Why I hate Kyudo

[Truculent Sheep]

I for one can't wait for the invention of Zen Football where you don't score any goals but are graded for how gracefully you gob on the grass, headbutt the referee or spit-roast a Page 3 model in the hotel afterwards.

[Steve]

It's all about how you make the football.

[wackamole]

Kyudo is not about Zen. That's a common misconception that comes from the German author Eugen Herrigel. Herrigel was totally a dipshit bullshidoist. In fact, in Kyudo people do want to hit the target.

Here's what Earl Hartman has to say about this: (Hartman is a high ranking kyudo practitioner and translator of Japanese. I think Hartman actually tranlated the article on the Myth of Zen and the art of Archery)

"Zen In the Art of Archery" is, hands down, the absolute worst book one could possibly read if, by reading it, one hopes to get a clear understanding of what kyudo is.
I am the translator of the article "The Myth of Zen in the Art of Archery" by professor Yamada Shoji, mentioned upthread by another reviewer. Professor Yamada is an experienced kyudo practitoner. I also have been practicing kyudo for 30 years, 11 of them in Japan under the tutelage of some of the most senior instructors in Japan.

To put it bluntly, Herrigel got everything, and I mean everything, wrong. He himself only practiced kyudo for three years, if his translator Sozo Komachiya is to be believed (he started in 1926 and returned to Germany in 1929). He spoke no Japanese. He was himself a mystic (or he wanted to be one, anyway) intent on understanding Zen, not archery, and he had very definite pre-formed ideas about what he was looking for and what he believed Zen, and, by extension kyudo, to be. Given such a situation, the impending disaster was a forgone conclusion. Even with the best instruction he would not have understood kyudo.

His book is very seductive, filled as it is with tantalizing mystical stories about a seeker on the road to "enlightenment". So, it will appeal to romantics who have no experience in either Zen or kyudo, and it has been my experience that the book indeed appeals primarily to such people. It is instructive to note that those people who have experience in either discipline are quick to point out how thoroughly Herrigel bollixed it up.

I began kyudo under the influence of his book, and it was only after many years that I fully realized exactly how pernicious that influence was. I strongly urge those people who are interested in kyudo to never read it or only to read it after they have been practicing kyudo for a long time under competent instruction. To read it with the intent of forming an informed opinion of kyudo is not only inadvisable, it is positively dangerous.

Read "Kyudo: The Essence and Practice of Japanese Archery" by Onuma and DeProspero instead. It is as good an explanation of kyudo as Herrigel's book is a bad one.

[jubei33]

oh, academic burn.

You know, the majority of people doing kyudo are middleschool girls. The afterschool clubs are packed with em.

[Sir Ocelot]

Regardless, 'do' and 'jutsu' are two different points of the same thing (again, I highlighted your above quote for emphasis).

Well, yeah, that's my point exactly. The person I was originally quoting wasn't separating kyudo and kyujutsu into different arts, just using them as near-synonyms with different connotations. If someone asked him if he practiced "kyudo", he'd've said yes, and if someone asked him if he practiced "kyujutsu" he'd've also said yes.

And I also have to say that Draeger didn't create a divide, he explained things in Western terms.

....overemphasizing the distinction in the process, in the view of some others who trained in Japan -- which is what that thread I linked to is about.

[wakinonioi]

Can anyone explain to me how you measure progress in a sport that doesn't emphasize hitting the target? What do you have to gauge against?

Sorry, but this is not bullshido, this is you being a ****-shido. Its one thing if some form-dancing Nancy never lays a glove on another human and claims to be a badass, but here you have folks doing something they have clearly and directly identified as meditative and all that **** in nature, and are not claiming to be super killing machines or anything of the sort. You are misapplying the bullshido ethos in this case.

Calm the **** down and go berate some Aikidoka or something.

[CanucKyokushin]

Mega?Have you trained with any Kyudo people?

Can you tell me whats their opinion on competive sports in general?Such as archery competitions or even olympic qualifying.

Do they have the "I might have lost yesterday against the other archers.But Kyudo is only for mind and body.We don't put any validity into always scoring bullseye and making points."

[MEGA JESUS-SAMA]

Sorry, but this is not bullshido, this is you being a ****-shido. Its one thing if some form-dancing Nancy never lays a glove on another human and claims to be a badass, but here you have folks doing something they have clearly and directly identified as meditative and all that **** in nature, and are not claiming to be super killing machines or anything of the sort. You are misapplying the bullshido ethos in this case.

Calm the **** down and go berate some Aikidoka or something.

I didn't call bullshido on anything, in fact I made sure to avoid using the term. The point is that, at least according to the examples I've found, they're a bunch of nerds which wacky interpretations of what archery should be, none of which really make any sense.

Mega?Have you trained with any Kyudo people?

Can you tell me whats their opinion on competive sports in general?Such as archery competitions or even olympic qualifying.

Do they have the "I might have lost yesterday against the other archers.But Kyudo is only for mind and body.We don't put any validity into always scoring bullseye and making points."

No, this is just what I've seen from some kyudoka, almost all of them are white nerds. It's similar to the representation WC and Kung Fu get from MAP.

A lot of them have a strange hostility to fancy do-dad olympic and compound bows, which is shared by some traditionalist Western archers (a lot of who are equally stupid) too.

[SimonBelmont]

I hate kyudo too. The asiatic composite bow is a far superior weapon....

[MEGA JESUS-SAMA]

I hate kyudo too. The asiatic composite bow is a far superior weapon....

Very short, which causes string pinch and potentially stacking, and the rigid tips are less efficient than working recurve tips and also act like gigantic windsails, eating up speed conisderably.