![]() ![]() It is not enough just to shoot accurately the shot must be made with the utmost sincerity and commitment, to manifest a hidden power.Īnother key difference between kyudo and competition archery is the commitment to a club and practising in a group. (This idea, removed from a spiritual context, is present in modern competition archery traditions, too.) The idea is that when archers shoot correctly, with “truth,” good spirit and attitude, beautiful shooting will naturally follow. ![]() According to the Nippon Kyūdō Federation, the supreme goal of kyudo is achieving a state of shin-zen-bi, which roughly translates as “truth-goodness-beauty”. The version best known outside of Japan is seitei or “sport” kyudo: the basic form pulling elements from all the schools, and more grade-oriented and geared to competition. However, the forms are not entirely immovable, and modern kyudo worldwide broadly follows three different schools, each one emphasising different aspects of the art. The form is the essential element unlike the more flexible forms of archery, kyudo is formalised into distinct steps that must be followed in a precise and distinct order. However, the goal of most kyudokas is seisha seichu: “Correct shooting is correct hitting”. Today, many archers practise kyudo as a sport, with accuracy being paramount. While it draws from feudal and samurai roots, kyudo, as practised now, is only a few 100 years old. It is a martial art in the distinctly East Asian sense, and it is best seen alongside the better-known Japanese combat sports like judo and karate. Kyudo (pronounced “cue-dough”) literally means, “the way of the bow”. Older military traditions in Japan were called kyujitsu, which means something closer to “skill with the bow”, the jitsu part giving a fighting context. ![]() Watching kyudo, even just on YouTube, gives you a sense of the depth of the process and the difficulty required to master the art. Everything is carefully delineated, with each element of the shot – nocking, setting up, drawing and releasing – having multiple elements, each with a distinct name in Japanese. On a kyudo range, nothing – from the way you pick up your arrows to shoot, to the way you pull them from the target – is by chance. The image of formal kyudoka, with their long asymmetric bows in a bare hall, is one of the most iconic martial arts traditions. It is also one of the more distinctively Japanese cultural expressions, a mark of a society closed off for hundreds of years. What on the surface seems to be an essential simplicity is anything but. But to watch kyudo for yourself is to witness a sport embodying unsurpassed elegance and ritual. The drawing of the bow and the skill of individual archers have been romanticised throughout history. We must confront ourselves in this mirror.” – Takeuchi Masakuniįew archery traditions take hold of the imagination like kyudo. "When we face the target, it is like a mirror that reflects our heart. ![]()
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