Target Archery Training in Ottoman Period

 TARGET ARCHERY TRAININGS IN OTTOMAN :

In the classical period, different types of archery, which became very common in the Ottomans, required serious preparatory training. Civil and military training centers were established to meet the demands of training new archers, maintaining the skills of adults, and satisfying the archery enthusiasm of the public. Apart from the military training centers where the archers in the army trained, there were about 45 civilian training centers in various districts of Istanbul, each of which was a commercial establishment. There were such paid training centers in the old Imperial centers such as Edirne and Bursa. 

 Apart from the fixed training halls that looked like a gym, there were also paid mobile training centers providing target shooting service in open areas or out-of-town recreation areas. busbecq, He states that archery training started at the age of seven-eight in these training centers and continued for ten-twelve years, thus reaching the level where even the smallest targets could be hit. Citing his observations in a training room, Busbecq records that the Turks were able to line up five or six arrows around the white circle smaller than a coin on a shield, placed on a wooden stand, at a distance of thirty feet, without touching each other.

The German traveler Lubenau, who came to Istanbul towards the end of the 16th century, witnessed that an archery instructor taught bow holding and aiming skills for a very small fee in a small building in Bayezit Square. The French traveler Thevenot states in his notes for the years 1655-56 that the Turks shot arrows mostly "on the move", that they ran their horses and shot arrows from a great distance to an earthen pot placed on the wall. shots should also have been preparations for squash archery. The performance of horse-drawn idol throwing seen by an English traveler who attended the circumcision wedding organized by Murad III resembles a pumpkin game: “Four pebbles were made at the same height and distance from both ends of the square, and targets with tree stems were planted on their tops. About 50 archer cavalry hit the idols by galloping between these two clusters of targets and shooting back arrows during the full turn. It was so quick for them to take out and shoot arrows from their tirkes that it was almost impossible to follow them with the eye. Sometimes they were shooting with their right and sometimes with their left hands.”

In the Kabak Square in front of the Gülhane Pavilion, as part of the jundi training of the novices from the Enderun and Bîrun people, there were exercises to shoot the pumpkin on the top of the pole with an arrow on Wednesdays and Saturdays of the week. they were exhibiting.