Handmade Samurai Armor Underway

1/6/2016

Today we had our first workshop of the year making Samurai Armor from scratch. In three months we will complete the project and march in the Shingenko Festival in Yamanashi.

Watanabe-San and his three expert assistants gave us on the spot instruction and advice on how to measure, cut, and punch the armor plates. Great focus and concentration as each person works at the craft.

In the background we listened to an audio book on Samurai history. The stories bring it to life.

Six hours went by in a flash, with many, many more holes to punch and cords to thread.

1 Comment

Lorena M link

11/24/2023 12:20:58 pm

Nice blog

A poem is born, or reborn?

A piece of calligraphy comes to life. Short version.

May 1987?
My teacher Morioka Koshu paints a Tehon for our monthly Shodo magazine in the Sogeikai in the 1980s, and of course I have kept them all as a treasure.

Feb 2017
30 years later I meet Rogier Uitenboogaart in the mountains of Kochi at Yusuhara, where he himself has been making Japanese Washi paper by hand for 30 years!

April 2017
Almost exactly 30 years after I first saw the Tehon shown here, my friend Iwamoto-san at iWeave kindly presents me with the work I painted in February, wonderfully mounted on a scroll, which now hangs in my office.

Here is my translation of the the Chinese poem:

Laughing in the Spring breeze
The dancer swirls in veils of silk.
This is the time to drink up!
How can you leave now,
When we have hardly begun?

I am not sure who wrote the original Chinese poem, but I have an idea that it was 白居易 Bai_Juyi, a Tang Dynasty poet from about 1200 years ago.

A poem is born, and reborn across time and many communication platforms.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bai_Juyi

Author

William Reed is a full time professor at iCLA (International College of Liberal Arts) Yamanashi Gakuin University in Kofu City, Yamanashi Prefecture, Japan. He is a 7th-dan in Aikido, and a Shihan in both Shodo and Nanba Jutsu. He teaches these arts at iCLA, in addition to a course on Spiritual Dimensions and Traditions in the Japanese Martial Arts. Detailed Profile on the About Page.