My Kyudo Club

So I have mentioned before that I have joined the school Kyudo club and I thought it was time to explain.

Kyudo, which means “way of the bow” is Japanese archery and a form of martial art. There are many different schools of practice that descend from different areas of practice. These include military shooting, ceremonial and contemplative. The different schools place emphasis on different areas. Some see it efficiency as the most important goal, others aesthetics and some use it for meditation.

As far as I can gather at my school they believe that in shooting correctly and perfecting the form will result in hitting the target. i.e. “true shooting, certain hitting” or seisha hitchu. The goal does not seem to be accuracy but hitting the target with the correct form.

According to the Nippon Kyudo Federation the goal is to ascertain the state of shin-zen-bi, which translated basically means “truth-goodness-beauty”. So when the archers shoot correctly, or truthfully, with “virtuous spirit and attitude toward all persons and all things which relate to Kyudo (goodness)” then beautiful shooting is realised naturally.

The dojo, where we practice, consists of a shooting building that opens up onto a grassy area. The targets are placed on the opposite end, 28m from the shooting area. The dojo building itself is pretty nice with wooden floors – unlike the tin cow shack favoured by Rhodes.

I am currently a beginner so I am practising with a gomuyumi, which is basically a rubber band with a plastic hilt. This is to get my movements, or hassetsu, correct. This sport is all about aesthetics. Once my students have decided I am good enough I will move onto a bow. I don’t think this will be any time soon though. My T-rex arms have enough trouble with the elastic band. It is incredibly embarrassing to watch these tiny Japanese girls handle the bows with no trouble at all while I struggle not to have my arms shake when stretching the elastic.

These bows are not the high tech archery ones that they use in the rest of the world, that are carbon fibre, super balanced with pulleys and bolts made from meteor rock. They are old school wooden bows with some string. Okay well slightly more specific but the point is that the sport retains it historical roots.

My students are pretty amazing to watch. Three weeks ago they held an interschool competition at Kunisaki High. We walked away with all of the prizes – best school, male competitor and female competitor. Next weekend 6 of them will go to the main Oita competition for 2 days that is held in Oita city.

PS I forgot to mention that the uniforms are pretty nice – though this is almost entirely based on the ease to which I perceive they can be turned into Bleach Cosplay.