The Nanka Kyudo Kai makes it's home base at the PJCI - Pasadena Japanese Cultural Institute.

Yumi no Michi

PJCI 2015 Bazaar - Nanka Kyudo Kai - Japanese Archery Ceremony

2015 Pasadena Obon Video

2015 Pasadena Obon

Kyudo: Japanese Archery Documentary Short

Nanka Kyudo Kai - Pasadena Dojo

Rick Beal kyudo

We've been shooting at the El Dorado Dojo quite often on Sunday mornings.

A few years ago we performed several ceremonies to inaugurate the El Dorado Dojo. This was not the first time kyudo has been done at the archery facility, The Los Angeles Kyudo Kai, before the archery range was built at Rancho Park, used to shoot at El Dorado Park every Sunday morning.

While Rancho Park is being renovated, I have returned to this early home of the Los Angeles Kyudo Kai to practice at the El Dorado Park once again.

What I really enjoyed about the last few practice is that my best shots, those with the longer kai and straight nobiai, fly into the target; those that are too short of a kai or nobiai is off do not. This is different than a few years ago when only my short kai periods would hit. With the more proper shots hitting, it brings a wonderful positive reinforcement to continue with a nice kai and polish the nobiai more and more.

Los Angeles Kyudo Kai

Kyudo came to the United States from Japan in the early years of the twentieth century, reaching Los Angeles as early as 1908 with scattered individuals practicing around the city and the beginnings of a group called the Rafu (the local Japanese pronunciation of “L.A.”) Kyudo Kai. As early as 1916, Mr. Suda Chokei had founded the Los Angeles Kyudo Kai, and the group practiced together regularly. From 1920 to 1928, Mr. Miwa Tanechiko taught the Heike style of archery. Students met at a dojo located on what was then Jackson Street in Little Tokyo, near the intersection of San Pedro and First Streets. A second dojo was located in Boyle Heights on St. Louis Street, near Hollenbeck Park. Vintage photographs and a collection of artifacts from the first dojo survive to this day. World War II caused a grave and decades-long disruption in the practice of kyudo in Los Angeles. Because kyudo was considered a martial art, bows and arrows used by practitioners were seized as weapons by the federal government, and those that escaped confiscation were either burned or buried by their fearful owners. The Jackson Street martial arts center was closed and eventually demolished, and for the duration of the war, Japanese-Americans were relocated to internment camps. After the war, individuals resumed their practice in isolation without the help and support of an instructor, and there was no official kyudo dojo in Los Angeles for over thirty years. In 1973, Rev. Koen Mishima arrived in Los Angeles from Japan to minister at the Higashi Honganji Buddhist Temple. He practiced kyudo in the temple's basement by himself for a long time; one day, he was photographed as he was practicing. Iwao Iwata saw that photograph displayed at an exhibition, and he became Mishima-sensei's first student. Eventually the two of them were joined by Rev. Hirokazu Kosaka (a priest from a neighboring temple), Rev. Kiyomaru Mishima (Mishima-sensei's younger brother), and an American man named Mike Stanley. By 1976, Mishima-sensei and Kosaka-sensei officially reinstated the old Los Angeles Kyudo Kai, and weekly taught a growing number of students in a variety of locations: from 1973–1978, at the Higashi Honganji Temple; from 1978–1981 in the basement of Koyasan Temple in Little Tokyo; from 1982–1992, in the beautiful wood-paneled church hall of the Nichiren Temple in East Los Angeles, at the corner of Fourth Street and Saratoga; from 1993–1999, in the Rafu Chuo Gakuen Community Hall on Saratoga. From 2000 to the present, the Los Angeles Kyudo Kai has met with the Nanka Kyudo Kai at the Pasadena Japanese Cultural Institute. In 1996 The Nanka Kyudo Kai was formed by Rick Beal with permission from Kosaka-sensei to represent the growth of their group beyond Los Angeles to include all of Southern California. Nanka is the word used by the local Japanese Community to mean "Southern California." Today kyudo is represented in Southern California by a few groups, some formed by previous students of Sensei Rick Beal of the Nanka Kyudo Kai, Rick Sensei himself, and of course Hirokazu Kosaka Sensei of the Los Angeles Kyudo Kai continues to honor those that first brought the bow to the area.

Kyudo: Japanese Archery Documentary Short

Nanka Kyudo Kai - Pasadena Dojo

Rick Beal giving a Kyudo intro to Chris Lee at the 2013 Asian Archery Ex...

The Nanka Kyudo Kai

In 1996, the same year we formed the UCI Kyudo Club, Kosaka Sensei had been asked by his long time kyudo sempai to align the Los Angeles Kyudo Kai with an old school of kyudo called Muyoshingetsu-ryu.

In this same year the kyudo groups in The U.S. were forming the American Kyudo Renmei. Though Kosaka Sensei was going to Muyoshingetsu-ryu (we had learned this form and I had been authorized, in fact, pressured, to teach kyudo in this way) I really felt that kyudo was best taught (especially in the beginning) according to the method I had learned at the ANKF/Kyudo USA seminars. Kosaka Sensei and I discussed it; we agreed that Muyoshingetsu-ryu would not be for everyone, and that the ANKF method was needed in Southern California.

