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.

"I began practicing archery in 2018 when my son joined an archery club at his school as an extracurricular activity. I began studying Gao Ying's style of archery in early 2019. Gao Ying Indonesia was established in May 2019."

Gao Ying lived toward the end of China's Ming dynasty in the late 17th century. In 1637, only a few years before the fall of the empire to the Manchus and the Qing dynasty, he completed a two-volume archery manual with a heavy emphasis on using the correct technique to safely draw heavy bows for battlefield application.

The manual was first partially translated into English by Stephen Selby, a prominent figure in the revival of traditional Chinese archery. After years of research, Ma and Tian came up with their complete translation of the manual. They published their translation and commentary of the book, titled The Way of Archery: A 1637 Chinese Military Training Manual, in 2015.

"What we practice is [not entirely faithful] to the orthodox technique as instructed by Gao Ying," Rochmat, who lives in Yogyakarta, explained. "There have been some refinements, borrowing concepts from other archery techniques."

Sauqi, 40, and the other founders met through Facebook. At first, they tried to learn the style by themselves through the book as well as Ma and Tian's YouTube channel The Way of Archery, where the two elaborate on the technique in detail and perform demonstrations. Later, they built up the courage to ask Ma and his students for directions.

"We then asked Blake Cole [a direct student of Ma and Tian] whether he would be willing to teach us for free as we could not afford to pay an instructor. Much to our surprise, he said yes," Sauqi remarked. "Later, Haydon Fu [another direct student] joined in."

As Gao Ying Indonesia is an online-based community, members are required to have their own archery gear to practice at their local range or at home. Asked whether the members had faced any difficulty with the teaching being done remotely, Ananda Akbar, an administrator of the group, answered: "Sometimes things seem perfect on camera, but there can actually be mistakes." 

"For example, they may lean toward the target instead of frontward," the Bandung native continued. "They also may pluck the string, [which they should not do]. They should just let go and let their draw hand exit in a straight line. [To reveal these mistakes], they must be willing to take videos from different angles and positions."

‘Beyond strength’

Gao Ying Indonesia is now an official branch of the Tian-Ma school, recognized on Ma and Tian's website, thewayofarchery.com, as one of the club's practice groups. 

Tian and Ma themselves observe Gao Ying Indonesia’s Facebook group closely as its members. Those who have reached a certain milestone train under the direct guidance of the duo.

Ma believes archery training extends beyond the range and beyond strength. For example, a good practitioner of any military-style archery needs to maintain good sleeping habits and a healthy diet plan as part of their training. This is even truer for followers of Gao Ying, especially those who train under Ma.

"Haydon and Blake care only about whether your technique is okay,” Albertus said. “While Justin also cares about what you eat for a week and analyzes the video [of you demonstrating the technique] frame by frame."

Albertus said he felt some improvements in his training after following Justin's advice on observing a proper diet and vitamin intake.

"At one point, my draw weight could not move up past 83 pounds [37.6 kg]. I asked Justin for some advice. He then gave me a diet plan and told me to increase my vitamin D3 intake. My draw weight then scaled up to 93 pounds [42.18 kg] quite fast," Albertus explained.

‘Heavy bow reveals truth’

Embodying their motto, jìn gōng xiǎn shí (a heavy bow reveals truth), many of the members of Gao Ying Indonesia are training to shoot bows with a draw weight of 45.36 kilograms and beyond. Ma himself now practices using a bow with 64.86 kg draw weight. Despite doing so meaning having to push one's body to almost its maximum capacity, the members of Gao Ying Indonesia seemed to be confident in the technique.

"Gao Ying's technique is injury-proof as he developed it after suffering from an injury [due to practicing a suboptimal technique]," said Akbar, whose target is being able to draw a 54.31 kg bow. 

"He evaluated his mistakes and shot left-handed [to develop the method] due to the injury. Gao Ying's technique emphasizes shooting with a strong bow [and] I train to shoot heavy bows to relive history. According to records, archers in the past used bows with a minimum draw weight of 60 to 80 pounds [22.68 to 36.29 kg] on the battlefield. An established historical archery rule says if you shoot with an 80-lb bow [on the battlefield], then you must have first mastered a 160 pound [72.57 kg] bow."

On the other hand, Angking, whose draw weight is now over 45.36 kg, said he shoots heavy bows to test his limits. "It is more of a personal achievement for me," he added.

For others who do not explicitly set a draw weight target, the main appeal of Gao Ying's teaching is that there is no secret method to get better — the only way to be proficient in the way of the bow is through training with the correct technique.

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