You could argue that in this age, we look to movies to preserve our traditions. But it begs the chicken and egg question: Where does the filmmaker go to authenticate the details?
When Akira Kurosawa, famous as a perfectionist down to the last historical detail, was ready to film "The Seven Samurai," he found the then-head of the Takeda school of horseback archery, one of two remaining centuries-old schools, to give his actors lessons in the ancient martial art of kyuba.
The school, based in Kamakura, Kanagawa Prefecture, and its art have thus gained a certain immortality on film. Yet today, the 35th-generation master of the school, Ietaka Kaneko, 78, who took over as head from his father in 1980, continues on many fronts to promote interest in equestrian martial arts and to sustain the tradition by cultivating riders with the skills to practice it.