Kyudo

Kyudo

Kyudo – the Way of the bow – , also called standing Zen (Ritsuzen) is the oldest of Japan’s traditional martial arts and is considered in Japan as one of the purest of all budos (martial ways). It aims at surpassing oneself, the target and the bow in order to reach one’s true self. By applying oneself to the eight stages of shooting (hassetsu), through working on correct breathing and through concentrating on the hara, new possibilities of liberation, of mastering oneself and one’s energies are unveiled.

Several seminars take place all year long at the Center. Kyudo is taught by Taikan Jyoji, Kyudo 5th dan and regional technical advisor of the French Federation of Traditional Kyudo (FFKT).

In November 1988, the kyudojo (shooting place) of the Falaise Verte Center was inaugurated. On this occasion, thirty highly skilled European kyudoka came to join a delegation of sixty (male and female) Japanese Kyudo masters led by Tomoji Saito Sensei, the President of the Japanese Kyudo Federation at that time. The dojo, named the Dojo of the Direct Spirit, is an elegant wooden structure set in a spacious garden and is quite unique in Europe. Like all standard Japanese kyudojo, it consists of a shooting hall (shajo), an arrow pathway (yamichi), and a target house (matoba) with the standard twenty-eight meter distance between the shooting position and the target. A makiwara (a tightly bound drum of straw) practice room has also been fitted out in the 120 square meter dojo equipped with sliding plate glass windows.