Hi everybody,
last Tuesday evening on the 30th of January I drove all excited to Nieuwekerk aan den IJssel (NL) for the evening demonstration and meet and greet with the great Japanese Bonsai Master Kunio Kobayashi. My dear friend Teunis Jan Klein (the owner and the proprietor of the Deshima Bonsai Studio managed to get this superstar of Japanese Bonsai to do an evening meet and greet and a spectacular evening demo on Tuesday. And on Wednesday and Thursday, a daytime workshop for 8 people under the guidance of the Master followed by an evening traditional Japanese Kaiseki dinner with the master and his charming wife in the top Japanese restaurant Yama Cuisine in beautiful Rotterdam (NL). Teunis Jan has managed to organize something truly special and unique in the Bonsai world! I was regretfully only able to attend the evening demo…but boy oh boy what a top evening it turned out to be! And what an amazing specimen demo tree Teunis reserved for master Kobayashi his demo! It was a large field-grown Pinus thunbergii that he bought over a decade ago when he was in China for his work as a purchaser for a large Bonsai importer. Over those years he skillfully managed to get tons of new foliage all over the branches so there was plenty to work with for this demo! The tree has amazing bark and beautiful movement and was well fit for even a master like Mister Kobayashi! After Teunis gave the audience some explanation of how he went about organizing this 3 days event he introduced Satoko Takagi the translator who would translate every word mister Kobayashi would share with us into Dutch. And then he introduced the two skilful assistants that would help the master that evening, the first one Hugo Zamoraluna from Mexico came along with Mister Kobayashi from Japan and the second one was Ralph Oduber a student of Teunis Jan that has studied at Mister Kobayashi his school Shunka En in the past. While Teunis Jan was doing this Mister Kobayashi was already very busy at work lifting the heavy tree in all kinds of different angles like it weighed nothing and if he is not almost 70 years old and not just of the plane from a long flight from Japan…amazing!!! It was funny to see that Teunis had to call him to order to stop for a minute so that he could introduce him properly to us all! He received hearty applause from the Bonsai enthusiasts and then he was off again to what he does best while he was answering all kinds of questions and explaining what he was doing, he and his helpers tilted the tree in the desired position and secured it with wire to the turntable and then started to cut off all unnecessary foliage and branches.
Below: Because I was at the same time shooting a video I started to make photos when they were already a few minutes selecting the necessary branches and cutting off the unnecessary foliage and branches. And that was all done at an enormously fast tempo! If you just look at all the foliage on the floor at this point then you can clearly see just how far they already were when I shoot this first picture!
Below: more and more was cut off leaving only the necessary foliage.
Below: 70 years old?! I wish that I could sit on my knees like that and I am only 57 ?! 😁
Below: the assistant started to pluck needles and wiring while the master was cutting off even more foliage!
Below: wiring the branches and foliage. On the right, you can see a picture of how the tree looked just after Teunis Jan had bought it in China all those years ago.
Below: look how he amazingly is working with tree cutters in his right hand?! And still, managed to wire small branches??? But he has had a lot of practice doing Bonsai for 15 hours a day over the last 45 years! 🙂
Below: with every wire that is applied and branches that are positioned more and more beauty is revealed…like magic!!!
Below: the growth could not control their selves any longer when the whole top section was bent forward with the help of a special Bonsai tool! It was bent until some cracks appeared and then secured in place with some heavy copper wire.
Below: below is the amazing end result after some 3 hours of work. What an amazingly quick transformation into a very promising Bonsai! What a talented and skilful visionary this very sympathetic, humorous and modest master! It was so inspiring to watch his every move from so close by! Thanks for a very memorable evening mister Kobayashi and Teunis Jan Klein and all the volunteers that helped that night in DESHIMA BONSAI STUDIO for making this all possible for us all!
The 20-minute video of this whole stunning transformation is in the making and will be posted on my own youtube KARAMOTTO Bonsai channel in a few days’ time so watch this space!!!
I hope you enjoyed this for me special post about a unique Bonsai experience?!
Cheers,
Hans van Meer.
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The Bonsai Blog of Hans van Meer 