From Midorikai contemporaneous notes.
- First guest arrives at the kutsunugi ishi 「靴脱石」and opens the door to the nijiriguchi. They place their sensu just inside the entrance on the tatami and lean slightly into the room.
- This is NOT a bow. This is a lean to look into the room and see where the tokonoma is.
- Shokyaku nijiru’s into room while simultaneously slipping out of their zori. Turning their sensu with them, they nijiru-turn around and deal with their shoes.
- Pick up the shoes, bottoms facing each other, then lean against the tsuchicabe of the tea room. I’ve seen people also lean against the kutsunugiishi, and that’s fine, but that doesn’t seem tenable if there are lots of guests.
- Shokyaku stands with sensu and walks to tokonoma, sits in front.
- If there isn’t an obvious place to sit, ie there is a tatami junction right at the center of the tokonoma, you should sit geza
- Bow to the JIKU. REMEMBER, the only time you bow to dougu EVER is if it’s jiku.
- I’ve heard multiple explanations, but they’re all something along the lines of “the jiku is the most revered dougu in the tea room, so we bow to it,” or “we bow to the person who wrote the jiku as a sign of deference.” But honestly, I don’t think I buy the second thing. Well, maybe. Why don’t we bow to other dougu (chashaku, chawan, etc) as a sign of deference to the person who crafted the piece? Maybe it’s because jiku are often written by bou-san. But jiku aren’t the only things that bou-san make — often they also carve chashaku. Also, not only bou-san write jiku, and we don’t not-bow to jiku written by laymen. So I don’t really buy the second thing. I could see something along the lines of “writing/appreciation of poetry is itself revered (one of the four gentlemanly accomplishments, alongside playing go, painting, and music), but that’s a little shaky. It seems more consistent me for people to just say, “it’s really important, so we bow to it”.
- You may turn to view the flowers, but you don’t have to. You can just look from your position.
- If you turn, do you have to turn back to the jiku to stand? To be consistent with haiken at temaeza, maybe? 覚えていない.
- Make one final bow to the jiku. Then stand with left foot. You will be turning to cross at the marudatami junction (assuming it’s a standard 4.5mat or 8mat room), so as you stand with left foot, you should also rotate your body to turn geza.
- Immediately move your right foot to the tatami corner, then cross with left.
- Walk to fumikomi, cross with left, 3 foot, walk up center of temaeza with R
- Start temaeza haiken with kama ALWAYS, ro or furo. Don’t bow, just lean down to get a closer look.
- Again there is debate here over if you can turn or not. Some say turn to see tana, some say look from right there. Meh. Do your favorite. If you have to turn, make sure to turn back before standing.
- Note, you have your sensu in front of you when you’re doing this viewing.
- If in furo, stand like normal with L and turn around, exit. If in ro, stand with L and take your first step with L.
- Suzuki sensei says, “any time in Ro that you’re standing up from a diagonal, you should begin by covering your foot. Don’t stand with L then go with R. Cover with L first.”
- Go to a temporary spot until all the guests are in, or until no one else will have to walk through your spot. Then go to your spot.