The importance of proper handwriting

[0soyoung]

Few of my trees look the least bit good.
I struggle with making nice images (poetry)

I grow my trees in Turface. They appear to be healthy and vigorous.
They say I must use Akadama (proper handwriting) to have beautiful trees.


yadda, yadda, yadda.

 

[twisted trees]

I saw it differently. The teacher was bad for two reasons.

First, that he believed that penmanship was fundamental, even though great poetry can be typed.

Second, that he could not show his students why the supposed "fundamentals" were so vital.

I often see critiques of bonsai that call out "sloppy wiring." Unless a student knows why neat wiring is important, why would that critique matter to them?

I wonder if perhaps the poetry legend knew more about the heart of poetry than the student. Calligraphy/penmanship is one the five excellences as well as poetry.

 

[AZbonsai]

There is a big difference between being good at something and being good at teaching that thing. Shame on that teacher, they got paid to do a job and insteadand took a room full of interested engaged students and turned it into an empty room and a bunch of discouraged ex students. Get better teachers.

They were adults taking a class.

 

[music~maker]

This reminds me of a recent conversation I had regarding athletics, and it can probably be generalized to poetry and Bonsai as well:

People who are naturally very good at something, whether it’s hitting a baseball or writing music, are often not the best teachers of that thing. They sometimes don’t even know how they actually do what they do - they just do it.

Those who have struggled to improve their skills often spend more time thinking about how to get where they want to be, so they may be better able to explain it to others as well. These people are often not the very best or the RockStars in their fields, but they may make better coaches and teachers than the Savants do . . .

Well said.

It's the rare master who is as good a teacher as they are a practitioner. Many have long since forgotten what it was like to learn in the first place, or may think that the way they learned is the way everyone should learn.

Many never really take the time to dive into the fine art of teaching, which is, in itself, something else one can master. Mastery in one area most certainly does not equate to mastery in another, although one at least has a leg up on someone who has mastered nothing.

@Walter Pall - in your example, this teacher failed on multiple levels. Failed to explain why handwriting was important in the first place, failed to put it in the context of poetry, and failed to assess that the students weren't getting it. Anywhere along the way, if he was paying attention, he could have adjusted his teaching technique to the situation.

And as somebody who does dabble in poetry from time to time, I can say that handwriting would not have been the first lesson, nor the second. Sounds to me like he was just fixated on a pedantic detail that may matter at much higher levels, but is beyond useless to a beginner.

What does this have to do with bonsai? Lots of bonsai people do the exact same kind of thing. A lot of people who are very good at bonsai are very bad at explaining themselves clearly and efficiently transmitting their experience to other people.

 

[Victorim]

Walter.. Surely if this is a mirror to how you feel bonsai is to the masses, you must crack a smile to the goings on on here. And maybe a slow approving nod to miri live

Its always said to get in with the best teacher, locally you can. There is a very capable, and much revered expert close to me, who has even extended his hand.. I`ve put it off due to work / family, but really I don`t feel ready to be guided yet by another when I can see the leaps and bounds of my own self learning and knowledge. But what do I know Its my first bonsai birthday in about a week

 

[Anthony]

Ever wonder if the teacher could see that not one of
those students would be a poet ?

From K ------ around the Gammell/ Lack / Cecil / Graves Fine Art studios ----------

"A good teacher knows how to discourage a poor student. "

Good Day
Anthony

 

[Lorax7]

“Those who know don’t talk. Those who talk don’t know.”

-Lao Tzu

 

[jacob letoile]

They were adults taking a class.

So?
Are adults not allowed to be students?
If they pay for a teacher shouldn't that person be able to teach?

 

[jacob letoile]

Ever wonder if the teacher could see that not one of
those students would be a poet ?

From K ------ around the Gammell/ Lack / Cecil / Graves Fine Art studios ----------

"A good teacher knows how to discourage a poor student. "

Good Day
Anthony

No, that's just shit work ethic. The students paid to take the class, it's the teachers job to teach what they can, not to determine weather or not it worth the students time. It is their time to waste after after all. Any monkey can teach a gifted pupil, it takes real skill to teach the average student.

 

[Anthony]

Seriously @jacob letoile ,

http://www.charlescecilstudios.com/

http://www.florenceacademyofart.com/

Good Day
Anthony

 

[AZbonsai]

So?
Are adults not allowed to be students?
If they pay for a teacher shouldn't that person be able to teach?

How do you know they were discouraged? Maybe they just found another teacher. Who knows, maybe a couple of them stuck with the class and enjoyed the teachers style and learned something from them.