The AKR was going to have one Renmei per state, but I really needed to have control of how Southern California was to be run if I was both going to honor Kosaka Sensei, and his wishes, but teach according to ANKF guidelines; so I insisted that we have two in California; it was agreed that our group in Southern California, with its long history, would be 'grandfathered in' as a separate Renmei.

I went to Kosaka Sensei for a name. He named me and my group The Nanka Kyudo Kai. Nanka is the local abbreviation for Southern California. This was to reflect the teaching I was doing at 5 dojo throughout the area (Southbay, East L.A., San Diego, UCI, and West L.A.).

Today I only teach at my one dojo in Pasadena California. Kosaka Sensei kept his Southbay School as Muyoshingetsu-ryu. I've always allowed the other schools to attend my East L.A. dojo (now in Pasadena), but today everyone follows the ANKF form; San Diego was originally Ogasawara-ryu (since I began it before I had studied ANKF) but today Curran Sensei runs it as an ANKF dojo; UCI was my original ANKF only dojo (so it is still run that way); and the West L.A. range has always been, and remains, for all schools to gather there.

Today the other dojo are run by others, and my Nanka is just the dojo in Pasadena and the open practice we host at Rancho Park in West L.A.. We still practice according to the ANKF guidelines in Pasadena; and allow all kyudo-ka form all schools, styles, and renmei to join us at our Sunday practice at Rancho Park.

Please come join us if you are in L.A.

Kyudo, for me, is based on the teachings handed down to me by my teacher. There are several principles in the teachings that effect me in a particularly strong way.

One of these principles is change. This change is shown in our training as we adapt the movement of shooting; we are both moving and standing still at once... growing up inside while we expand the with the bow until the arrow flies; I love this.

Another is the principle of the asymmetrical balance. The idea that everything counts, but not equally. It works on a 70/30 rule of ratio's that seems to apply to so many things in my life that it amazes me. Then with the 'change' principle applied the ratio changes from moment to moment making life fresh and challenging all the time. There is also a natural ratio of 60/40 that without our interference appears in many aspects of kyudo; The bow for instance is asymmetrical with 60% to the heavens and 40% to the earth, this natural ratio seems to be appearing more and more in my life.

Of course all this is discovered from the quiet meditative mind we develop.
As we meditate we recognize our mortality. Then, although we embrace change, and our inevitable death, we use this recognition as motivation to live life to the fullest... every moment of every day... laughing and smiling.

What a wonderful life we develop when we stand quietly and learn from the japanese bow and arrow...

Teaching

When Kosaka Sensei said, 'Rick carries my legacy,' he actually said Rick, and others, carries my legacy. Since this was the first time I'd heard him utter such a statement, I wondered who the 'others' were. I'm fairly certain though that the 'others' refers to Nobuyo Okuda and Robert Williams.

When I first started to help Kosaka Sensei teach the classes, Nobuyo and Robert were among my first two. Robert was extremely talented and seemed like an enlightened Guru to me already, I even wondered why he came, did he really need this training?

Nobuyo too, was already a tea teacher. Nobuyo wanted to live here in the U.S. so she gave up the Iemoto (inheritor) position of her families practice in favor of her sister.

I think that to have me start teaching with these two was almost a joke among the 'real' Sensei.

They asked me to teach Nobuyo how to 'walk'. This was our basic instruction in walking, sitting, kneeling, and bowing that was my main practice when I started with the Los Angeles Kyudo Kai. I was so pleased and proud that they asked me to teach someone. I walked up (with my nose in the air) and said, 'follow me' and had her copy my movements as I had copied the Sensei who taught me. But as I watched Nobuyo-san from the corner of my eye, I quickly realized that she was already better than I was. I lead her through the movements a few time and said, 'ok, she knows it.. now what do you want me to do?' I think they sent me to make tea.

After I was 'stamped' Nobuyo-san began to call me Sensei (even though we had agreed years before that there was only one Sensei in our school, and that was Kosaka Sensei); but I insisted on calling her Sempai (senior) too. So although the Sensei' teased me by having me try and teach those already beyond me, we now tease eachother with such phrases as Sensei and Sempai too.

Rancho Park

Our dojo is a makiwara dojo, where we shoot only a 'bows length' away from the straw bale (called a makiwara). So for standard distance shooting of 28 meters we go to 'Rancho Park' (though actually we shoot just a bit short of 28 meters at Rancho Park; we shoot at 25 meters due to the design of the range).

I remember my first time there. We were all shooting 20 arrows and keeping track of our hits and misses. I did very poorly with only one hit near the end of the day, and I almost shot Mishima Sensei who was standing behind me! and I almost shot one completely out of the range as it bent and curved upward and sailed away.

Kiomaru Sensei hit almost all of his, and Kosaka Sensei faired very well too. The only saving grace was that Mishima Sensei also only hit one, just like me. He didn't seem to mind. I think he did it just to keep me company. But as we were beginning to clean up he said, "I think I'll shoot just one more." He proceeded to shoot the smoothest easiest straightest shot I'd ever seen right into the center of the target, and he didn't seem to mind that either.

American Zen Archery (post 1)

I call this American Zen Archery because I am an American both trained in japanese archery and also trained in zen meditation.