Luca Lucchesi, Kyudo and the Spirit: “The Way of the Bow to Know Yourself”

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“I will vibrate without almost aiming my arrow,/ if the string of my heart is not taut:/ the Zen bowmaster thus teaches me/ who has seen You for three thousand years”. Cristina Campo composed these verses in 1954 and knew Dr. Placido Procesi well, after whom the Roman Academy is named, which brings together the assiduous and reserved practitioners of the Japanese art of kyudo.

The first ones began in 1981 to practice the Way of the traditional bow, now hosted in a “dojo” in the surroundings of Nepi that these enthusiasts have built plank by plank and named Waseikan (the place of harmonious peace). The Academy was born by the will of Procesi, who died in 2005. He belonged to the rarefied species of doctors devoted to both Hippocrates and Minerva, humanist scientists who did not only scrutinize the analyses but the soul of the patients. It happened in a Rome where, before becoming accessible and often illusory, the knowledge of the East was encouraged by unrepeatable figures who were given shelter, even more than the university, by the Institute for the Middle and Giuseppe Tucci's Far East at Palazzo Brancaccio (a survivor of those formidable scholars, the Indologist Raniero Gnoli, passed away on May 5th).

Luca Lucchesi , a Roman, sixty-two years old, is among the pioneers of the Academy together with his younger brother Giorgio who is its president. And he tells its “founding myth”.

How did your school of kyudo germinate? It was in 1979, when a delegation of masters from the city of Kobe came to Rome to hold a demonstration. Among them was an elderly archer, Junichi Yamamoto, who participated in the ritual launching of the arrows and immediately after collapsed under the stands where he was sitting.

Procesi. The doctor rushed to help him and realized that the master had a serious heart attack but did not want to interrupt the ceremony. They took him to the hospital and Procesi kept vigil at his bedside all night, while in a small room the Japanese remained in meditation until dawn, when the master passed away. To Yamamoto's son, who gave him the bow and the last two arrows shot by the master, Procesi promised: "We will plant this bamboo bow and make a forest of it ." And so it was. The head of the delegation, Osamu Takeuchi, supported the progress of our Academy in the following years. We refer to the lineage of Kenzo Awa, the same as the philosopher Eugen Herrigel, author of "Zen and Archery."

How many of you are there currently? About thirty, probably the school with the most practitioners among the twelve in Italy . We are the only ones in Europe to have three graduates according to the “dan” of the Japanese nomenclature and we have students of different ages, from twenty-year-olds to the more mature: the oldest will turn eighty in January and there are many women. They were admitted to kyudo thanks to an imperial concession only after the Second World War, when the Americans prohibited Japanese men from practicing martial arts. The female contribution safeguarded the

continuity of schools.

What is the meaning of kyudo? What does that target at twenty-eight meters represent? Is the one who scores more hits the better? Kyudo is a spiritual experience, the search for the original nature of the mind. It is necessary to acquire the technique but not to worry about it anymore, until the arrow leaves by itself. You do not aim with your eyes but with your whole body and sometimes we practice blindfolded. If the mental form is correct, the arrow will arrive where it is supposed to arrive.

Do you participate in sports competitions? Yes, in modern kyudo there are competitions. It is not only the centers obtained that are taken into account, but also the style. The world championships are held every four years: last time we did not obtain placings, but in 2018 we were first among the Europeans and third behind

Japan and Taiwan.

What are you looking for in the bow? The knowledge of myself, which translates into daily life in greater awareness thanks to breath control, meditation and muscle relaxation, essential in kyudo. Not to mention the beauty of the weapon and clothing. There are also those who dedicate themselves to it with a sporting spirit or as a pastime, but for me it is a way of living in a tradition. The endless road towards unattainable perfection.

What is the difference with other martial arts? That the gesture is complete. The arrow penetrates the target. However, more than “martial” I would like to define it as a “minerval” art, as Procesi suggested.

How far is the Japanese way from our mentality? Let us reread the fifth book of the “Aeneid”: in Sicily, at the funeral games in honor of Anchises, for the archery contest a dove is tied with a rope to a pole. The first contender hits the pole, the second hits and breaks the rope, the third pierces the dove that has flown away; but the fourth, who is King Acestes, having no more target, aims towards the sky where the arrow ignites like a comet. Aeneas assigns him the victory, because that aimless shot has achieved a superior effect. This is the tradition.

Western. Kyudo awakens her. And perhaps many do not know that a Japanese archer shot right in the Roman Forum.

Who? His name was Tanaka Mazutaro. In 1899 he was a guest of the archaeologist Giacomo Boni and was also present at the discovery of the Lapis niger. There is a photograph of him while he is shooting with a bow, in trousers and suspenders, at the Basilica of Maxentius. It would be symbolically beautiful if there, on the centenary of Boni's death, the arrows of kyudo flew once again.

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