Seven Samurai. Japan's Yabusame, the Ancient Art of Horseback Archery, Draws Participants News.

The faction gasps with regard and cheers at every hit as the bugyo in his watchtower bangs the drum. Two archers become known from the lieutenant globe with all targets hit, and in the end, which comes post-haste making allowance for the painful preparation, Mr. Tanaka has finished third. After the closing rites and the brief of observance sake, participants hit the sack to the handy agricultural cooperative, whose construction has been adopted for the age as a samurai dressing room.

Inside, Setsuko Kaneko, the twinkling, birdlike widow of Ietaka Kaneko, the Takeda headmaster who died in January at adulthood 87 (and rode until the month before his death), bustles to exhort inescapable everybody is looked after as they change, snort tea and comment on the day's scene -- and dictate stories about the lately headmaster, who as the son of the 34th Takeda band leader made his debut as a yabusame archer in 1935. He emerges as a bloke of openness and spirit; in Mr. Tanaka's words, "He could befriend anybody in 15 or 20 seconds.

" Inviting immature members from all communal levels -- and overseeing the profession of women, traditionally excluded from most revered Shinto concern -- Mr. Kaneko revitalized yabusame after World War II, fetching the show off out and about (particularly to the Middle East), and even teaching the sons of a prior commander of the U.S. Seventh Fleet.

He also appeared as a horseman blighter in the John Wayne talking picture "The Barbarian and the Geisha," directed by John Huston. Mrs. Kaneko is shown honour by all in the dressing room, but says that regardless of the cursory of her retain she will stay put in the background. "To foster Takeda, I openly rate the apprentices and face after them," she says.

Takeda receives ordinary economic support from the government, but a preoccupation in yabusame isn't easy. Mrs. Kaneko's father-in-law put his own cash into the school, she explains, and even donated costumes to students. "But the Japanese today are neutral to budo (the staunch way)," she says. "Foreigners hook it more seriously.

" To get a yabusame event, look in on.

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