Some thoughts from our members

We've asked our dojo members to share their thoughts on the practice of Kyudo.  Here are a couple of the comments so far:

1.
Why I joined archery

On a sunny spring morning in March of 2011, my PE class announced that we were going to practice archery for one week.  It has inspired me to join this Japanese archery class.  After almost a year, I still continue to participate in Japanese archery.  I have learned many, many things throughout Japanese archery. I have become a better and stronger archer through the past 13 months.

(--Jackie, Mudan)


2.

When I was first learning Kyudo, my favorite part to practice was yatsugae:  the sequence of nocking the arrows.  It's a precise series of steps, involving specific movements of the bow, the hands, the arrows, the direction of one's eye gaze, and even breathing.

So much of Kyudo is about patient attention to detail;  progressing through small steps in order, each at the proper time, until the whole of it can be seen.  And what I enjoyed so much about the steps of nocking arrows, is that it's so very clear how each movement has a purpose, there are no unnecessary motions.  As with Kyudo in general, yatsugae is both elegant and exact, and while working through that exactitude there was no room for my mind to wander.  It required me to be present and attentive through each detail of every step.

Which as it happens, is enormously calming, and not something I commonly find in everyday life.

There are any number of lessons and benefits one can take away from Kyudo;  it's no accident that the art has flourished this long, or that many practitioners devote their lives to it.  Kyudo always offers more to learn, further refinements, future challenges and progress yet to be made.  But there is also always that fundamental orderliness, it will always reward sincerity and patient attention to detail.  In this way, I find that the practice of Kyudo is very much its own reward.

(--Windy, Nidan)