Before the katana became the symbolic weapon of the samurai, the bow held that role. Early samurai of the Heian and Kamakura periods were primarily mounted archers; the phrase used to describe the warrior's path in this period was kyūba no michi, "the way of the bow and horse." The Japanese yumi is unique among major military bows in being asymmetric — gripped well below center — an adaptation that allowed the long bow to be used effectively from horseback.
Yumi
The Japanese longbow. The yumi is unique in world military history for its asymmetric construction: the grip sits about a third of the way up from the bottom rather than at the center, so the lower limb is much shorter than the upper. This asymmetry allowed a bow of seven feet or more in total length to be used from horseback, where a symmetrically gripped bow of equivalent length would have struck the saddle on every shot.
The yumi was made of laminated bamboo and wood, with the bamboo facing the archer and a hardwood back — a sophisticated composite construction that gave the long bow its draw weight without sacrificing speed. In the Heian and Kamakura periods, the yumi was the primary battlefield weapon of the samurai class; samurai trained from boyhood in mounted archery (yabusame), and the bow's status was reflected in the literature of the period. By the Sengoku, the yumi had been displaced as the primary missile weapon by matchlock muskets, but it persisted in formal use through the Tokugawa period and survives today in the discipline of kyūdō, the "way of the bow."