 

[Vance Wood]

I am thinking that there are two way poetry can be enjoyed: By reading it or by hearing it read. If you are hearing it read then the hand writing is totally irrelevant as long as it is comprehendible. If you are reading it the beauty of the writing could help add to the beauty of the words as they are spoken, the actual writing becomes a visual presentation of the spirit of the word it portrays. Most of Bach's Brandenburg Concertos sat on some noble man's (The Margrave of Brandenburg) Harpsichord and were actually never played during Bach's life time, they were just nice to look at. Some of my most favorite music.

 

[wireme]

Years ago I went and took shakuhachi lessons from a true master. I showed up having already taught myself how to read a couple schools of the Japanese notation and could blow a decent sustained note, nice sound, could hit the notes, new some songs,sounded like a flute, not a shakuhachi. First lesson he said ok good you can read and blow but you'll have to learn this embouchure. So spent the next two hours pursing lips blowing and getting the occasional squeak. Every day the same thing, blow squeak, blow whistle, blow almost a note. Two hrs with the teacher plus another bunch of hrs alone on the beach everyday for two months. At the end of it all nearly but not quite able to actually play a tune on the damn thing again. Went back home and kept blowing for at least an hr/day often more. Most of a year went by and I was still barley able to hit a note at all. Remember, I could play alright before I went to see the guy so this was pretty frustrating. Went back a year later, still couldn't get consistent good notes with his technique just enough to work on a single short song plus a lot more blow and squeak for another two months.

I never went back, not because of the teaching, just life, distance etc, wish I could have continued. If I were to return now I suppose we would be working on playing music more than blowing single notes. I've sort of kept it up, ten years later still mostly playing the same few things and striving for the ultimate sound. The way he taught me to play is very sensitive and touchy, I think I would need to play for a few hours or more every single day to be able to blow very well all the time. I still have times when I just squeak. Other times I can play louder or quieter, way, way richer notes and for much, much longer than I ever would have before. Effortless, nearly perfect. Not often, it's rare but it's worth it. I never did learn much of the music or much about music at all but every now and then hit the sweet spot blowing where things like tunes, melody and rhythm become irrelevant and it's just blowing sound. It's not music, it's less than but also much more and better than music.

Never would have gotten that without the focus on the base foundation. If I hadn't gone to that teacher I would probably have carried on teaching myself to play a bunch of stuff moderately well, from an outside view probably would appear to be a better player than now but not really.

But having said all that and despite that experience, that's not poetry or bonsai, it's shakuhachi and it's weird. I would not be happy about having to learn perfect handwriting to write poetry either. A perfect single note on shakuhachi can be everything, a perfectly written letter "a" to a poet? Dunno bout that, to a calligrapher maybe. A single perfect coil of wire on a branch to a bonsai? I don't think so. Useful yes, an important skill but perhaps not the true soul of it all. I do get the striving for perfection as whole thing where every single aspect has to be done sublimely. I haven't really decided if that's admirable and to be strived for or just a road to madness.

 

[Rambles]

"A good teacher knows how to discourage a poor student. "

Oh hell no. I have worked with exceptional teachers in a broad range of fields and the skill they all have in common is the ability to stoke the fires of curiosity, passion, and temper it with method and discipline once it's hot.

The whole "weeding out" is how you stoke your own ego, not your students' desire to learn.

You are not the gatekeeper to knowledge. You are the waypost.

 

[plant_dr]

In the community of bonsai we have our own "legends". I copied this list from Bonsai Empire because I wouldnt be able to come up with all of them on my I own. (hope thats ok)


"Bonsai experts around the world.
North America
Bjorn Bjorholm
Boon Manakitivipart
Colin Lewis
Erik Wigert
Jerry Meislik
Jim Doyle
John Naka
John Romano
Mark Fields
Michael Persiano
Rob Kempinski
Robert Pressler
Ryan Neil
Sean Smith
William Valavanis

Europe
Andrea Trevisan
Antoni Payeras
Antonio Gesualdi
Carlos Lazaro Diez
Carlos van der Vaart
David Benavente
Enzo Ferrari
Graham Potter
Harry Harrington
Horst Heinzlreiter
Ivo Saporiti
Jarek Lenarczyk
John Pitt
Jose Luis Blasco Paz
Jose Manuel Blazquez
Marco Invernizzi
Marija Hajdić and Andrija Zokić
Mauro Stemberger
Michael Tran
Michele Andolfo
Morten Albek
Nicola Kitora Crivelli
Paolo Nastasi
Pavel Slovak
Peter Chan
Peter Foele
Roman Bona
Salvatore Liporace
Sandro Segneri
Sergio Biagi
Stefano Frisoni
Teunis Jan Klein
Tony Tickle
Václav Novák
Valentin Brose
Walter Pall
Will Baddeley
Wlodzimierz Pietraszko
Wolfgang Putz

