He doesn’t know. It looks nice? Maybe a similar reason to why you pause when you pick up the bowl and atsukai after retrieving from the guest?
God I had a headache the whole time and I still do. Not sure how good these notes are going to be.
Stepping through temae:
This setup is called mitsukazari (for obvious reasons), and it’s the only one that has it this way.
For positioning, place the dai such that the edge of the hane bisects the middle of the mizusashi. Then place the chaire such that it’s one chuu natsume from the BOWL (not the hane). That should have you ending up with everything about even.
Dai things
The dai has three parts: hosozuki (the top part, or is it hozuki?), the hane, and the dai.
Holding the dai, you pick up as you usually would, ie by the hane. But then to carry in and out of the tea room, you hold with your pinky bent inward such that your index, middle, and ring fingers hold against the seam of the hosozuki and the chawan.
Always hold the hane deeply. Same as with a kinin dai.
For picking up and putting down the dai, don’t worry about picking up at 9 and 6 etc. In general, you always want to try to grab from 9 and 3. However, if the chaire is directly to the right of it, you can’t do that. So you end up taking at 9 and 4:30 (ish).
At the very end when you’re putting the dai in front of the mizusashi during haiken, or putting out for guests after you’ve made tea (kantsuki), you can still hold at 9 and 3, but you should kinda pivot your hand at 3. Don’t necessarily grab at 4, just pivot a bit to make it easier.
Dai can also be a nice sotetsu (as opposed to a karamono)
You always handle dai with the left hand first, then the right. It’s not so exaggerated, but you should make contact with the left hand first.
Dai is YO, so you need to do an IN movement (left hand).
Chawan is IN (because you put things IN it lol), so you need to handle it with your YO hand (right).
Dougu in general:
Mage mizusashi or seto hitoeguchi, or really any kuniyaki with a nuributa
Seto katatsuki chaire
Wamono, but a high-ranking wamono to match the karamono chawan
There is NO special atsukai for the chaire. No “it’s a really nice one so we treat it with two hands.” When you actually scoop tea, you do split apart the two movements, but that’s more for the chawan, not the chaire.
Karamono tenmoku chawan, karamono or very nice sotetsu etc dai
Rikyu konomi kama (shinnari, amida dou, etc)
Doburo (mayuburo or doanburo)
Fushinashi chashaku (take or zouge)
Efugo kensui
Aodake futaoki
You should never cross the line of the shikiita. This includes for the hane on the dai.
How to deal with chaire that eat fukusa?
Nothing really to do. Remember, the OG chaire were seto, zezeyaki, takatori, maybe a smooth tamba. Those were all smooth. The new ones are the ones that eat fukusa. So eh just do what you can.
A note on chaire: especially if it’s unglazed in the interior, it is completely okay and even recommended to clean the inside with water and let it dry out over a few days. Nothing worse than moldy tea.
On yoho sabaki, you should have three things in mind:
One, start from center in kamae
Two, turn your entire trunk to the side
Three, lift your left elbow sliiiiightly higher so that you can catch the light coming from over your right shoulder. Remember, in an orthodox yojohan, either you have light coming from by the nijiriguchi in the south east, or you have light coming from the south in the roof from the yukinomado
Fukusa so no sabaki:
Two big things for me. One, don’t do the aggressive wrist turn at the end when you’re doing the ichimonji. You should bring your right arm up slowly and evenly. Specifically consider wrist
Two, for drawing the line on your fukusa, don’t hold your index and thumb together. Your hand should be almost exactly like how it is when you’re holding hishaku, ie thumb in a natural place, hand slightly curved, fingers together. Then when you’re actually tracing that line, you almost do it with your middle finger.
Taking chasen and chakin out of the tenmokujawan (and putting back in) is all with one hand. No supporting.
