Kyudo

[Gregster]

There's been a few threads on this forum about swordsmanship. I'd like to offer another...kyudo (Japanese archery).

I've been training for just over a year now, and I love it. It's far less aggressive than some of the other arts (a little more like aikido in that respect, perhaps). I hate kiai-ing, so that's another nice aspect for me. It's highly technical - the smallest error in technique will throw off your aim - and demands intense concentration (while paradoxically also requiring that you empty your mind while shooting...go figure! )

If you haven't tried it, I thoroughly recommend you check out kyudo, because it's hard to explain how much satisfaction you can get from hitting a small target with an arrow!

Are there any other kyudoka amongst the listeners?

[Yoshiko]

No, I don't practice kyudo (i'd like to). But I do kyokushinkai karate. Why don't you like kiai? I didn't like it when i started karate 7 years ago, but that was because I was embarassed or something like that.
Now I see it is very useful for controlling your breath. Ibuki seems even worse. It sounds awful, especially when you're not good at it. Now I'm used to it. (kind of...

But there is one thing that is really annoying me: the way they say 'osu'. In Holland everybody (as far as i know) says 'ush'. It's almost like 'ushi' which means 'cow'.
And they're ush-ing all the time during training.