Daito Ryu Muden Juku Dublin

Exploring the Roots of Daito-ryu (Part 5): Aizubange - Birthplace of Takeda Sokaku 毎週日曜日17:00より、高田馬場にて稽古しております。Training every Sunday from 5:00 PM in Takadanobaba, Tokyo.Homepagehttps://koshinkai.tokyo/Instagramhttps://www.instagram.com/dait...

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Of all the designs in origami, none is more instantly recognised than the "orizuru", the Japanese paper crane. It is a remarkable object in its own right, but it is also remarkable for what it tells us about the history of origami, because it appears in the historical record long before almost any other representational fold.

The earliest known evidence for the paper crane comes from the samurai.

In fact, the orizuru first appears on a "kozuka" - the small decorative handle of a knife fitted to a Japanese sword, which, according to an article in the Asahi Shimbun Digital of February 2017, can now be dated to 1591–1593.

From 1700 onwards, the crane appears again and again in the visual culture of Edo-period Japan. It shows up first as a motif on a kimono, in pattern books such as the Tokiwa Hinagata (1700), the Tanzen Hinagata (1704) and Nishikawa Sukenobu's Hinagata Miyako Fuzoku (1716).

It then begins to appear in woodblock prints as an object being handled, folded, or inflated by the people in the scene. In the picture book Keisei Ori Tsuru of 1717, for instance, a child at a terakoya school writes a poem on the wing of a paper crane, and elsewhere figures look up at cranes flying overhead, and a woman rides upon a giant one.

In a print from Sukenobu's Onna fuhzoku tama kagami of 1732, a woman holds a crane to her lips and blows into it.. Prints by Suzuki Harunobu from the late 1760s show women folding cranes with completed ones lying on the floor beside them, and one particularly charming print in the Library of Congress, Orizuru o tsukuru shōjo ("Children folding a paper crane") by Isoda Koryūsai, dates to 1772 or 1773 and shows two young women quietly at work over their paper.

The crane was so firmly established in Japanese visual culture by the late eighteenth century that it could be used to convey social meaning at a glance.

The next great landmark in the crane's history came in 1797, with the publication in Kyoto of the Senbazuru Orikata. The title means "the folding method of one thousand cranes", although if you actually completed every design in the book, you would end up with only about 250 birds. The number 1,000 was used symbolically, reflecting the long-standing Japanese association of cranes with good fortune and long life. The book's real innovation was technical: by cutting slits into a single large square of paper, dividing it into many smaller squares that were not fully separated, a folder could produce a composition of cranes still joined to one another by a beak, a leg, or the tip of a wing. This technique, sometimes called Rokoan style, was echoed in later publications such as the Shokokumin children's magazine of 1894 and 1895, which featured connected crane designs with evocative names like Inazuma ("Lightning"), Muragumo ("Gathering Cloud") and Sugomori ("Staying in the Nest").

The origami art piece I made for Ueda Sensei is an original work I designed, based on those appearing in the Senbazuru Orikata.

I have titled this piece“Sensei” (Teacher).

This model represents Ueda Sensei as the central crane, with Elena Sensei receiving direct instruction as the second largest crane, as John and I, the small cranes, follow on Ueda Sensei's wings.

I folded the model from a single sheet of traditional Japanese washi, inlaid with gold thread. That single sheet is folded into 4 interconnected cranes. Just as Sensei weaves our thread into the history of Jodo, the thread and paper connect all the cranes.

As noted, the origami crane first appears on a samurai sword, dated to just before the foundation of Shinto Muso Ryu Jojutsu. In Japanese tradition, the crane is revered as a creature of exceptional grace and remarkable longevity, and it has long been said to live for a thousand years. Jodo for me equally represents exceptional grace and longevity, now over 400 years old. I am confident Jodo will continue for more than 1,000 years.

The Orizuru has come to carry powerful associations with good fortune, long life and faithful devotion. This symbolism lies behind the old practice of folding one thousand cranes, the senbazuru, in the belief that such an offering might grant a wish, bring healing to the sick. Equally, Jodo has brought me good fortune, hopefully a long life and requires faithful devotion as I use it as a means of preserving my health in the face of chronic illness.

Given this, the crane seemed a fitting representation of the art, of my teachers and of my lineage.

The background is made from a green panel of Irish handmade mulberry paper and traditional Japanese chiyogami paper, meaning “thousand generations paper”, as I hope that Sensei Ueda's Jodo will be passed down for a thousand generations.

The background is designed to represent the Irish flag, with the red sun of the Japanese flag in the middle, representing the coming together of our traditions.

Exploring the Roots of Daito-ryu (Part 3): Castle Etiquette 毎週日曜日17:00より、高田馬場にて稽古しております。Training every Sunday from 5:00 PM in Takadanobaba, Tokyo.Homepagehttps://koshinkai.tokyo/Instagramhttps://www.instagram.com/dait...

Following on from the recent series of posts about the Ueda Sensei Jodo Seminar, I was asked about the origami the sensei were presented with on the last day. So here is more on them. :-)

The first piece made for Elena Sensei is titled “Seikaiha”, meaning Blue Ocean Wave.

This model first appears in the very earliest technical manual of Japanese Origami, the “Hiden Senbazuru Orikata” (Secret of Folding 1000 Cranes), published in Kyoto, Japan in 1797. The original instruction for the model is reproduced in the background of the art piece.

The gently spreading waves symbolise enduring peace and harmony, and continuous progress. The overlapping arcs of the Seigaiha design evoke the vast expanse of the ocean, both tranquil and powerful, suggesting that the path of life and Jodo continues endlessly.

I folded the piece from a single sheet of traditional Japanese chiyogami paper, meaning “thousand generations paper”. I chose this as I hope the spirit of the Jodo we have been taught will continue for a thousand generations.

That single sheet is folded into nine interconnected cranes.

The origami crane has long been considered a symbol of longevity and good fortune, and its form, overlapping with the flow of the Seigaiha, conveys the meaning that individual journeys harmonise within a larger current and are passed down through generations. This work can be said to express tradition, inheritance, and strength found in tranquillity.

I chose to make this model for Elena Sensei because it is one of the most difficult and complex of the traditional forms, where great attention must be paid to every fold, just as great attention must be placed on every instruction Sensei gives us.

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Words are tools that can express essence of experience, the complexity of our feelings, the beauty of imagination, the endless ideas that shape reality, and the heart’s quiet truths...

At some point, the words have to fall away. They help in the beginning, because they point, explain, and give structure to something unclear. But they’re not the thing itself. If you hold onto them too tightly, you stay on the surface, repeating the explanationn without actually living the meaning.

Understanding isn’t memorizing the words. It’s recognizing what they were pointing to. And once you see it, once it clicks somewhere deeper, the words become less necessary, as the the idea is no longer outside of you, it's part of how (and what) you perceive.

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I’m honoured to host an upcoming workshop with Yap Boh Heong: a master of a number of Chinese internal arts.