from the event up at Turk.net

Youtube.com > Qabaq champion Simone Fezer

Youtube.com > Turkish rider  Gökmen Altınkulp

International Cirit Match > Part 1, Part 2 and Part 3

Photos:

Check out TurkishArchery.info

By accident we stumbled across on online exhibition entitled “Chevaux et cavaliers arabes” which we though readers may find interesting.

The actual exhibition took place in 2003 but they still have an online version which allows you to “virtually” walk through the exhibition.

Unfortunately its all in French (well unfortunate for English speakers anyway!) but if you can get by its worth a visit to check out the pictures and the exhibition.

If there are any linguists out there who would like to translate the text, please go ahead and let us know!

Visit the Virtual Exhibition here > “Chevaux et cavaliers arabes”

The BHAA was represented by Neil Payne and Jehad Shamis although the UK also had independent competitor in Mike Ashington.

After a few days of rain, the weather turned hot, humid, sweaty and very uncomfortable for the competition. Not only were the archers hot and bothered rapidly but also the horses. The competition followed the usual format of the Korean style track (single, double and multiple shots) and Mogu. Although it was thought that the Hungarian/European style of competition would be adopted this did not materialise.

Day two was meant to see the implementation of a new “competition” termed the Grand-Prix which was to combine two gallops at a double target (Korean style) with two gallops at a Hungarian/European target. The combination of the points to be added to decide who the best archer of the compeition was. However, with horses dropping like flies this was soon cancelled. To replace it, the organisers decided to add all the points from previous competitions to decide who this would be. Mike Ashington achieved second place which is no mean feat!

The UK team, other than Mike’s success, faired poorly on the medals front with Poland and Korea seemingly getting all the glory. We did however gain bronze medal in the team event which was essentially a double target gallop from all teams.

The event was yet another success and is testament to the great work the Koreans are doing to develop the sport. This competiton above all is probably the best one can find in terms of quality of competitors, facilities and above all friendships.

However, one point the author has deducted from now attending a few competitions is that the format of competitions is stale. We need new types or styles of competitions to test people’s horse archery skills, both the archery and the horsemanship. At present, horse archers are concentrating on the two styles of competition and becoming too accustomed to the format and make-up of the track or course.

In Poland they tried a new style of course earlier this year which combined obstacles, shooting and timing. Neil Payne of the Tuba Archery Club is already working on some new styles including the Qabaq game, a more testing version of the Korean style and a cross-country track (which it is believed has been tried already in Canada by Barb Leeson). Let’s hope other countries start to adopt their own type of competition(s) to add some colour to the horse archery competitions and also end the monopoly of the Hungarian style introduced by Kassai Lajos.

In the meantime, let’s all get practising again in preperation for Korea 2010!

I recently travelled to both Poland and Turkey to meet with our partners in horseback archery. A write up of the weekend in Poland at the “Żurawiejki”meeting will follow but as Istanbul is fresh in my mind, I will start there.

A few of us particularly interested in Turkish/Ottoman archery have long been aware of the group out in Turkey trying to revive traditional archery based upon Ottoman sources and guidance. The ‘Kemankeṣ’ group in Istanbul have been working tirelessly over the past few years to translate old texts from Ottoman into modern day Turkish and to try and rediscover the lost art of archery that was once so part of Ottoman society and culture. As part of the research into old texts they have also been able to bring back to life the techniques, styles, practices, etc that were used by the archers of old.

After many years of us watching them and them watching us it was high time we got together so I made my way over to Istanbul for 4 days. My host, Metin Ates, and his colleagues took me on a wonderful adventure back into the past and left me with a lot more notes on my to-do list for the future.

After some rest and food on the Friday, Saturday was all about history. We visited the area known in Turkish as Okmeydanı (literally “arrow arena”) which is still known by the same name but unfortunately covered in roads and houses!