Asia & Oceania
Budi Sulistyo
Gede Merta
Kunio Kobayashi
Manoj Kumar
Masahiko Kimura
Masashi Hirao
Robert Steven
Leigh Taafe

Latin America
Anibal Poublan
Enrique Castano
Mário A G Leal
Nacho Marin
Rock Junior "



I'm sure there are more that aren't listed and each have their own areas of expertise and specialties. In the story the students came to this class hoping to learn from a well-known expert in that field. As Walter said, there were a wide variety of students there with all different levels of experience, etc. Maybe some thought since the teacher was such a legend he would give them some poetry secrets and their writing would be as good as his by attending his presentation. Maybe some just wanted to brush up on their pre-existing skills. Probably many other other reasons as well.

When the teacher looked at each student's writing samples and told them they were each garbage 2/3 the class were offended enough that they didn't come back at all. After being offended again on the next meeting more dropped out and so on...

In bonsai we get people who come the art whether in a formal setting like a workshop, a demonstration or club meeting or informally by having a friend or relative talk about their hobby, seeing a neighbor's trees over the fence, receiving one as a gift, buying one from a van on the side of the road or just wandering onto a website or whatever. This newbie then presents their new acquisition or creation to an expert who tells them their tree is crap when they thought in their mind this stick in a pot was really something special.

For the sake of relating to the original story, let's say 2/3rds of the newbies get offended or frustrated enough they don't try again. Ok, the remaining 1/3rd might come back again with another stick they dug up with no roots. When they get told again won't survive because they collected it out of season, gave it bad aftercare or whatever else, most of them will give up at that point.

With any luck that one person that is left will have the sense to LISTEN to what the expert is trying to teach them about bonsai. Then they might apply the things they've learned. Hopefully the teacher is trying to teach the fundamentals and correct principles like learning to keep a nursery tree alive in a regular pot for several seasons with proper watering and fertilizer before teaching how to choose a final pot for displaying their tree in a world-class show.


I think the poetry teacher would have had more success keeping his students around if he had started with basics. I think we can keep our bonsai "students" around if we can find a way to avoid feeding them advanced techniques before they know the basics of horticulture and keeping their plants alive. Its tricky because there are a lot of different situations new people bring up and there isn't one rule that would cover everything for everyone.

Those who teach bonsai have to avoid being like that poetry teacher when someone shows their ginseng ficus or seedling procumbers juniper. We can't just tell them it's worthless and move on to the next one only to tell them it's worthless too. Overall I feel that we do a pretty good job of helping the "students" but can we do better? Is there some new person out there that might have some talent waiting to be unleashed if we can cater to their needs instead of offending them? We can help them learn and progress instead of sending them away frustrated.

 

[twisted trees]

After interviewing one of the best piano players in the world, the reporter asked for some advice to help his piano playing. The artist asked what he wanted to know. The reporter asked how much time he practiced every day. Eight hours was the reply.

What do you do for eight hours. The answer was, "For the first four hours I practice scales."

 

[Potawatomi13]

It isn't about handwriting or syntax

If the reader cannot read it it is worthless regardless of content. The excuse that it can be typed was not an option for Walters class. Today seems that handwriting in western society is almost a lost "Art".

 

[twisted trees]

Just musing here. What if the legendary poet knew that poetry was more than just the sound of the words but well formed poetry also involved the interplay of the visual spaces of the words. He may have surmised that he also found poetry in that which inensified the poetic experience and wanted to teach that . Perhaps the students really weren't poet he sighed.

Or he may have been crappy teacher.

What this to do with bonsai he said?

 

[Anthony]

Alas my poor tree it is fried,
sun so hot, and water so scarce.
Damn that student, he hosed,when he should have hand watered.
Alas, now I have elegant firewood.
There goes me 300 year old J.B.pine.

Dedicated to twisted trees.
Merry Christmas!

 

[twisted trees]

Alas my poor tree it is fried,
sun so hot, and water so scarce.
Damn that student, he hosed,when he should have hand watered.
Alas, now I have elegant firewood.
There goes me 300 year old J.B.pine.

Dedicated to twisted trees.
Merry Christmas!

Write that down please in a well formed Chaucery script and I'll take it seriously.