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Learning Ming dynasty military archery skills with Gao Ying Indonesia
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Sharing knowledge: Dhimas translates English materials into Indonesian for members of Gao Ying Indonesia to read, and has been an archer since 2017. (Courtesy of Dhimas Rajavy Shofiullah) (Courtesy of Dhimas Rajavy Shofiullah/Courtesy of Dhimas Rajavy Shofiullah)
Archery enthusiasts bring to life voices from the past, from the distant land of Ming dynasty China.
Asiatic archery has been steadily gaining popularity in Indonesia since around 2014. The most popular style is Turkish, also known as Ottoman style archery, followed by Khorasani, a subset of Islamicate-Persian archery. Both are especially popular due to their ties with the history of Islam.
Many archery aficionados take a contemporary approach with modern bare bows and compound bows. Indonesia also has its own archery traditions, such as the Javanese and Sundanese gandewa and jamparing.
One group of archery enthusiasts, however, decided to veer from the trend and look elsewhere for inspiration. Their search bore fruit when they stumbled upon Justin Ma and Jie Tian's translation and commentary of a two-volume manual written by Ming dynasty military archery instructor Gao Ying.
The group came to be known as Gao Ying Indonesia, founded by Sauqi, Noor Rochmat, Dhimas Rajavy Shofiullah, Albertus Wartono and Fahry Abrus, all of whom refuse to claim to have mastered the art, insisting that there was no master archer in the group — there were only beginners, regardless of their proficiency.
"I am not confident in calling myself a master," Sauqi, who lives in Bandung, explained. "We're all beginners. [Besides], once you call someone a master, they will stop learning.
