Colette's Grand Detour

We headed east out of Ulaanbaatar after a quick pit stop at the Carrefour to pick up gifts for our host family tonight. Our first stop would be another Naadam festival training camp – this time for archery. Archery is the quietest of the three Naadam sports but Mongolians will say it is the one that best preserves the spirit of their ancestors. Whilst wrestling is about strength and horse-racing is about endurance, archery is about precision, patience and self-control. For centuries it was an essential military skill that helped make the armies of Chinggis Khan so formidable.

Every Mongol warrior was expected to be an expect horse archer and the Mongolian composite bow was one of the most advanced weapons of the medieval world. This traditional bow is made from layers of wood, horn, sinew and animal glue and as the archers we visited explained, it is seeing as a living item, adjusting for the weather conditions of the archer.

Our hosts today were a group of 11 archers diligently training in preparation for next week’s Naadam. The head of group was the National Champion in 2018 and was hoping for repeat success this year so we will keep our eye out for him at the Naadam! First we watched the men practice and the women keep score and then they swapped around to allow the women to practice.

Mongolian archery is very different to Olympic archery. Firstly, competitors don’t shoot at a circular target. Instead they aim at rows of small woven leather cylinders called surs, arranged on the ground. There is also no points system – a hit of any sur counts for 1 point regardless of its position in the row. And no hit equal no points. Each archer has 20 arrows per round to accumulate as many points (up to 20) as possible. The men shoot from 75m and the women from 60m. And each competitor wears beautifully embroidered deels. The archers that we visited today were fully dressed up in their outfits that they will wear at the Naadam.

There are three traditional forms of archery; Khalkha – the main national competition, Uriankhai – a shorter-range competition with ceremonial and hunting origins and Buryat – practiced by Mongolia’s Buryat minority. We were watching Khalkha I believe. After watching the archers ping their arrows up to the targets we walked up to get a closer look at the target area and experienced the scorers performing a ritualised form of judging that includes the practical communication and ceremony. The movements communicate back to the archer whether the shot was successful and if it was then chanting of ‘Uukhai!’ to celebrate and express joy and encouragement. If the shot was unsuccessful, the scorers will use a series of hand movements to indicate if the arrow was to high or low, or to far left or right.

To finish off our experience at the training camp we were given the chance to shoot a few arrows each on a training bow. Albeit at 20m rather than 60m from the target! Overall this felt like a really special experience – especially as the archers were giving up their training time in the run up to the Naadam to share their sport with us.