ABSTRACT
Of the art of archery, the Japanese masters write that it is not a technique that is acquired gradually, nor a performance, and even less an enjoyable pastime:
It must, however, be borne in mind that the peculiar spirit of this art, far from having to be fused back into the use of bow and arrow in recent times, was always essentially bound up with them, and has emerged all the more forthrightly and convincingly now that it no longer has to prove itself in bloody contests. (Herrigel, 1953, p. 2)
“The art of archery,” Herrigel writes, “is to be sought in spiritual exercises whose aim is to hit a spiritual goal, so that fundamentally the marksman aims at himself and may even succeed in hitting himself” (Herrigel, 1953, p. 1).