Kyudo Demo at San Mateo Nippon Gakuyen (contributed by Maria Peterson)
San Mateo Group
On Saturday July 10, Jon McAllister and I joined together with Seishinkan members Miho Oyasu, Eric Kong, Sakura Nakahara and Jin Tomshine to give a demo for the San Mateo Nippon Gakuyen. This school was founded in 1919, and serves to teach Japanese language and Japanese culture to students from age 5 through high school. It is co-located with the Buddhist Temple in San Mateo. Miho was invited to do the demo by one of the teachers of the school, from whom Miho takes caligraphy lessons. We all met at 10am Saturday morning to prepare our equipment, set up 3 makiwara with a net, and lay out plastic on the parking lot to serve as our floor. As we did setup, the children were inside enjoying their last day of summer school classes. Part of their last day involved making paper wishes and tanabata trees. As they came outside to watch the demo, they brought out all of their hand-made creations, so we had quite the colorful backdrop for our kyudo demo. I led the kyudo group in opening Rei, then Miho explained, in both Japanese and in English, about the essence of kyudo in terms that kids could understand. Eric, Sakura and Jin performed test style shooting, then Jon, Miho and I performed Mochi Mato Sharei. After this, Miho led a Q&A session, with Eric, Sakura and Jin doing free practice in the background. To conclude the demo, I led 13 volunteer kids in a gomi yumi practice, then led the closing Rei. It was a short, 45 minute demo, and I think the photos show that everyone had a lot of fun. Thanks to Ayami for taking all the photos. 
