Ikebana

Having a huge interest in Japanese culture already, I wanted to try Ikebana.

I knew a tiny bit about Ikebana before going, such as, it is a type of flower arrangement that was used by the Buddist and the Samurai back in the day.

I plan on researching more about it as one of the things I did not realise is that there are many different schools of ikebana, I think the Sensai said something like 150 schools! :O!

The style I tried today was Ikenobo.. Again more research to do!

So I arrived at the centre and after a few 'lost in translation' moments of which door I was meant to go through, pressing lots of buttons till i actually realised the door was open. Haha! I got there in time and ready to roll.

The Sensai and students, (there was only four of us there in total) where so lovely, kind and welcoming. We were in a really nice modern room, all white which gave a great background to the photo's- have a look!

Also what was really nice is two of the students were presented at the start of the lesson with beautiful ornate certificates, a couple of kind of traditional books and a lovely sort of of plaque which you stand next to your work. I thought these were a kind of graduation certification but when I asked they said it was more like registration to a school of Ikebana (I think).

I made three arrangements in total all of Moribana, which is more of a freestyle, you are not limited to the number of stems you can use.
I only photographed two as I was starting to run out of steam by then
Chokutai- upright style
Shatai - slanting style
Suitay- hanging style.

Also whats really interesting is you place the plant material into a kind of pin cushion, which is then put into a bowl of water


After everyone was finished, we then had traditional style tea. (SO COOL). It was a traditional style of tea which you drink at Christmas/new year time. It was really nice almost like a mulled wine version of tea.
Then they gave out these kind of chestnut type of sweets, also really nice! And chocolates too <3 They were so happy to have a new member and seemed very interested in a western style of floristry and very complimentry about what I had done (beginners luck) So I think I will be going back next month for lesson two..