Kyūdō

Kyūdō (Japanese: 弓道) is the Japanese martial art of archery. Kyūdō is based on kyūjutsu ("art of archery"), which originated with the samurai class of feudal Japan. In 1919, the name of kyūjutsu was officially changed to kyūdō, and following the example of other martial arts that have been systematizing for educational purposes, kyūdō also reorganized and integrated various forms of shooting that had been used up until then. High level experts in kyūdō may be referred to as kyūdōka (弓道家)(Member of the Kyūdō family or house) and some practitioners may refer to themselves as yumihiki (弓引き), or 'bow puller'. Kyūdō is practised by thousands of people worldwide. The bow they use is called a yumi (弓), and the most common one has an asymmetrical shape of more than 2.0 metres (6 ft 7 in), and is characterized by the archer holding the part of the bow below the center to shoot the arrow.