Bonsai Martial Arts

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Bonsai dating to the 17th century have survived to the present. One of the oldest-known living bonsai trees, considered one of the National Treasures of Japan , can be seen in the Tokyo Imperial Palace collection. By the end of the 18th century, bonsai cultivation in Japan was becoming widespread and began to interest the general public. In the Tenmei era —88 , an exhibit of traditional dwarf potted pines began to be held every year in Kyoto.

Connoisseurs from five provinces and neighboring areas would bring one or two plants each to the show in order to submit them to visitors for ranking. In Japan after , bonsai began to move from being the esoteric practice of a few specialists to becoming a widely popular art form and hobby.


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This word connoted a shallow container, not a deeper bowl style. The popularity of bonsai began to grow outside the limited scope of scholars and the nobility. On October 13, , the Meiji Emperor moved to his new capital in Tokyo. Bonsai were displayed both inside and outside Meiji Palace, and those placed in the grand setting of the Imperial Palace had to be "Giant Bonsai", large enough to fill the grand space.

New books, magazines, and public exhibitions made bonsai more accessible to the Japanese populace. An Artistic Bonsai Concours was held in Tokyo in , followed by publication of a three-volume commemorative picture book. This event demonstrated a new tendency to see bonsai as an independent art form. Bonsai shaping aesthetics, techniques, and tools became increasingly sophisticated as bonsai's popularity grew in Japan.

In , shaping with wire rather than the older string, rope, and burlap techniques, appeared in the Sanyu-en Bonsai-Dan History of Bonsai in the Sanyu nursery. Zinc-galvanized steel wire was initially used. Expensive copper wire was used only for selected trees that had real potential. Properly treated, this indentation would fill over with live tree tissue and bark over time, greatly reducing or eliminating the usual pruning scar.

Bonsai featured in the Karate Kid movies; a list

Prior to World War II , international interest in bonsai was fueled by increased trade in trees and the appearance of books in popular foreign languages. By , the first national annual bonsai show was held an event repeated annually through in Tokyo's Hibiya Park. Dwarf Trees Bonsai by Shinobu Nozaki — By , about bonsai dealers worked in Tokyo. Some species of trees were being cultivated, and thousands of specimens annually were shipped to Europe and America. The first bonsai nurseries and clubs in the Americas were started by first and second-generation Japanese immigrants.

Though this progress to international markets and enthusiasts was interrupted by the war, bonsai had by the s become an art form of international interest and involvement. Following World War II, a number of trends made the Japanese tradition of bonsai increasingly accessible to Western and world audiences. One key trend was the increase in the number, scope, and prominence of bonsai exhibitions.

For example, the Kokufu-ten bonsai displays reappeared in after a four-year cancellation and became annual affairs.

These displays continue to this day, and are by invitation only for eight days in February. A large display of bonsai and suiseki was held as part of Expo '70 , and formal discussion was made of an international association of enthusiasts. So was the first Sakufu-ten Creative Bonsai Exhibit , the only event in which professional bonsai growers exhibit traditional trees under their own names rather than under the name of the owner.

These conventions attracted several hundreds of participants from dozens of countries and have since been held every four years at different locations around the globe: Another key trend was the increase in books on bonsai and related arts, now being published for the first time in English and other languages for audiences outside Japan. In , Yuji Yoshimura , son of a leader in the Japanese bonsai community, collaborated with German diplomat and author Alfred Koehn to give bonsai demonstrations. Koehn had been an enthusiast before the war, and his book Japanese Tray Landscapes had been published in English in Peking.

Halford, went on to be called the "classic Japanese bonsai bible for westerners" with over thirty printings. The related art of saikei was introduced to English-speaking audiences in in Kawamoto and Kurihara's book Bonsai-Saikei. This book described tray landscapes made with younger plant material than was traditionally used in bonsai, providing an alternative to the use of large, older plants, few of which had escaped war damage.

A third trend was the increasing availability of expert bonsai training, at first only in Japan and then more widely.

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Returning to the U. Other groups and individuals from outside Asia then visited and studied at the various Japanese nurseries, occasionally even apprenticing under the masters. These visitors brought back to their local clubs the latest techniques and styles, which were then further disseminated. Japanese teachers also traveled widely, bringing hands-on bonsai expertise to all six continents [42]. The final trend supporting world involvement in bonsai is the widening availability of specialized bonsai plant stock, soil components, tools, pots, and other accessory items. Bonsai nurseries in Japan advertise and ship specimen bonsai worldwide.

Most countries have local nurseries providing plant stock as well. Japanese bonsai soil components, such as Akadama clay, are available worldwide, and suppliers also provide similar local materials in many locations. Specialized bonsai tools are widely available from Japanese and Chinese sources.

Potters around the globe provide material to hobbyists and specialists in many countries. Bonsai has now reached a worldwide audience. There are over twelve hundred books on bonsai and the related arts in at least twenty-six languages available in over ninety countries and territories. Several score of club newsletters are available on-line, and there are at least that many discussion forums and blogs.

Bonsai cultivation and care requires techniques and tools that are specialized to support the growth and long-term maintenance of trees in small containers. All bonsai start with a specimen of source material, a plant that the grower wishes to train into bonsai form. Bonsai practice is an unusual form of plant cultivation in that growth from seeds is rarely used to obtain source material.

To display the characteristic aged appearance of a bonsai within a reasonable time, the source plant is often mature or at least partially grown when the bonsai creator begins work. Sources of bonsai material include:. The practice of bonsai development incorporates a number of techniques either unique to bonsai or, if used in other forms of cultivation, applied in unusual ways that are particularly suitable to the bonsai domain.

