Kyudo – Shooting in Japan

2016-12-20

Heki taikai 2016 Japan

A Heki taikai az én kyudo ryuha-m éves versenye. Mindig van egy európai és egy japán minden évben. Sajnos egyre kevesebben lőnek Heki-t így jó látni ilyenkor az összeverődött csapatokat.

Mivel a tanáromnak a verseny hetén eszébe jutott, hogy van ilyen és jé, nekem tök jó lenne ha mennék pár telefonnal elintézte a késői beesést. (Komolyan nem értem néha itt a szervezést, mintha ezek a programok nem hónapokkal esetleg félévekkel korábban lennének betervezve)

Az egyetemi kyudo nagyon más mint amihez mi otthon vagy bárhol máshol hozzászoktunk. Még az itteni normál kyudótól is különbözik. Teljesen verseny és eredmény fókuszált ennek minden pozitív és negatív velejárójával. Én, aki általában nagy ívből teszek a versnyekre nyilván nem vagyok erre a legmegfelelőbb, de azt kell mondjam az első félév végére már egész tudtam élvezni őket. A saját kis lázadásaimmal 😛 Komolyan, ha maradnék még egy évet még a végén izgulnék is rajtuk 😛

A heki taikai a Tsukuba egyetem dojojában van ami lényegében a nem hivatalos honbu dojonk.
Már több mint fél éve élek Japánban és járok a helyi kyudo dojoba majdnem minden nap, de a Tsukuba dojo azért egy más kategória. Legalább kétszer ha nem háromszor nagyobb mint a mienk Katsuurában. Az ottani egyetemi kyudos tagság meg legalább az ötszöröse az itteninek ha nem több. Olyan minth ami lennénk a hobbi dojo ők meg a nagy komolyak 😛

Itt jöttünk össze, a megmaradt heki íjász egyetemek csapatai és pár független mint én. (Mert ugye Katsuura hivatalosan Honda dojo, még ha a három tanárunkból 2 heki íjász is.) Jó érzés hasonszőrűek közt lőni és nem egyedül törni az utat mint általában. Andival is tudtam dumálni. Mókás, mindig versenyeken futunk össze. Meg látni 20/20as heki íjászokat. Amit a Hoseiesek művelnek az hihetetlen. (és kifejezetten bukom a színeikre…) Tsukubások is jól lőnek nagyon.

Én hoztam két hawakét és ezzel szuper boldog voltam 🙂 Mivel a találati arányom 40-60 % között ingadozik örültem hogy nem az alját lőttem.

Versenyen ugye kevésbé tanul az ember technikát, viszont még rám is jön valamennyi nyomás és az alatt lőni teljesen más mint sima edzésen. Úgyhogy bár utálom a versenyeket, be kell lássam hogy hasznos. Lehet lesni a többiektől is és nézni hogy valyon mit hibáznak és ez hogy viezi el a lövéseik.

Köszönöm a lehetőséget! Remélem tudok még jönni rá többször 🙂

Még képek:

2016-10-102016-10-12

Kiküldetés

Hétfőn kiküldetésben voltunk. Valamiért ismét nemzeti ünnepnap volt ami persze az egyetemekre nem vonatkozik. Viszont sok szülő szabadnapot kapott és sok iskola is megtartotta. Erre épülve pedig Chibában egy nagy sportnapot tartottak ahol mindenféle sportot ki lehetett próbálni. Ebbe csöppentünk bele kyudoval. Felkérték a csapatot hogy tartsuk mi a kyudo lövetést. Ha pedig japánban felkérnek valamire akkor… ugye 🙂 Chiba még mindig nincs a sarkon, úgyhogy reggel 5:30as kelés, irány a vonat és át bumliztunk, aludtunk, szenvedtünk Chibáig hogy 9-től már pakolhassunk és 10-től már jöhessenek a népek. Jöttek is. Két körben vagy 400 embert lepörgettünk úgy 3-4-ig egy fél órás bento szünettel. Jó móka volt 🙂 Úgy tűnt mindenki élvezte, a kis krapekok szerették a lövöldözést és még kis kártyát is kaptak az eredményükkel hogy hol találtak ha találtak. Volt aki 3szor is kiállta a sort (mondtam már hogy a japánok imádnak sorbaállni?), hogy újra lőhessen.

Hazafelé pedig találtunk egy Mister Donutsot és mivel Kecske az egekbe magasztalta 😛 be kellett térni pár falatra 🙂

Ez volt a legutóbbi legérdekesebb történés 🙂

Amúgy mennek a szürke sulis hétköznapok, órák, edzések. Rend, szabályok, hierarchia és a mindezekhez kellő lázadás.