His philosophy on scooping water:
First scoop of oyu should always be full to show the guests that you have enough water and that you’re not being stingy
Any subsequent scoops should be more frugal — don’t overflow the kensui! Half or less even when you’re making repeated bowls of tea
At the very end, full scoop of mizu. Mizu is free (vs oyu). Plus you know you won’t be putting any more water in the kensui.
Hishaku scooping specifically for higher temae:
For all higher temae, you will be doing kosusugi. So you do kosusugi, then you do chasentoshi. For that, it’s half one time, half the next. So it makes sense to do a full first scoop for the lower temae (to match that).
Even when picking up the bowl from the dai, R then L should contact it.
Kosusugi
You should do it with your whole arm, not just with your wrist. So it will move up and down quite a bit in the vertical plane, and that’s okay.
Emptying water in the kensui
Your left hand should completely cover the kodai of the chawan. Right hand supports.
When you’re done, if you’re not going to use a chakin, you should wipe DOWN from 3 oclock as you bring it back to center. This is using your second section of your ring finger.
If you’re using a chakin, then you don’t wipe with your finger. However, you do keep the bowl over the kensui while you’re grabbing the chakin
Empty bowl
Turn it back slightly so it doesn’t feel quite so precarious (maybe approximately so the side of the bowl is horizontal)
Grab chakin with bowl in position over the kensui
Bring chakin over to the bowl, wipe the same way as you do with your ring finger as you bring back to center
Placing the chasen into the bowl, you can put your left hand to support on the side just like when you’re pouring water (ie don’t ever put on the top of the chawan for this temae, but in this case, you also don’t go full-on support ie grabbing the seam.)
Himado-mae is also called tenmokuza because it’s the position you put the tenmoku when you’re doing chasentoshi (and you do this in all upper temae)
Dai no kiyome
Nothing new here. Only revelation is that when you do the question mark around the top and under, you should actually be (ideally) wiping the underside of the dai as well
And just to be clear, you do put your thumb in after you nigiriconde when you want to koshi it
Chasentoshi
No real rules on height. Do what feels natural. Keep the bowl inside your knee line. It can be nice to bring the chasen in a bit too when you’re coming up
THREE TIMES UP. THIS IS IMPORTANT.
For other shikaden, ie with a raku chawan, you do TWO UP for the beginning and the end. For tenmokujawa, you do THREE UP at the beginning and at the end. For konarai and below, you do TWO UP, ONE UP.
Still probably should rotate it the full 180 degrees. This just means that you’ll have to fix it with no no ji at the end.
Scooping tea
This is a tad different. First, you pick up the chashaku and place it on the chawan. Then, with your left hand (just as you always do), you pick the chaire up and remove the lid. You’re not doing anything special with the chaire — you’re just splitting the two movements so you don’t nigiriconde. It’s only about being more careful with the bowl.
When opening the lid of the chaire, you can go over the bowl or around the bowl. Your konomi (in general).
Tsukuidashi, not mawashidashi! This is again for the bowl. It’s considered safer.
Hitting the chashaku at the end
Your left hand should be a little more forward such that your hand is on the other side of the ceramic where you’re tapping the chashaku (shock absorption). Hold chashaku tenari, tap inside at around 7 oclock.
Opening the lid of the mizusashi (and IN GENERAL), NO AVOIDING DOUGU. Maybe avoid the chawan a bit. But you can go straight over, no need to tilt it.
Making tea, your hand should be on the hosozuki on the seam.
When serving tea:
Turn with the dai, then turn the dai in the air. PRETEND LIKE IT’S A SQUARE, GRABBING “CORNERS”. So much nicer.
Place out at kantsuki.
Scoot back (shitae)
Hikae
Then when conversation is done, scoot forward (shiko), turn back to imai, and deal with cold water.
When guests return the bowl, turn back, bring bowl back in.
Conversation then starts at imai.
On the first hot water add after sorei, you have to KOSUSUGI. So add a bit more water.
Adding mizu after the oshimai, you can do a full scoop here too (similar reason).
Chasentoshi is done inside the dai, with your hand on the seam. Again, three times up.