Turning of the Bow...

I've learned a couple of things lately that I simply didn't know before;

1) No matter how simple the martial art appears, the Japanese won't respect it as a real martial art unless there are 1000's of layers of subtlety imbedded... There is no such thing as a simple martial art... Martial Hand Washing never existed...

and 2) My forearms can sweat... I've never seen that before... in my entire life...

There is a technique called "Yugaeri", it is the "Turning of the Bow" or "Bowspin"... It is arguably one of the hardest techniques to master in Kyudo (Right after the much less discussed, but no less important, Don't-let-your-ear-get-in-the-way-of-the-bowstring-and-get-itself-lobbed-off-during-arrow-launch Technique)...

When an archer fires the arrow properly, the shape of the hand causes the bow to spin, allowing (If done correctly) the bowstring to swing all the way around your left hand and tap the outer side of the forarm gently (The bow has rotated 160 degrees in your hand)...

You read that correctly... the shape of the hand. As in, if you are holding the bow impoperly, there will be no Yugaeri.

This is the easiest way to tell the beginners from the ones whom are 5th Dan or higher (5th Dan would be about 3rd degree black belt). It's a technique that takes, literally, years to master.

If you are a rank beginner, the bowstring does exactly what you'd expect; it stops right at your forarm, just like in Western Archery.

The transition to "Not a beginner anymore but nowhere near 5th Dan" is when the bow turns slightly in your hand, so the bow ends up with the bowstring at a 60 or even a 90 degree angle from your palm.

That's what happened tonight for me. The bow began to do the Yugaeri.

It's interesting, the bow turns the tiniest bit and my heart skipped like, three beats.

And, being as this was a classic Japanese Dojo, Sensei noticed, I noticed, my uppper-ranked person watching me noticed and none of us said a word or made any sign that anything interesting happened at all.

...And, being typical American, I tried to make it do it again and totally screwed up everything else in the process, ruining my shot and my Yugaeri and everything :D

Which brings me to another thing.

I have a sempai, the word sempai means "Upper Classman", it really means the person who is assigned to make sure I have the basics down. I'm not good enough yet to warrent Sensei's attention, really.

Usually my sempai is this adorable tiny, 20-something Japanese teacher, one of only 5 women in the dojo (Most of whom are wives of other members of the Dojo).

She is very patient with me, and has to struggle not to say anything to me in English (Sensei has banished English from the Dojo in it's entirety).

Recently, however, she has been moving up to firing on the targets in the back yard (This means she isn't in practice rotation, as those firing on the targets are firing out the back door. Targets in Kyudo are 28 meters away or about 25 yards), which leaves noone to watch over me when I get up to the practice targets.

So Sensei instructs our newest member (He's newer than me) to be my Watcher.

Now, this doesn't actually bother me, because he's a College student, and he took Kyudo in High School, so he actually has a lot more experience than I do.

But he's painfully polite...

It's actually kinda cool.

You see, many people tend to treat foreigners with reduced politeness Japanese. Usually that's because we learn the basic Japanese and they are replying in kind (We talk rude to them, they talk rude to us), the ones that are closer to us (Like my Japanese teacher), tends to use the friendly Japanese, but not the super-polite, highly complicated Japanese, mostly because they know we don't understand as well.

This fellow, however, does.

He bows to me before I start my firing sequence, he always uses "To Omoimasu" (I think) and "Kedo" (However... (I might be wrong).. the "I might be wrong" is implied ) to every critique ("I think your hand moved forward just a little, but... (I might be wrong)" "I think you might have released a little too early, but... (I might be wrong)"). It's actually very interesting.

I've never been treated with as much respect... it's really nice... for now...

Of course, I'm American, and I know that once the "Newness" of his politeness wears off, it's going to drive me crazy...

For now, however, it's really cool :D

---I think I'm Me, but... (I might be wrong)