Small trees grown in containers, like bonsai, require specialized care. Unlike houseplants and other subjects of container gardening, tree species in the wild , in general, grow roots up to several meters long and root structures encompassing several thousand liters of soil. In contrast, a typical bonsai container is under 25 centimeters in its largest dimension and 2 to 10 liters in volume.

Branch and leaf or needle growth in trees is also of a larger scale in nature. Wild trees typically grow 5 meters or taller when mature, whereas the largest bonsai rarely exceed 1 meter and most specimens are significantly smaller. These size differences affect maturation, transpiration, nutrition, pest resistance, and many other aspects of tree biology.

Maintaining the long-term health of a tree in a container requires some specialized care techniques:. Bonsai aesthetics are the aesthetic goals characterizing the Japanese tradition of growing an artistically shaped miniature tree in a container. Many Japanese cultural characteristics, in particular the influence of Zen Buddhism and the expression of Wabi-sabi , [50] inform the bonsai tradition in Japan.

Established art forms that share some aesthetic principles with bonsai include penjing and saikei. A number of other cultures around the globe have adopted the Japanese aesthetic approach to bonsai, and, while some variations have begun to appear, most hew closely to the rules and design philosophies of the Japanese tradition. Over centuries of practice, the Japanese bonsai aesthetic has encoded some important techniques and design guidelines. Like the aesthetic rules that govern, for example, Western common practice period music, bonsai's guidelines help practitioners work within an established tradition with some assurance of success.

Simply following the guidelines alone will not guarantee a successful result. Nevertheless, these design rules can rarely be broken without reducing the impact of the bonsai specimen. Some key principles in bonsai aesthetics include:. A bonsai display presents one or more bonsai specimens in a way that allows a viewer to see all the important features of the bonsai from the most advantageous position.

That position emphasizes the bonsai's defined "front", which is designed into all bonsai. It places the bonsai at a height that allows the viewer to imagine the bonsai as a full-size tree seen from a distance, siting the bonsai neither so low that the viewer appears to be hovering in the sky above it nor so high that the viewer appears to be looking up at the tree from beneath the ground.

Noted bonsai writer Peter Adams recommends that bonsai be shown as if "in an art gallery: For outdoor displays, there are few aesthetic rules. Many outdoor displays are semi-permanent, with the bonsai trees in place for weeks or months at a time. To avoid damaging the trees, therefore, an outdoor display must not impede the amount of sunlight needed for the trees on display, must support watering, and may also have to block excessive wind or precipitation. A common design is the bench, sometimes with sections at different heights to suit different sizes of bonsai, along which bonsai are placed in a line.

Where space allows, outdoor bonsai specimens are spaced far enough apart that the viewer can concentrate on one at a time. When the trees are too close to each other, aesthetic discord between adjacent trees of different sizes or styles can confuse the viewer, a problem addressed by exhibition displays. Exhibition displays allow many bonsai to be displayed in a temporary exhibition format, typically indoors, as would be seen in a bonsai design competition. To allow many trees to be located close together, exhibition displays often use a sequence of small alcoves , each containing one pot and its bonsai contents.

The walls or dividers between the alcoves make it easier to view only one bonsai at a time. The back of the alcove is a neutral color and pattern to avoid distracting the viewer's eye.

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The bonsai pot is almost always placed on a formal stand, of a size and design selected to complement the bonsai and its pot. Indoors, a formal bonsai display is arranged to represent a landscape, and traditionally consists of the featured bonsai tree in an appropriate pot atop a wooden stand, along with a shitakusa companion plant representing the foreground, and a hanging scroll representing the background.

These three elements are chosen to complement each other and evoke a particular season, and are composed asymmetrically to mimic nature.


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An indoor display is usually very temporary, lasting a day or two, as most bonsai are intolerant of indoor conditions and lose vigor rapidly within the house. A variety of informal containers may house the bonsai during its development, and even trees that have been formally planted in a bonsai pot may be returned to growing boxes from time to time. A large growing box can house several bonsai and provide a great volume of soil per tree to encourage root growth.

A training box will have a single specimen, and a smaller volume of soil that helps condition the bonsai to the eventual size and shape of the formal bonsai container. There are no aesthetic guidelines for these development containers, and they may be of any material, size, and shape that suit the grower. Completed trees are grown in formal bonsai containers.

These containers are usually ceramic pots, which come in a variety of shapes and colors and may be glazed or unglazed. Unlike many common plant containers, bonsai pots have drainage holes in the bottom surface to complement fast-draining bonsai soil, allowing excess water to escape the pot. Growers cover the holes with a screening to prevent soil from falling out and to hinder pests from entering the pots from below. Pots usually have vertical sides, so that the tree's root mass can easily be removed for inspection, pruning, and replanting, although this is a practical consideration and other container shapes are acceptable.

There are alternatives to the conventional ceramic pot. This blog post lists the Bonsai moments showed in the movies, with a few screenshots. Mr Miyagi and Daniel san and the famous quote: In this first movie Bonsai trees appear several times.

Bonsai in the Karate Kid movie

The styling of these little trees reflect inner peace and is an important symbol for what Karate should be. Mr Miyagi teaches his knowledge of Bonsai to Daniel San to teach him about life. Not much Bonsai in part 2, only one line: In part 3 Bonsai plays a big role as Daniel san is setting up his Bonsai Shop. Also, collecting yamadori bonsai from nature is shown in the film.

An important quote of mr Miyagi: Only root karate come from Miyagi. Just like bonsai choose own way grow because root strong you choose own way do karate same reason.