In the Fall 2019 issue, I found an article of extreme interest. Often students ask to be able to change the color scheme of the curriculum’s phases. Master Shuji Tamura explains why it is essential to stick to each design’s color set during the training stages.
I want to underline this statement – “allow the essence of the colors that have been established by countless numbers of ancestors to touch your heart” – that I have always tried to apply during my training, accompanied by the precious teachings of Mireille Amar.
“Q: May I change the color of my phases pieces to the color I like
A: The piece is basically your own, so it is your choice to change colors. However, at the sometime, the technique combinations and the motifs are there because of a tradition that has been created and followed over a long thousand year of history. I believe that while you are in basic phases, it is important that you put the colors you like aside, and allow the essence of the colors that have been established by countless numbers of ancestors to touch your heart. I suggest that you wait until you are above Phase X level before you get into creating color combinations that you might choose on your own. Based on my thirty years of experience, I remember with pain the day someone who had created a piece using colors she liked, told me, told me that it had been a very “expensive learning experience”.
You might be a beginning stitcher now; however, once you become an instructor, each one of your phase will be the sample for your students. For your future students who will be gathered, because they are attracted to the traditional Japanese techniques, designs, and colors why don’t you consider now to put aside your own preferences in favour of tradition.
I strongly believe that through the experience of color selection, each person will be guided on a firm path to the three pillars of Nuido: rationality, sensibility, and spirituality.
By the way, in my case, my twenty years of creative life only started after eighteen years of observing designs and colors by the masters in Japan! Again, please challenge selected colors between phase 11 though 20, based on the sensibility which you have learned and observed while completing Phase X”. (Nuido Journal, Fall 2019 – Master Shuji Tamura)