First of all, kyudo is not Zen, it is not a form of meditation, and, contrary to popular belief, hitting the target is of vital importance, since correct accuracy is proof that the archer has understood what it is he is doing. For example, the motto of the Heki To Ryu, a traditional school of kyudo that dates back to the late 1500s, is “Chu, Kan, Kyu”, or “Strike, Pierce, Forever”, meaning that the goal of kyudo is to strike the target and pierce it, and that these two goals should always be achieved.

Having said that, achieving this requires instense practice and dedication, and a profound understanding of how the mind and spirit function in the process of shooting a bow. This is where the real spiritual training of kyudo takes place. Kyudo does indeed have a deep spiritual dimension and a great deal of intense soul (and gut) searching on the part of the archer is required. It is just not Zen meditatuon, that’s all.

The myth that kyudo is a form of Zen meditation where practical skill is irrelevant is the result of a misunderstanding of the book “Zen in the Art of Archery”, which was itself a misunderstanding of kyudo on the part of its author, Eugen Herrigel. Herrigel was a self-described mystic who went to Japan to search for Zen. He learned kyudo (for 3 years, not 6) from a famous and highly skilled, yet extremely idiosyncratic, teacher named Awa Kenzo, who had created a religious cult based upon his personal understanding of kyudo. Herrigel, who could not speak Japanese, misunderstood Awa’s cryptic and abstruse teaching style and mistook Awa’s archery for Zen.

How this myth came to be propagated is explained in the recently-published book “Shots in the Dark: Japan, Zen, and the West” (University of Chicago Press), by Professor Yamada Shoji of the International Research Center for Japanese Studies in Kyoto. I was privileged to translate this important book. Everyone who is interested in how and why the “Japanese culture and Zen are one and the same thing” meme got started should read it.

For a good overview of real Japanese archery, I recommend “Kyudo: The Essence and Practice of Japanese Archery” by Onuma and DeProspero.

Finally, the archers in the video are not shooting at targets, they are shooting at practice targets called “makiwara”. The actual targets in kyudo are shot at from a distance of roughly 30 yards.

As someone commented upthread, Shibata Kanjuro teaches a niche style, his personal version of a school called the Heki Ryu Chikurin-ha (there are other branches of this school still extant in Japan that do things quite differently). There are many traditional schools that still exist in Japan, but most kyudo in Japan nowadays is practiced under the auspices of the All Nippon Kyudo Federation, and there are many groups in the US that shoot according to the ANKF style. Those who are interested should go to http://www.kyudo.com/akr.html and see if there is an organization in their area.

First, the journalism. I appreciate that there aren’t many kyudo practitioners, but there are more than “15 small groups.” There are about 15 small groups of Shibata Sensei’s students in the US, and more in Europe. You can find out more about Sensei’s students at Zenko International, (http://zenko.org), Sensei’s international organization.

The links posted on “The World’s” website are from wonderful Kyudo organizations who are not affiliated with Zenko.

As a long-time student, I think that what we encourage is more a total immersion in the shot, rather than a detachment. What you get detached from is your ordinary, conventional, yada yada yada. In detaching from that, you open to precision and gentleness.

I’m not a huge Herrigel fan – he’s so overwrought. But then again, he was there and I wasn’t.

Thank you for this article!