About twenty five years ago on a visit to an out of the way place in northern China I was able to see a demonstration of Mongolian horse riding skill. The targ

About twenty five years ago on a visit to an out of the way place in northern China I was able to see a demonstration of Mongolian horse riding skill. The target audience was the local tourists. The performers looked like ill-dressed scrawny young adults, male and female. All well shorter than the typical person of northern European background. They were riding equally scrawny looking ponies in an arena about the size of a hockey rink. The kids did stuff like ride standing on the pony as it galloped around the field, then would flip to be sideways on the horse, with the body of the pony completely blocking them from one side. They'd fire arrows at full gallop, hiting tiny targets as they would abruptly change direction. That's when my understanding of Atilla the Hun and Ghenghis Khan went beyond what I'd read in books.