How to win at kibasen (mounted cavalry battles). A thorough guide to team assignments, horse formation, and tactics.

10 years as a kindergarten teacher / elementary school teacher / junior and senior high school teacher / childminderkepiko
Graduated from Kunitachi College of Music, Faculty of Music (now: Department of Music Culture and Education, Early Childhood Music Education major). In elementary school, my homeroom teacher was Jun Kusaba, a game researcher. After graduating from university, I worked as a kindergarten teacher for 10 years and as an after-school childcare instructor for 7 years, then took a position as a music teacher at an international school in Singapore. In addition to music education, I engaged in activities that introduced Japanese culture, traditional games, and recreational activities, working with many children. Later, through freelance writing, planning, and editing at Shogakukan, I met many delightful adults and experienced the joy of communicating and sharing. Drawing on the perspective cultivated in the field of education and my experience as an editor, I provide practical information with an emphasis on both input and output, mainly in areas related to music and children. My hobbies include instruments, singing, handicrafts, toys, drawing, traditional games, the outdoors, and books. My special skill is spinning-top tricks.
Editor-in-Chief, RAG MUSICHane Keisuke
Editor-in-chief of RAG MUSIC. JFC-certified fact-checker. After working in a music studio and handling wedding sound, joined the RAG MUSIC editorial team in 2016. Experienced with a variety of instruments: marching band in elementary school, clarinet in junior high school wind ensemble, and drums in a band from high school onward. Drawing on my own musical activities and the experience gained through my work, I produce daily articles, including various song introductions, features on music festivals around the country, and live reports. In music, I enjoy not only rock from Japan and abroad but, lately, a wide range of J-pop as well.

Kibasen, one of the classic events at school sports days, is a competition where three people form a human “horse” as the base and one rider mounts on top to battle.

You win by either snatching the headband or cap worn by the opposing rider, or by knocking the opposing rider off their horse.

It’s one of the most heated events at a sports day.

In this article, we’ll thoroughly introduce tips for kibasen, where the determination of “I absolutely don’t want to lose!!” clashes head-on.

We’ll explain in detail everything from staffing and how to form the horse, to tactics during matches and even training methods.

If you’re a competitor who’s set on winning at kibasen no matter what, be sure to use this as a reference!

Tips for Forming Cavalry Units and Assigning Personnel (1–10)

Tips for forming a mounted formation: “cross” and “matching heights.”

After introducing recommended team placements for a cavalry formation, I’ll share two tips for how to form the “kiba” (horseback) properly.

The basic layout is one person in front and two in back.

The person on the right rear links their right hand with the person in front and places their left hand on the front person’s left shoulder.

Conversely, the person on the left rear links their left hand with the person in front and places their right hand on the front person’s right shoulder.

This is the first tip: it causes the rear members’ arms to cross, making the formation much more resistant to collapsing when colliding with an opposing group.

The second tip is to match the heights of the members forming the “kiba.” In particular, if the two people in the back are of similar height, the rider will be able to sit more stably, so try to choose members who are as close in height as possible.

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For jockeys, either tall people or short people

Lastly, as a tip for personnel placement, let’s talk about the riders.

Those who make good riders are either tall people or, conversely, smaller individuals with light body weight.

Tall people are suitable not only because, as noted in the tips for positioning the horse carriers, attacking from above is advantageous, but also because having a taller height and longer reach gives them a competitive edge.

On the other hand, smaller, lighter individuals are well-suited as riders because putting a lighter person on a fast horse increases mobility even further, allowing them to excel at disrupting the opposing team’s horses in team battles.

It’s important to assign clear roles to each horse unit and allocate personnel to fulfill those roles accordingly.

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Overall tips for cavalry battles (1–10)

Now that we’ve covered tips for assigning personnel, let’s finally move on to strategies for the cavalry battle matches.

First, regardless of whether it’s a team battle or a one-on-one duel, I’ll go over tips that apply to cavalry battles as a whole.

These are the basics of cavalry battles, so be sure to master them!

Be sure to speak up/reach out.

This may be the most basic aspect of a cavalry battle—so basic it might not even count as a “tip”—but calling out to each other is essential.

In particular, if an opponent gets around behind your horse, your chances of losing go way up, so the rider should keep a close watch on the surroundings and communicate the situation to the carriers.

It’s also good for the rider to tell the carriers which opponent to target and the overall plan of attack.

Meanwhile, the carriers should call out when they move to synchronize their actions, and when grappling with the opposing horse, they should keep communicating—whether to push or pull—so they can move steadily and in sync.

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The jockey doesn’t lower his hands.

The second tip for cavalry battles is about the rider’s basic posture.

In cavalry battles, being attacked from above puts you at a serious disadvantage, so it’s important for the rider to keep both hands raised rather than lowered.

By keeping your arms up, you can maintain a constant guard and also switch to offense quickly.

Make sure to thoroughly adopt this as the fundamental stance for cavalry battles.

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Tips for Team Battle Tactics (1–10)

From here, we’ll finally dive into tips for positioning and movement in team battles.

These are the core elements of strategy in cavalry battles, so pick the tips that suit your team, make them your own, and use them to gain the upper hand in matches.

Divide roles between fast horses and tall horses

In team matches, the standard tactic is to build two types of mounts—one fast and one tall—and divide roles between them as you attack.

Earlier, we recommended arranging your riders to create both a tall mount and a fast mount; this directly connects to team match strategy.

First, the fast mount acts as a decoy, moving around to scatter the opposing team’s riders.

Then, the tall mount targets any rider left isolated and goes in to snatch their headband or cap.

Additionally, if you pair a fast mount with a tall mount and use the duo to pincer an opponent who’s become separated, your win rate will improve even more.

By maintaining a consistent strategy—from how you build your mounts to how you maneuver during the match—you should be able to steer the game to your advantage.

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