Na nem a japánok részéről, de mi lázadunk helyettük is. 😛

2016-08-252016-08-30

Kyudo in Europe

If you do kyudo or tried it in IBU or wherever in Japan and want to practice in Europe here is a map of the dojos in Europe.

As a rule of thumb, Eastern Europe and the German and Italian speaking parts are usually Heki dojos, Western Europe is usually ANKF shomen dojos. Of course with exceptions and with some other ryus present in some countries.

But usually all dojos are welcoming towards all kinds of kyudoka.

because… why wouldn’t they? 🙂

Have fun practicing! That’s the most important 🙂

2016-04-122016-04-13

My first kyudo shiai in Japan (and in general :P )

Going to a competition together is either a train ride or a bus ride. In this case it is a 4 hour bus drive, which is why we left around 5 in the morning. So as you can guess, this trip starts like any other school trips, with sleeping on the bus. 😛

Lets start with the fact that I am not a good shooter. (Yet :p) So you can imagine my surprise when the first thing besides welcome the students in the kyudo club told me was that we have a competition on Sunday was quite a bit unexpected and a little shocking. I had a week to get used to the idea and now after this day trip I can tell you more about how a university kyudo competition looks and feels like.

This was a Naka Kanto area competition between universities at the Dokkyo University kyudojo.

It is a very interesting kyudojo. It is with the usual earth azuchi (target area) and open roof but with a green material instead of grass between the shooting area and the azuchi and it’s on the second floor . It is made to be used for competitions with hitboard and a small viewing area too. Speaking of viewing area, since its tiny basically very few people can watch the actual shooting at the same time. The two teams who are competing, the next two sitting behind them and a some others from the side. Most of the teams are somewhere else, resting, talking, shooting makiwara (Shooting form practice to close distance).

Speaking of teams, it was a team competition. A team consists of 5 kyudoka (archer) and we shoot in renmei taihai style. Four arrows a turn. Two times two arrows in the hand. The dojo style is to do this in the sitting style, so after every arrow you have to go to seiza and wait for your next turn.

You can see the shooting of one team below:

As with many japanese martial arts there are many schools (ryu) in kyudo too. And to have a common ground between all of them there is the renmei style which is in a way neither, but developed from the others. This way the different schools can participate on events together. Also nowadays most of the people around the world are shooting only in this style. Like in Chiba it seems. I was the only shamen shooter as far as I can tell.

I did better then I expected, found new things to correct in my form and exited the dojo at the wrong place 2 times :p
But 2 out of 8 was a hit and maybe with the help of the sensei I am getting to know some of the problems why I miss a lot. Left shoulder is still weak and breaks out backwards to the side, left hand is still not strong enough and I am working on the new right hand movement I have started to learn recently. All in all, it is a lot better then even a week ago.

So how did we do at the end?

From 25 teams we ended on the 12th place. Not enough to qualify for the next round, the prefecture tournament but it was a good start.

Next tournament end of April 🙂

2016-04-082016-04-08

How is the everyday training this week?

So, lets see how is a training at IBU in the Kyudo club at the moment.

We start at 17:00. And yes, it is 17:00. not 16:58 or 17:03. Exactly 17:00, even if everybody is there and ready before.

Before 17:00 there are a few things. It starts with changing clothes of course. Then setting up the dojo. This includes bringing out the matos and putting them in place. Then prepare your yumi (bow) and your kake (glow). Then two kyudoka runs to the matos, one on each side and the senpais check the place of the matos and directs the other two (by shouting to them) which one to move where and how much. This way the already almost perfect set up becomes unbelievable perfect 🙂

Then we take our place in the dojo and wait for 17:00 to come. At 5pm we have line up and shinto style rei before the little jinja on the wall.

After this we start with competition practice. Since we will have a shiai (competition) on Sunday we practice in the group with what we will enter. Its a 5 person guys group. I am the third shooter and its renmei style taihai shooting. I am getting the hang of it after a few days. Its far from pretty yet, but I know when to do what and that’s a start.
We go through this 5 times until the hit board fills up. One set is 4 arrows so all together it ends up at 20 arrows.

After every 4 arrows we have yatori (bringing back the arrows). Which I am still not very good at 🙂
It goes follows:
The person/s who goes for the arrows goes out on the side door, puts on outside slippers and ties up the hakama.
He goes next to the shooting area, claps twice and shouts Hairimasu and waits for an answer.
One of the not shooting kyudoka will go to the front of the dojo and if there is nobody shooting at the fifth mato (which is the closest one to the walking area next to the shooting field) shouts back Onegaishimasu.
The yatori person runs out to the azuchi and waits there until everybody is done with shooting, then claps twice, shouts hairimasu and goes in to the azuchi to the first mato, checking all matos on the way. Then runs back the the last one backwards and shouts back the results to the dojo where they confirm it with the score board and one person notes down everything.

