“You make it look so easy,” said a student at a recent workshop after I demonstrated how to brush the eight basic strokes. “It is,” I replied. After the demonstration I stopped by her table to check her work. She shook her head. “It’s really hard. It looks a lot easier when you do it.” “Oh, that’s easy!”, said a 7 year old kid when I demonstrated how to make banana spring … [Read more...] about It’s so easy
Shodo
Shodo is a way to transmit and expose our inner spirit through brush and ink.
Are you ready to start selling your work?
I remember the first calligraphy I ever sold. It was for a friend at the dojo I trained at the time. I brushed a scroll of Ichi Go Ichi E for the dojo’s Kamiza (front wall) and I did a bunch of other works and gifted them to other students. I hadn’t met Maki Sensei yet. My calligraphy was raw; it had good energy, but characters were poorly composed and there was a lot of … [Read more...] about Are you ready to start selling your work?
Make Shodo a Mindful Practice
As I dig deeper into the management and business world with my graduate studies, (oh yeah, didn’t I tell you I’m going to grad school? I just felt like I had too much time in my hands and needed something more challenging to do!) I keep finding the topic of mindfulness thrown out a lot here and there. Mindfulness is a movement in the business world. Managers and leaders are … [Read more...] about Make Shodo a Mindful Practice
The Seminar Experience
Aikido seminars are a lot of fun. It is a very exhausting yet energizing way to spend an entire weekend doing nothing but training. They are hours of techniques, food, drinks, very little sleep, and back on the mat. Rinse and repeat for three days. The amount of information absorbed at a seminar can be limited though. The amount of techniques, exercises, kata, etc. covered in … [Read more...] about The Seminar Experience
Personal Expression
The difference between Shuji (習字 penmanship) and Shodo (書道 calligraphy) is that the latter focuses more on self expression than technicality. The best calligraphies are not the ones that are technically superior, but the ones where the spirit of the artist is felt in every stroke. I have to emphasize that mastery of the fundamentals is necessary before experimenting with any … [Read more...] about Personal Expression