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Kyudo
(Contributor: E.Clay Buchanan - eclay.buchanan@merant.com)
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.
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