To be completely honest, I was not sure what to expect. I did not have very high hopes, until I quickly discovered that my horrible handwriting skills did not affect my shodou, as the characters are too large for it to matter.
Youtube videos don’t do justice to how beautiful and difficult shodou can be.
As soon as I attempted the very first line, I realized just how difficult it was.
Sensei made it look very easy, because she is an experienced shodou veteran.
Surprisingly, my skills quickly improved.
After a little practice, I tried to write a poem, but it proved too advanced for my skills; I quickly ran out of space on the page. There is a surprising amount of planning required. You have to visualize each stroke and its size, else your drawing will look lopsided or you will quickly run out of space.
At first, I found maneuvering the ofude to be extremely difficult, but after some practice, I quickly became–less terrible.
For me, the most interesting “script” is semi-cursive. I feel it strikes a good balance between artistic and actually legible. The part I disliked the most was that the table was not at the right height for shodou; my arms had to be cocked at an awkward angle.
Other than that, I had an extremely enjoyable experience. By far, the best part of the whole experience was that we got to keep all of our shodou equipment! I am very much looking forward to attempting shodou on my own.