This huge area of land was given as a trust by Fatih Sultan Mehmed to archers just after the conquest of Istanbul in A.D. 1453. The purpose of the land were set clearly by the Sultan’s ‘firman’ (royal decree) in order to preserve it solely for archery; for example burial of the dead, construction of houses, agricultural activities, etc were all banned. (An interesting article about this period is available > here.) We started the tour of the area with a quick visit to what was the prayer area of the Okmeydanı. This was set up for archers as well as their fans. Check out the photo below of what it used to look like and then compare it to today’s ruins in the You Tube video. Metin also gives a small commentary.

50 years ago (est.)

and now!

We then proceeded to the area where the centre of operations was for the archers. You can view the short introduction to the area by Metin in the You Tube video below.

This was essentially the space where the archers congregated, where the Sheikh of the archers was based, where archers received  formal initiation into the guild, where equipment was kept and were prayers were said. It now seems someone in government has finally clocked onto what they have laying in ruins and plans are afoot for the site to be redeveloped into a 90m archery range (however this will be for composite and compound archers!).I thoroughly recommend anyone interested in archery who happens to be visiting Istanbul to invest half a day in looking around the area. It may make you feel like an archery nerd but it is certainly worth it.

Our next port of call was to visit the Nişan Taşı. These are essentially monuments marking the points at which arrows landed when flight shooting took place (you can see them in the first pic of this article dotted about). There were once said to be well over 300 of these monuments but today little of 30 survive (some in very bizarre places tucked behind fruit and vegetable stands or in front of mechanics! An example of one is just above this paragraph). We visited some of the most prominent ones and I marvelled at some of the distances these monuments recorded, i.e. 700 metres and more. Below are some URLs to some of monuments I came across on the day. Although for some it may be a bit of stone in the ground for me it really brought home the importance of archery in the days of old in the Ottoman state. The money that must have been spent to design, carve and erect these stones was considerable and would only have been spent if it was worth it. Demonstrating your archery prowess clearly was worth it! Let’s hope the remaining stones get some sort of heritage status and remain as they should be.

URLS:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LPglk0s1jy4

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lJICP1n4Q1M

The evening was spent going through some presentations on traditional archery. One on the different techniques of drawing, release, etc and one on pre-Islamic Turkish archery. Not only were both fascinating information-wise but both clearly demonstrated the amount of time, energy, money and passion these people are putting into their (and our) history. The research that has gone into pre-Islamic Turks and archery has required the principle researcher to trawl books in Russian and spend many a long night writing away. We hope this will continue and that we will be able to ready their findings in English one day too.

Sunday was about horseback archery. The group are also keen to revive this part of archery and have some “cirit” players in Sivas practising hard. We took a small drive out of Istanbul to At Koyü (horse village) where we had arranged to try out a couple of their horses. I was joined by Gökmen Altinkalp who is currently training on horseback. One horse was no good – he took to the arrows fine but then just wanted to fight if you tried to break him out of a walk. So we finally managed to get two mares working well in a circle shooting at a Turkish target known as a “puta”. The day went well hopefully inspiring some of the onlookers to take riding lessons and move forward with the sport.

On the whole things look bright in Turkey. With a small yet passionate team of people all specialising in certain skill or knowledge sets I see the group really developing. Let’s keep our fingers crossed that they succeed and that we soon see the School of Turkish horseback archery take its place next to the widely known “Hungarian” and Korean schools.I would again like to extend a huge thanks to Metin, Adnan, Ali, Gökmen and everyone else who helped me over the weekend. I am sure this is the start of a really close working relationship between the BHAA and Turkey. We hope to see you all next year in the UK for our competition.

When on a recent trip to Iran I was invited into the offices of the Iran Archery Federation. Upon walking in, across the top of the walls, were written “The Characteristics of a Good Archer”. These characteristics are attributed to Bahram Gur, a legendary figure in Iranian history also famed for his archery skills (as depicted in the picture above). I quickly scribbled the characteristics down on a scrap piece of paper but ended up losing it. However, it has now been found in a jacket pocket – so here they are!

