In yesterday's "Colorful Ladies' Wardrobe" post we looked at some of the young ladies preparing for their turn at traditional Japanese archery at the rite-of-passage event described in "Total Discipline: Anatomy of a Japanese Archer's Shot". Before and after their turn they were as lively as you'd expect a bunch of twenty-year-old girls to be, but on the shooting platform they were all business, every bit worthy to appear along the likes of the guy seen in "More Badass Japanese Archery".

I'd been disappointed early on when I was driven out by the ridiculous crowds just before the ladies started, [...]

My recent coverage of the traditional Japanese Archery event described last week in "Total Discipline: Anatomy of a Japanese Archer’s Shot" has so far covered mostly the guys (such as with the previous post, "More Badass Japanese Archery"), but there were about as many gals as guys.

Most of the time I was at the event was while the guys were shooting, so when I was out and about in the greater temple area, the women were in preparation mode. They were plentiful and very, very colorful.

The guy's wardrobe was pretty standard across the 1,000 who participated, and was [...]

During the Japanese-Archery event last week that I've been posting about, after the 2,000+ young adults did their thing, a few dozen instructors also got to shoot. I don't know how they were chosen to participate... perhaps it's only the instructors of the kids who hit the target?

Anyway, as last week's "Total Discipline: Anatomy of a Japanese Archer's Shot" describes, the goal is not simply to hit the target, but in mental and physical perfection with each step, akin to how the whole tea-ceremony thing not really being about having something to drink.

So, while on the shooting [...]

Continuing with the rite-of-passage Japanese-archery event I've been posting about (第62回 三十三間堂大的全国大会) , after being driven out by the oppressive crowds at the shooting range, I spent some time with the more-manageable crowds in the greater temple compound.

I took the three shots above before having ventured into the scrum at the shooting range, but after coming out I broke out the Nikkor 300mm f/2 lens for some experimentation. (With its all-manual 7kg ultra-thin depth-of-field, any use on my part is "experimentation".)

The entire eastern side of the temple property is a 500-foot-long covered-and-columned walkway in brilliant vermilion, so it [...]

I went to the tooshiya archery event for the first time, held annually at the Sanjusangendo Temple in Kyoto today. The official name of the event is 「第62回 三十三間堂大的全国大会」. Mostly it's for ranked archers who have turned 20 years old this past year (and there were 2,132 that took part today), but this was one of a couple dozen instructors who got to shoot, and who ended up placing.

Having hauled a massive lens around all day, I got home to find that I was more exhausted than I ever recall. After an hour's power nap and a hot bath, [...]