Hi everyone! I'm planning to start with Kyudo in about 2 months as a complete beginner.

Since I have some time left, I wonder if there is something I can do to prepare before my first class?

My name is Felipe, I'm 31 years old, and I'm Brazilian. The nearest kyudo dojo is an hour and a half away from my home, with Sunday training sessions. I already practice kendo and iaido. Additionally, I am a philosophy teacher, focusing on research in philosophy of art and ADHD. What tips do you have for me to start?

Note: I don't intend to abandon kendo and iaido

Hello everyone, I just wanted to know if there were any Kyudo equipment shops that sell uniforms and/or practice Yumi in Taiwan?

A friend of mine is traveling there in March and I was hoping that they had equipment in Taiwan that are equal to the shops in Japan. preferably shops that you could walk into that have equipment on the shelves for sale.

We were at the Florda National Cemetery among family and friends, reflecting about our loved one who lived a life of training, teaching, love and great patience. I will forever be grateful for your wisdom and kindness.

Thank you Garrasi, Sensei

Hi, I had just started practicing kyudo. I have a gomuyumi and we have loaner bows at the dojo. However I would like to practice at home more realistically before I get my own yumi. Where can I buy a yumitarou in the US?

Thanks in advance!

It's all of a sudden happened, even when I use my gomi yumi. The gomi yumi string hits my face, while the bow string catches my ear upon release...every time. It's painful and scary, so much that instinctively, I'm no longer doing full draw or doing other strange adjustments to try to prevent an injury. I'm looking to know who has experienced this before and what are some corrections you've implemented that prevented further injury?

I was doing dry exercises to properly draw the bow and the string slipped out of my hand. The Bow Inverted itself. Will my bow be okay?

I'm looking into possibly buying/making a gomuyumi to practice at home since I have low cielings and (as of now) no makiwara. I want to use it mainly for 2 things, 1 is practicing my draw into kai keeping my wrist relaxed and 2 is yugaeri practice. Is it possible to get yugaeri with a gomuyumi or is it something unique to the full size yumi? I was able to semi consistantly achieve yugaeri on a 15k bow before moving up in draw weight to an 18k. The new bow has a different grip padding and with the added weight im having to relearn my tenouchi and holding kai for long periods gets pretty tiring.

Hello Everyone,

So I might be going to Japan for a few years, and I would like to continue my training there.

Does anyone know of a website or place I can go to find all the kyudo dojos in Japan or in certain areas?

I attended a workshop with Shibata-San in Kyoto where we built a 35KG yumi. I have one tsuru on it but it’s used and I am worried About it breaking soon. I am wondering where to find tsuru strong enough to suit the yumi. Can anyone link a website where I can order online? Thank you

As the title states, I'm interested in learning Kyūdō even though there's nowhere near me that teaches it. I've been in a kendo/kenjutsu school for around 8 years, and have also been learning Naginata with another instructor for the past 6 months.

I've always loved archery, and have been interested in Kyudo forever, but haven't been able to find any place that teaches it nearby. I've recently given thought to selling my old competition compound bow to fund a Yumi, but that doesn't help with almost any other aspect.

First off, I don't have enough land to practice anything beyond about 10m distance, and even then, I'd be worried about doing archery in a suburban neighborhood.

Second, even though I've found a few places somewhat local that make Yumi, I haven't found anywhere that makes arrows for Kyudo at the length I would need (around 42-45")

And finally, I don't know enough Japanese to buy a Kyudo Kyohon unless it came translated in English already, and I'm not the best book only learner.

Any advice or recommendations would be much appreciated!

In series of silly beginner questions; I've just recently started Kyudo and so far I've been practicing with gomuyumi. Upon the release, it is touching my cheek and as a result, hits my cheek after the release.

Is this normal or am I doing something wrong? I am able to alter my form and avoid this, but I am not sure if I should.

Hello,

I'm new to kyudo and was looking for ways to practice more. However, the kyudo club near me is only open once a week. I was thinking if it is possible to practice kyudo in a western archery range? Would that be okay? I believe the target on western archery is a lot higher than the mato. That isbwhy I'm not sure it would be okay or not? The distance I could practice in is 20 meters in the western archery range.

Thank you.

Hello everyone! I want to change my nigirikawa and take advantage to thicken it. I am using black rubber pieces, but they are not thick enough for my hands. What could I use in order to thicken the nigiri while still being able to glue it using PVA glue? Should I add something under the rubber or on top of it? Is there any online tutorial that shows how to do this? Thank you all!

So, my main instructor and I have realized that my arms are 猿腕 (monkey arm) and so my elbows point down instead of out when I am at full draw. He's been helping me develop a way of holding the bow so that the string doesn't hit the inside of my arm during release (it hasn't happened yet). However, last Friday at our usual practice there was an older guy there who everyone knew but I hadn't met before. Apparently he teaches at another dojo not too far away.

When my teacher told him I have 猿腕, the old guy insisted that it was fixable and had me pushing against a wall all night trying to fix my elbow and shoulder. It hurt like crazy and felt like my tendon was going to snap. Had pain in it for two days after practice. My instructor seems to think that it'd be best for me to just do it the way we've been working on but this old guy (with a higher ranking) was being very pushy about it being fixable. Does anyone have any experience with this? If it's fixable, I'd like to try and fix it maybe on my own time, but if it's not I'm just going to ignore the old guy and hope he doesn't come back. I could get my arm to bend the right way, but to do so I had to push my shoulder forward so far that it felt dangerous. I'm a newbie, so there's still a lot I don't know and I'm still working on my form and everything.

