Usuita (hanaire board) is 18 lines from the heri and normally centered under the kugi for hanging hanaire
Horizontal placement varies by flower arrangement. If you have yokomono (horizontal scroll) and the hanaire is shin, it can go in the middle. Generally speaking, more centered is more shin
If you have no kugi, default place is to center the hanaire at the 3/4 width position of the tokonoma (TODO double check)
Hanaire formality
Shin - anything chinese-made is shin. This tends to include things like karakane and seiji (celadon). Shin hanaire typically don’t have 絵 on them. Shin usuita is shin-nuri arrowshaped (yahazu? 矢筈?)
Gyo - Korean pieces or japanese replicas of chinese pieces. Gyo usuita is the clamshell shin-nuri.
So - Japanese pieces. Typically unglazed, very wabi. All bamboo is so. Also all kago (竹でできたの) are so. These normally go on a kiji board.
If the hanaire is bizen, shigaraki, tamba, etc, it should be soaked before use (as well as the kiji board)
A round shinnuri board can be used only for exquisite bamboo pieces (in particular, ones with kao)
Hana formality
Techhhnically there is no such thing as flower formality. However, for shin arrangements, tall/straight flowers are normally used. Gyo, they bend slightly. So, they can be very floppy and willow-y.
Chabana rules
Only concrete rule is that in Kyoto, you may not use yellow and white in the same arrangement. This color combination is reserved for funerals only. Otherwise, go nuts. Everything after this is just a guideline.
For kago, you should have at least 5 kinds of flowers (or is it 7? TODO check)
For hanaire in general, 1, 2, or odd numbers are preferred. Never 4. This goes both for number of shurui and number of flower buds (ie don’t pick a plant with four flowers, and also don’t pick four plants)
It helps to have something small and bushy in the front to cover the naked stems of your other flowers
It helps to have one flower as the “main” (but is far from required, just a helpful guideline)
Flowers must all come out of the same position in the hanaire.
Re: the flower muki, “it’s not necessarily that the flowers must point toward the shokyaku. Rather, pretend like the shokyaku is the sun. It should look like all the flowers are growing in that general direction.”
During the winter, we often use one edamono (branch) and one tsubaki
Generally speaking, don’t use flowers that:
produce fruit
have a strong smell
have thorns
Yes, it is okay to put a branch or something in the mouth of the hanaire to make arrangement easier.
Be cognizant of the relative heights of different flowers. Don’t make a tall flower shorter than a short flower
Above all… this is my personal philosophy, not anything I was explicitly taught: there’s a big difference between fact and truth. We’re told that the flowers should be as they are in the field, but that’s not exactly true. If you see a bush with mukuge, you may see tens of mukuge all clumped together. That’s the fact of them in nature. But in the tea room, we never use two mukuge in the same arrangement. Why? Chabana isn’t about recreating what’s in the field — it’s about finding the truth of the flower in the field and bringing it into the tea room. In that way, we bring the essence of the flower into the room.
Using otoshi (water tube) inside a take hanaire is far from required. Only need to use it if you think the bamboo will leak. However, especially in dry places, the bamboo can crack if it gets repeatedly wetted/dried. So we often use otoshi.
Takebune 「竹船」 hanaire direction does not matter. Often they point toward the tokobashira, which is geza. However, you may point them in any direction that you feel suits the occasion of the gathering.
The height for any hanging hanaire should be the same as a regular kake hanaire — that is, the same level as the kugi on the tokobashira.
From Glenn
Zuisen and tsurukubi was done perfectly by Jo-o. It cannot be done again.