No one knows more about shooting arrows from a speeding horse than Lajos Kassai, the man called “The Master” by students and visitors alike to his school in a remote Hungarian valley.
Inspired by Hungarians’ nomadic, warlike forebears, who arrived in the Carpathian basin from the Eurasian steppes in the late 9th century, he follows each thud from an arrow into a flying target with a raucous battle-cry.
Kassai is a living legend, the holder of five Guinness World Records, who has turned horseback archery into a recognized sport.
Photo: AFP
“I was six when I made my first bow out of a willow branch,” the 54-year-old said at a recent open day at his school down a bumpy dirt track near Kaposmero, 180km southwest of Budapest.
“My mind dreamt of yurts, arrows flying and horses on the steppes, it was as if I was guided to horseback archery,” said Kassai, the only person on record as having shot arrows at targets from a horse continually for 24 hours.
“The key is rhythm and balance. You must synchronize two things at once: The lower body focuses on the motion of the horse, the upper body on the target,” he says.
Kassai’s school, the first of several around Europe, the US and Canada that he has developed since the late-1980s, when he codified the competition rules of the sport, currently has about 300 students enrolled, both men and women.
“Feel the breathing and heartbeat of the horse, become one with it,” he says during a display to students lying back on the perfectly still animals, all handsome grey Arabians and Shagya-Arabians, popular breeds in the central European country.
“Close your eyes and think of your brave ancestors who built empires from the Great Wall of China to Europe,” he tells them. “Those who were born in yurts and died on horseback.”
“He pushes us to our limits, tests our reactions, just like the horses do,” says Kata Csillag, a 33-year-old fashion designer from Budapest taking lessons from the Master.
If she passes a series of gruelling exams later this year she will become one of about 260 horseback archers around the world eligible to compete in international competition.
“You can learn so much about yourself, how to react to situations, live in the moment,” Csillag said.
Kassai’s fame has even reached Hollywood, where he is training US actor Matt Damon for a role as a mounted archer in an upcoming action movie.
“I’m surprised how fast he learned, actually he’s been one of my best ever students,” he says of Damon with a smile.
Connecting with their Magyar roots resonates with many of the students and visitors at “Kassai Valley,” as the sprawling complex of dusty training tracks and stables next is known to locals.
“The core of horseback archery is history and tradition,” says Istvan Toth from nearby Kaposvar, watching the displays as Hungarian folk music blasts from a loudspeaker.
“If you know your own roots, where you come from, then you can see and perhaps achieve a future which is important for you,” he says.
Kassai, who said he has a “European mind, and an Eastern heart,” calls horseback archery the most dynamically developing equestrian sport of the 21st century.
Last year, 22 countries were represented at a World Cup in Kassai Valley.
The Magyars dominated, taking the first nine places, while the top scorer, of course, was Kassai, the Master.
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