Royal Armouries welcome Japanese archers

Shooting a bow and arrow from a standstill is one thing, but imagine firing arrows while galloping past three targets 80m apart at 20mph, with five seconds to reload between each one.

That’s the ancient art of Yabusame, which a team of Japanese archers will be displaying at the Royal Armouries in Leeds on 4 and 5 August.

The archers whose warrior skills date back 1,000 years are travelling from the Nikko Toshogue shrine in Japan, which has been twinned with the Royal Armouries since 1991.

The shrine is the resting place of the Shogun Tokugawa Ieyasu who presented King James I with the first Japanese armour seen in England in 1613. That armour can now be found in the Royal Armouries Museum.

There will be one performance at around 2pm on both days.

For more information contact the Royal Armouries Museum (tel: 0113 220 1940).

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