1. Good tempered

2. Manly

3. Generous

4. Beneficent

5. Purified

6. Not Lazy

7. Not Greedy

8. Veracious

9. Well intentioned

10. Good characteristics

11. Just

12. Good natured

13. Grateful to the teacher

14. Obedient

15. Contented

16. Liberal & merciful

The competition involved both the Hungarian and Korean styles. As well as the competition a few people took part in a short demonstration in front of thousands of very excited Swedes who had never seen live horseback archery before. It was a lot of fun but at times chaotic as horses refused to run in the right directions or piled up on top of each other at the end of gallops!! The competitions went well with many of those entering experiencing their first proper competitive action. Horses were provided by a local lady by the name of Charlotte who was utterly fantastic and brought some great horses out for us. I think anyone who was there will never forget the speed of Bob who consistently covered the 90m track in 6 secs and on one run in 5.91 seconds! He really was some ride!!

The overall winner of the competition was Abdul-Mejid Schrade of Steppenreiter fame, 2nd place going to Neil Payne of the BHAA and 3rd place to Simone Fezer again of the Steppenreiter. The UK team overall did very well as two of our party were very new to the sport and the other had damaged his wrist in a fall. However, we have started to stamp our presence on the international scene now!

The BHAA would like to thank Robert Nordman for inviting us and we look forward to working with our Swedish counterparts to help this amazing sport grow in our respective countries. You can visit their website > Swedish Mounted Archery

A quick post to clarify Ryanair’s policy re: archery equipment. A few of us from the BHAA are travelling to Sweden this weekend for a competition and we were informed that the low-cost airline does not allow bows or arrows even in the hold. Having reviewed their website’s terms and conditions this seemed to be the case which led to mild panic. After spending hours working out how to get our bows & arrows to Sweden and baulking at the prices we were given by courier companies and other airlines, we had the bright idea of actually calling Ryanair and asking them!

Ryanair DOES allow archery equipment – so you can check-in your bows, arrows and whatever else. However, you will need to pay some £30 (one-way) extra to carry “sports equipment”.   However, beware that some items may be banned such as replica weapon. So best to check their terms & conditions or call the airline (at 10p per minute!) to ask them.

Tuba Archery Club (London) is holding a 3 day horseback archery training course in June from 5th-7th. The course will be overseen by Christian Abdul-Majid Schrade who is coming over from Germany. There are only 12 places available and it will work on a strictly first paid first served basis. For more information email Jehad Shamis on info@tuba-archery.com

I was initially contacted by the Iran Archery Federation who requested I come to Iran to coach some students as well as to advise on how to develop the sport within the country. Being half Iranian myself I naturally jumped at the chance. Talk about dreams come true!

It may surprise some that archery has only been practised as a sport, and at any modern-day organised level, for six years in Iran. Pretty astonishing considering Iran has a long, rich and envious history in archery. Some even say the word archery comes from the name of mythic figure in Iranian history called “Aarash” who was said to have been an amazing archer. Prior to these six there was nothing and you would not have found any Iranian archers at any major international competitions. This all changed when a Mr Karim Safei, an archer, set up the Federation which now boasts some fantastic facilities. The organisation has come on leaps and bounds with Iranian archers now featuring and bringing home medals at competitions.

Last year the organisation decided to set up the Iranian Horseback Archery Federation, and with some funding it secured a small riding school in the Tehranpars district of the capital. The team is headed by Mr Mehdi Safei, nephew of the aforementioned Karim. The school acts as a riding school, archery range and has a small sandy arena just about big enough to squeeze a small gallop into it for horse archery. However, the place is not ideal. They need a longer run and by far the biggest downside to it is the major road that runs behind it. Due to this the targets on the run are at a low level meaning they can’t properly practice the Hungo-European competition style of horse archery. In my time there I lost count of the arrows that missed the target and went over the wall into the road. How we did not kill anyone I will never know. A complete Health & Safety no-no but hey, it’s Iran.

The group have made a good amount of progress in the one year they have been going. They have had some literature and DVDs sent to them by the great Dr. Holm Newman in the USA plus had a DVD of the Nemethy brothers sent to them by a contact in Hungary. Much of what they had learned was from You Tube. Not ideal but I suppose it shows how much you can learn from the internet! There were only 5 people who could ride and shoot and all of them were using a slightly dodgy Mediterranean release with a semi-correct Kassai-esque nocking technique. I had work to do….

