thumb|A game of kemari at [[Tanzan Shrine]] is an athletic football game that was popular during the Heian (794–1185) and Kamakura (1185–1333) periods of Japan. It resembles a game of keepie uppie or hacky sack.
The game was popular in Kyoto, the capital, and the surrounding Kansai region, and over time it spread from the aristocracy to the samurai and chōnin classes.
Nowadays, kemari is played as a seasonal event mainly at Shinto shrines in Kansai. Players play in a costume called , which was worn as everyday clothing by court nobles during the Heian period.
It is often said that the earliest evidence of kemari is the record for 644 in the Nihon Shoki, but this theory is disputed. In 644, Prince Naka-no-Ōe (later enthroned as Emperor Tenji) and Fujiwara no Kamatari, who later initiated the Taika Reforms, became friends during a ball game described as , but it may have been a field hockey-like ball game using a cane instead.
The earliest reliable documentary evidence of the word is found in a record of an annual event called written in the middle of the Heian period. According to the records, games of kemari were played in May 701.
Kemari became popular as a game for the nobility in the late Heian in the 11th century, and in the 12th century, and gained fame as masters of kemari. Fujiwara no Narimichi made more than 50 visits to the Kumano Hongū Taisha to pray that his kemari skills would improve, and he performed a kemari feat known as in front of where Susanoo was enshrined. This technique is keepie uppie performed on the heel.
thumb|Decorative kemari balls (Edo period), probably belonging to the [[Satake clan.]]
In the Sengoku period (1467–1615), sumo became popular and kemari declined, but in the Edo period (1683–1868), it became popular again as a game played by the chōnin class in the Kansai.
Description
thumb|Kemari field at [[Kyoto Imperial Palace]]
Kemari is a non-competitive sport. The object of kemari is to keep one ball in the air,