Naadam Festival Ankle Bone Shooting

Naadam is called “Erin Gurban Naadam” meaning “three manly games”. The three manly games/sports are archery, wrestling and horse racing.
The ankle bone shooting is a UNESCO registered World Heritage game, and was officially added to the Naadam games in 1998.
-Ankle-bone shooting competitions can be held in teams or among individual players. The Naadam festival ankle-bone shooting is played in teams. There are ankle-bone shooting tents or fields at the Naadam arena. There are several games in progress at the same time.
Each team has 6 main players, plus two stand-by players. A player shoots target bones put in rows on a small wooden structure called “Zurkhai”.
Behind the Zurkhai is an Aravch board, which helps the target bones and bullet bone not to scatter.
The shooting target distance is 4.7m.
The target bone size is 1.3 cm*2.3 cm *1.6cm and can be made of amber, tusk, horn bone or plastic.
The bullet bone is made of naturally fallen deer antlers.
Each player has small chairs custom-made for their size and knee height. A player shoots the bone bullet put on a well-polished wooden stick to hit the target bones. The shooter uses his or her knee as a holder of the wooden stick and shoots using his or her middle finger.
Each competing team has 15 target bones and collects 7.7 from each team for two times and shots. Two members from each competing team sit together and shoot the targets while the other team members sit on the two sides between the shooter and the target. The teams collect their struck target bones. The first team to finish the target bones wins.

Each shooting is followed by the ankle bone shooting song Uukhai, but you may notice the competing teams make different sounds. The shooting team members make calm melodious sounds to motivate and help the shooting player to focus, while the opposing team members makes abrupt sounds to distract the shooter. However, there is nothing about bad words, just different tones of voice. Indeed, the ankle-bone shooting players are some of the friendliest and best team players as their success is the team success.