I paid a visit to a Japanese archery (kyudo) class and this very awesome gentleman, Min, hung out and chatted for a while. Definitely an interesting guy: he's got the whole world of archery under his belt, if you consider West and East the whole world. He's done both kyudo and Olympic recurve archery, so he had some insight on the differences between them. He's decided to focus on kyudo till he feels he's happy with his performance and then he'll give Olympic another go.
As he described Olympic style, I thought it sounded pleasantly flexible. If you have eccentricities in the way you do it, but they happen to be working for you, coaches will generally let you retain them. I can attest to that. Even my archery manual gives options for lots of things. Say, how high or low your grip is. Or whether you stand open or closed.
Now, kyudo is done one way. There's one proper way of gripping the bow, where it spins in one's hand in the arrow's wake. There's one proper posture - well, okay, with one variant to accommodate people who can't do the other way. There's one distance for shooting: 28 metres. One way to walk, for reals, without lifting your feet from the ground. It's a practice derived from war, and it gives stability. Heck, they don't even mess around with eye dominance. You do it right-handed. Period.
I had just one question for Min: "Why is that good?"
His answer made me think back to my first year psych textbooks that seemed to call up West/East differences again and again: the importance of individuality is more of a Western world thing. Kyudo takes an approach that is more attuned to Eastern philosophies: one doesn't strive to be awesome but to attain perfection.
It's a discipline that's been around for 1,000 years and they figure they've got it down to the one best way to do it. Perfection in replicating that is what they're going for. An ideal to pursue, knowing that no-one may ever meet it. In fact, there are no longer any archers of the highest levels of kyudo. It's not an approach I would have ever come up with but I was definitely fascinated and satisfied with the response.
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Visit Seikyu Kai's site: http://toronto.kyudo.ca/
As he described Olympic style, I thought it sounded pleasantly flexible. If you have eccentricities in the way you do it, but they happen to be working for you, coaches will generally let you retain them. I can attest to that. Even my archery manual gives options for lots of things. Say, how high or low your grip is. Or whether you stand open or closed.
Now, kyudo is done one way. There's one proper way of gripping the bow, where it spins in one's hand in the arrow's wake. There's one proper posture - well, okay, with one variant to accommodate people who can't do the other way. There's one distance for shooting: 28 metres. One way to walk, for reals, without lifting your feet from the ground. It's a practice derived from war, and it gives stability. Heck, they don't even mess around with eye dominance. You do it right-handed. Period.
I had just one question for Min: "Why is that good?"
His answer made me think back to my first year psych textbooks that seemed to call up West/East differences again and again: the importance of individuality is more of a Western world thing. Kyudo takes an approach that is more attuned to Eastern philosophies: one doesn't strive to be awesome but to attain perfection.
It's a discipline that's been around for 1,000 years and they figure they've got it down to the one best way to do it. Perfection in replicating that is what they're going for. An ideal to pursue, knowing that no-one may ever meet it. In fact, there are no longer any archers of the highest levels of kyudo. It's not an approach I would have ever come up with but I was definitely fascinated and satisfied with the response.
*********************
Visit Seikyu Kai's site: http://toronto.kyudo.ca/
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