To make things worse he brought over a Jr. High School girl and had her stand in front of me and do it and then said (loud enough for everyone to hear) "If a jr. high girl can do it, you can too!" which just had this awful amount of sexism, close-mindedness, and anger built in and it had me angry for the rest of the night.

EDIT: this was in Japan. I feel like my main instructor was wanting to say something while he could tell I was in pain, but I think the whole culture of not questioning your superiors was holding him back from it. After practice he told me not to think about it too much right now.

Most of what I've seen is at least 200$ for a set of 6 arrows, but I feel like they could be made for much less money. Does anyone have experience with making your own ya?

Hello, is anyone familiar with good sites to purchase Yugake, Gomu-Yumi, and other equipment in the US?

I’m familiar with international sites like Tozando and Sambu Kyuguten. But I was hoping there was a chance that a more local supplier like Mazkiya (Albeit, they’ll be halting production on Kyudo equipment soon) would have anything available for purchase.

Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

I wanted to ask if anyone has any experience or opinion on substituting giriko with other rosin material?

As I understand giriko is just powdered pine rosin, I also play the cello so I have a solid block of rosin called colophony which is also made out of pine rosin.

You rub it against the hairs of your cello bow to leave a residue to increase the friction between bow hair and string - so pretty much why you use giriko on your Yugake (to increase the friction between the contact point of middle finger and thumb). As such I'm wondering if I could just file of some rosin of my colophony to use it on my glove, or even just use the whole block how I use it on my bow and rub it against the thumb and middle finger tips.

Unless there is some special property only Japanese pine rosin has I'm not aware of.

Hey Everyone, So I am a somewhat chubbier man and I have an issue with the bowstring hitting my chest when I release. It can be quite painful and leaves purple bruises all over one side. My Sensai has said I can wear one of the female chest protectors, but I also don't want to be the only guy there wearing one.

What should I do?

Hello,

I have been part of the sport for a few years now and am thinking about getting a personal bow.

I am am of a sturdy build 1,91m so far as I am aware of I would look into a Yon Sun Nobi, and have been practising usually with 13-15kg and I feel guilty for wanting 18 or 20kg.

Is there anything else I should worry about besides scratched pride?

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with kind regards.

So I’ve been learning kyudo at my local dojo for about a month now. I just reached the stage where I’m starting to practice shooting towards the actual target and not the straw roll. Since I do live in Japan, the instructions I receive are all in Japanese and while I understand about 90% of what’s been said, I want to do some personal research to increase my knowledge. I’m enjoying the sport and plan to continue for as long as I’m here. Is there a good website with resources and terminology?

Does anyone know a really good, foreigner-friendly place to learn Kyudo from scratch within Shimane?

Hii gais I have decided to purchase my own kake after several months of practice in kyudo. However now I am unsure which kake to buy..... As I'm practicing heki ryu insai ha, from my research, Asaarashi kake is a good choice as it is recommended by Matsuo sensei from Tsukuba University. But my friend recommend me to buy the Shiho kake from Koyama as he said it is comfortable to use....

Can someone give me some suggestions on this, thxxxx :-)

Hello,

A friend archer of mine wants to get a Yumi since he wants to try out Kyudo, and has asked me to get one for him.

In order to get him a proper bow, how can I measure the draw length of the bow he needs?

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He will probably just shoot some arrows imitating the sport and then return to his regular shooting, so, to prevent that, I'd like to get him some resources or guides on how to practice Kyudo since we don't have any club near. Do You have any? If in Spanish the better, if not I will translate them personally for him.

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As another question, what would be a good beginner draw weight? He usually shoots 30lbs measured at 28 inches, should he get 30lbs at whatever the draw length he has or a bit lower?

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Is the glove You use absolutely mandatory?, or can be reasonably substituted by a thumb ring or a thumb glove, even if not traditional?

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Any other thing I should keep in mind?

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Thank You very much!

Hello all! I will be traveling to Japan this summer and I plan on purchasing my first time while there. I plan to go to Koyama Kyugu, the one near Taito City. I also plan on shipping my bow along with a few others from my local Renmei who also wanted bows to save on shipping costs. How would I go about doing this? Should I just ask Koyama to ship the bows together when I go there and get mine? I was told that was a possibility. Or should I ship then myself? I was looking at Yamato shipping, but I can't seem to find whether they ship yumi or not. Does anyone have any guidance? Taking the Yumi on the plane back home is not an option, I will be traveling to Singapore after a few weeks in Japan, and do not want to risk any damage. Thank you!

Hello everybody. I started doing kyudo one month ago. And I have a problem, when I'm trying to stretch the bow in the stage of Daisan, I can't straighten my left arm with the bow. Is it because of I'm weak and I need a more light bow or I do smth wrong? Thank you in advance!

Hello! Self-Taught thumb archer here. I’ve never had the chance or place to practice this particular style of archery.

I did recently find a kyudo society where I’m at. I may hit them up, I’ve known that this style is hyper specific with equipment.

My question for y’all; has anyone here tried taking kyudo to tournaments outside of kyudo specific events? If so; how have you done? What difficulties did you encounter?

The reason I ask is because when I do start to get lessons in this style; I’m going to to use it practically; which means I may not be able to follow every step. While I’m at local traditional archery events.

I just got my shodan recently and I heard there is a minimum required months before testing for nidan. Can anyone clarify the rules?