Kyudo
Intro:
Japanese target archery practiced as a martial art.
Origin:
Japan.
History:
Kyudo, the Way of the Bow, is the oldest of Japan's traditional martial arts.
The bow has been used in Japan since prehistoric times. From the fourth to the
ninth century, close contacts between China and Japan had a great influence on
Japanese archery, especially the Confucian belief that through a person's archery
their true characters could be determined. Over hundreds of years archery was
influenced by the Shinto and Zen Buddhist religions along with the pressing practical
requirements of warriors. Court nobles concentrated on ceremonial archery while
the warrior class emphasized kyujutsu, the martial technique of using the bow
in actual warfare.
With the introduction of firearms the bow as a weapon was neglected and almost
died out all together until Honda Toshizane, a kyudo instructor at Tokyo Imperial
University, combined elements of the warrior style and the court ceremonial style
into a hybrid style which ultimately became known as the Honda Ryu (Honda martial
school). This style found great favor with the general public and he is
generally credited with saving Japanese Archery from oblivion. With the
American occupation banning all martial art instruction, traditional kyujutsu
schools declined further and when the ban was lifted, Kyudo, as opposed to kyujutsu,
became widely practiced and the Zen Nihon Kyudo Federation (All Japan Kyudo Federation)
was established in 1953, publishing the standard kyudo textbook called the Kyohon,
and overseeing Kyudo development both in Japan and internationally up to the present
time. There now exists a European Kyudo Federation which has annual seminars and
promotion tests and in 1993 the first such seminar and promotion test was held
in America in San Jose, California.
Description:
Kyudo is a highly meditative martial art whose ultimate goals are Shin (Truth
i.e. the ultimate reality), Zen (Goodness) and Bi (Beauty). When asked
the question "What is Truth?" a master archer would pick up a bow and arrow and
shoot it, without saying a word, allowing the level of mastery of the bow to serve
as the gauge of the archer's progress along the "way" thereby showing the archer's
knowledge of reality i.e. "Truth" itself.
By such diligent practice Confucian theory teaches that the archer will become
morally good (Zen), and this sincerity of personality will excite the aesthetic
sense of anyone watching at an intuitive, emotional level giving the performance
a beauty derived not only from the technical skill of the archer but also from
the archer's emotional maturity and spiritual sincerity.
Training:
Students typically begin by practicing visualization: performing the shooting
motions with no equipment and then perhaps using the gomuyumi (rubber bow), a
short stick with a length of rubber tube attached, to acquire the feel of real
bow resistance. The first actual shots are fired into a straw bundle, called
a makiwara, from a short distance of about three feet. The student then
progresses to target shooting at a fixed regulation distance of 28 meters.
All students, no matter which instructor or school, will shoot the same design
of Japanese bow which is little changed from the twelfth century. Traditionally
made of hardwoods laminated front and back with bamboo the Japanese bow is one
of the longest in the world, usually over seven feet in length. It is a natural
double recurve bow with the arrow nocked one third of the way from the bottom
and the bow actually rotating in the hand at release approx. 270 degrees.
The unique design of the bow requires that the bow actually be torqued or twisted
in full draw to make the arrow fly straight.
Sub-styles:
Technically, styles can be divided into two broad categories, shamen uchiokoshi
and shomen uchiokoshi, the modern shomen uchiokoshi style having been developed
by Honda Toshizane. Shamen archers predraw the bow at an angle to the body
and fix their grip on the bow before raising it. Shomen archers raise the
bow straight over the head and fix their final grip on the bow in a predraw above
the head.
There were dozens of traditional schools before World War II and many of them
survive today provoking endless debate as to the superiority of one over the other.
In fact, some traditional schools still do not use the word kyudo preferring the
word kyujutsu instead to describe their teachings. Some styles heavily emphasize
the spiritual aspect of shooting and some proponents of Zen Archery view kyudo
as a way to further their own spiritual development in Zen Buddhism.
(Contributor: E.Clay Buchanan)
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