Word 080
On the outskirts of Yamatokoriyama City, at the foot of Mount Akahada, stands a pottery kiln with a long history. Akahada-yaki, the ware fired in this land, has been cherished by tea masters since the Edo period.
Visit the kiln, and you'll find a young apprentice bent silently over the wheel. The first bowl he shaped was startlingly lopsided. Though he had watched his master's hands countless times and could recite every step by heart, once the clay was actually before him, his fingers simply would not move as he intended.
Still, day after day, the apprentice repeats the same motion. The misshapen bowls slowly begin to take form. And then, one day, they say, a moment arrives when the movement of his own hands seems to overlap with his master's.
"We were born to experience things firsthand.
And so, everything in this world comes down to this: practice over theory.
Of course, learning — that is, studying in the classroom — matters greatly. But once you've learned enough,
it's time to take action.
In any case, it's fine to be clumsy at first.
Through action, little by little, it becomes your own."
It is the countless turns of the wheel, repeated before the kiln's fire is finally lit, that quietly transform an apprentice into a true craftsman. Perhaps it is always the one who keeps moving their hands who truly makes what they've been taught their own.