looks can be deceiving

I used to think that Japanese calligraphy was relatively easily, all you need to know is the right stroke order and a decent brush. Quel naïve! It turns out that you have to hold your wrists a specific way, position the brush at a particular angle and you have to know when to use the entire head of your brush and when to just use the tip. I was terrible, everything I wrote looked silly and childish.

A girl on my floor had more than eight years of experience and she was teaching me the ropes. We spent a good five minutes just working on one downward stroke, and yet I still couldn’t master it. My brush head kept splitting because I was applying too much pressure, but eventually I mastered it. Completely satisfying!