Now any readers with experience of the Middle East will know exactly what I mean when I say they are not the most organised people in the world. After a few days of tea drinking, chatting, eating delicious kebabs and seeing a few sites it soon became apparent that there was actually no programme in place. I mean nothing…..I was told that other than work with the organising committee, I would be training 60 students over 6 days in a classroom….yes a classroom. I had absolutely no idea how on earth I was going to do this. Horseback archery in a classroom with no bows, no arrows and no horses? Not happening…..
I had to chuck all Middle Eastern niceties out of the window and demand that this simply would not do. After some lengthy negotiations they got two days in the classroom and I got four at their school. Phew….

That evening I had to scribble down my plan for the two days on the back of a tissue box. Day 1 – the history of horse archery, archery in Islam, modern day archery, competitions (Hungo-European and Korean) and rules. Yes this really did take 5 hours. Day 2 – we looked at form, nocking techniques (thumb vs fingers), release, some practical exercises and how to work with a horse. Although I thought it would be awful, it was actually a lot of fun in the end thanks to the Iranian sense of humour. By far the highlight of these two days was the continuous “what if” questions about competitions – Q: “what if someone only rides really quickly for points and doesn’t really shoot the arrows properly?” A: why the hell is he doing horseback archery? Q: “what if the horse jumps up and down while running down the gallop?” A: nothing – he jumps up and down. Q: “what happens if two people get the two highest scores?” A: “bloody good question, let me call Abdul-Majid Schrade in Germany now and find out” (I actually forget about the time difference and woke the poor guy up!)

Then the fun began – 3 days of on the ground practical tuition with 60 students, 6 bows and around 40 bent arrows with fletchings missing (if you were lucky). I love Iran!

The first two days concentrated on the two different nocking techniques. Day one – from the quiver, belt, boots or wherever else (one student did actually try from the teeth!) Day two – nocking arrows held in the bow hand. Both days were quite intense as I had to work with everyone on an individual level as well as look after the group as a whole. Everyone was taught how to nock and draw using either the thumb or Mediterranean draw. Most actually decided they preferred using their thumbs, which I thought was incredible, seeing as many were actually recurve and compound archers. It quickly became apparent to those who had been used to fingers how much quicker the thumb technique was. Overall the level was excellent; other than a few people who could not or would not listen, everyone soon picked up the basics of nocking, drawing and releasing. The women it must be said were fantastic – very keen, very quick learners and very good technique wise. I constantly stated this as much as possible as loudly as possible to the bemusement of the all the men.

The final day was about fun and about them using what they had learnt under pressure. We had a small team competition with relay races and nocking while jumping, running, hopping and anything else I could think of. Then everyone had two gallops down the track for a mini competition.

It’s still early days but I hope the Iranians will go on to really develop and become amongst the best in the world as they once were. While I was there a small PR machine was grinding away and we were on TV almost every night. We got some good headlines in the papers too and it is hoped that the government will sit up and take note – fingers crossed they may send some more funding their way. This year they will be sending a team of six to compete in South Korea at the World Championships and I have asked them to also attend the European Championships in Germany.

My time in Iran was without doubt a highlight in my life and I am definitely going back at the first opportunity. While I was there I met many people from far flung places in Iran who live and breed horses, so the plan is to go back and accept all the initiations I received plus experience some of the horse culture that is still very much there.

Highlight of my trip – riding a pure, 100% Turkmen horse. A real treat.

by Neil Payne

The organisers of the European Championship of Horseback Archers have now announced the dates for the 2009 competition.

This year invitations are extended to participate as per usual.

Please fill out and sign the registration form and send back to info@steppenreiter.de or via post by 10th of August the latest!
Actual information as well as last year’s results can be found online at www.eocha.org .

If you have got any questions concerning travel, accommodation, the tournament, etc please don’t hesitate to ask the BHAA or contact the organisers directly.
Related files:

> Agenda for 2009 Competition

> EOCHA Rules