Kyūdō

BEST Teens Story - 18 October 2024

When I was a child, I would always watch certain Disney movies repeatedly as I have gained an infinite amount of interest and curiosity. One of the Disney movies I watched was titled “Brave”, and the main character, Merida, was someone whom I admired due to her strong personality and confident stature. However, that was not the only thing I was attracted to in the movie; I was also allured to archery. I have always thought that it was astonishing as to how Merida carried herself confidently and always believed in herself whenever she held a bow and arrow. From then on, I delve into the knowledge of archery. 

Archery doesn't just exist in a single country, but many other countries too, including one of my must-go-to countries, Japan. It appears that Japan has a type of archery called kyūdō (Japanese: 弓道)—people who does kyūdō is called yumihiki (弓引き); the bow, which is made of bamboo, wood and leather, is called yumi (弓); and the bow, which is also traditionally made of bamboo, is called ya (矢). Learning from it, I found out that there is more than meets the eye when it comes to kyūdō. As most people know, Japanese people are very down to earth and have created theories of the human spirit, and they connected kyūdō with such theories. 

Yumihiki revealed that the supreme goal of kyūdō is the state of shin-zen-bi (真善美), roughly "truth-goodness-beauty", which can be approximated as: when archers shoot correctly (i.e. truthfully) with virtuous spirit and attitude toward all persons and all things which relate to kyūdō (i.e. with goodness), beautiful shooting is realized naturally. It also seemed that kyūdō greatly implied moral and spiritual development. I didn't know that such a sport could have such beautiful meaning and expression.

To give oneself completely to the shooting is the spiritual goal, achieved by perfection of both the spirit and shooting technique leading to munen musō (無念無想), "no thoughts, no illusions". This shows that devotees of kyūdō have several purposes to accomplish. From my point of view, kyūdō doesn't just show how incredible archery could be, but it also shows what human nature is like. Every calm breath people take; every focus they show; every attempt to accomplish something—it shows in kyūdō. 

As I tried kyūdō for the first time, the instructors made me wear a three-fingered glove called yugake (弽) on my dominant hand (or the hand that will pull back the bowstring). With my bare left hand, I could only relish the feeling of my fingertips running down the structure of the yumi and felt every single ridge on it. I also felt the thin, yet firm material of the bowstring, which would prop the arrow. I love that feeling. It feels like the tall structure of the yumi could touch the sky as to how tall it was; the arc of the yumi seems elegant and durable; and the bowstring was somehow both elastic and sturdy.

When I focused on the target, I used a technique called half-moon, where I aligned the yumi to the middle of the target from my field of vision and closed my non-dominant eye, which happened or be my right eye, while I peered through my left eye from the left side of the yumi. I stabilized my breathing and synchronized it with my heartbeat before reaching a trance of tranquility. As I pulled the bowstring (with difficulty) and released it, I heard tsurune (ツルネ), a sound made when the bowstring hits the yumi when shooting a ya. Hearing it never failed to ignite this unknown sense of passion and exhilaration in my heart. As the bowstring vibrated shortly as it was pulled back, I could see the ya swish right to the target.

With a sharp thwack, the ya landed on the target, though not perfectly in the middle. However, all I could feel was a calm state of mind. Kyūdō is an unpopular and underrated sport that I deeply feel rooted to, and for that, I didn't regret emerging into it.

Gwyneth Kezya Atmodjo - SMAK BPK PENABUR Kota Wisata

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