Reporting is:
1 hit – いっちゅう
2 hit – はわけ
3 hit – さんちゅう
4 hit – かいちゅう
0 hit – ざんねん

Then the arrows are collected and the yatori person stands next to the azuchi and shouts back dozo, so the next group can start shooting.
Then he runs back to the side door of the dojo, where the cleaning equipment is.
This is a real kyudojo, so we have earth behind the matos. This means after bringing back the arrows we have to clean them. First with a wet towel, one by one and the arrowheads, then with a dry towel. Then check if all the nocks are in place and if you cleaned it well and put them back in their place in the dojo.
And you should do this very fast, which I am unable to do yet 😛 I am slow with this too, like in everything 😀

And then… repeat sequence.

When we are done with the competition practice we have free shooting (kaigi). Yatori when there is around 10 arrows in the azuchi area, so around 2 arrows per person. This is a less formal yatori, no shouting back the results.

And that’s about it. Then the training ends, which means an other rei and cleaning up. Sweeping all the dojo and dusting everything. Bringing back the matos and redoing the earth in the azuchi. Then go over it and the wood above with water. Then scrape off the earth from the matos and put on new paper. Max 4 layers, if it reaches for we have to restart from the frame.

One of the sensei is present for some time in the training, checks everybody and gives advice.

And this concludes an average training this week. It might be different later on, but for now this is about everything.

2016-04-042016-04-07

First Kyudo class

I had the first class today. Loooot of things to learn. The way of the dojo work is a bit different too then home. Lots of reiho.

I got a nice yumi and some arrows. Learned how to bring back arrows and clean them. Still having problems with what and when to shout back.

The beginning and the end is a bit like at the shinto shrine. 2 rei, two claps, 1 rei.

I am the only gaijin, so lets hope my Japanese will be better day by day!

I am catching up with the last days posts and I will post them shortly. I have a lot of nice photos coming too! Keep looking, interesting things are coming!

For example my first shiai on the 10th, I am second mato. Still have to get confident in the form.

Thats it for today, the posts about the last few days will be probably a bit more interesting 😉

2016-02-102016-02-29

White Rose – London

As preparation for my kyudo year I recently had an amazing kyudo practice in the White Rose dojo.

Thank you Akos for the invitation and all the help!

If you are in London and you do kyudo this is a must to visit dojo. Awesome teachers, very good atmosphere, welcoming and friendly group.

If I ever move to London this would be the dojo to go. 😉

2016-01-252016-02-29

Kyudo in Belgium

After 3 years I managed to go to a kyudo training in Brussels!

You might wonder what took me so long… Well, as always, it is complicated. But the two main reasons are time and money. Let me explain 🙂

Time – In my first year I spent most of my time with my masters degree and getting used to this country. Exploring Leuven, the small student city I am living in at the moment. Also there was an issue of not having any equipment in country. In the second year this changed, I managed to move my kyudo stuff to Belgium but still lacked the time for it because I was finishing up my masters here. Also for time, it has to be noted that the closest dojo is in Brussels which is an average 40 min trip from here plus the time from the train station to the dojo and all these times two ended up somewhere like a 5-6 hour program. That was a bit too long plus quite expensive.

Money – And this is where the money part comes in. A Sunday kyudo traning costs around 10€ just for the commuting. Plus dojo fees will make it considerably higher. And as a student, having barely enough income for self support this was sadly out of the question.

And the third one, which was kind of my mistake is that I got so used to communicate in email that I did not try to just go and show up say a year ago. The exact same way I showed up this week.

Showing up was a very good decision 🙂 It is a shomen dojo, which is why I tried to get in touch with them in email first. But they had no problem having a shamen shooter visiting or even joining the dojo. Which gives me hope that all kyudokas regardless the ryuha can work together in Europe in the future.

They are a very good and nice dojo. Relaxed atmosphere, very good sensei, senpai and dojomates. Some theory was mixed in to the practice when a question came up. Sensei is always going around and seeing your problems and correcting, helping.

I got my bit rusty kyudo in some shape with his help. Always a little advice, always a little change. Not a lot, and not at the same time. So you can build it in, progress and learn from it.

Altogether it was a very good experience and I am sad that I only made it to Brussels now, just a little before leaving Belgium. I hope to go some more time before departure and maybe after Japan too.

Some good to have links:

The Belgian Kyudo Federation: kyudo.be
The Brussels dojo – SHUGETSUKAN Kyudojo

Sensei:

Jean-Pierre VLASSELAER Sensei Renshi 6th dan

Place:

Centre Sportif Victoria
Rue Léon Autrique, 4
1081 Brussels

Timetable:

Sunday: 18:00 – 21:00
Tuesday: 19:00 – 21:00
Thursday: 19:00 – 21:00