Block · kaisho 楷書 · VB5J
Block or kaisho (楷書) styles are the most common and recognizable styles. Block styles are easily read and are noted for their angular form and their vertical and horizontal lines.
礼に始まり礼に終わる
rei ni hajimari, rei ni owaru
Begins and Ends with Courtesy
The saying the Japanese martial arts share: practice begins with courtesy and ends with courtesy, in the bow and in what the bow stands for.
by Master Eri Takase
Born and raised in Osaka, Japan, Eri Takase received the rank of Shihan, master, from two calligraphy societies, the Bokuteki-kai and Bunka-shodō, and won best-of-category awards in all-Japan national competitions. She has created calligraphy for people around the world for more than thirty years, and with your order she will be creating calligraphy for you.
In a ritual as old as calligraphy itself, Master Takase prepares the ink, meditatively rubbing the ink stick against the stone until it reaches the perfect consistency for the paper. Then, properly loading the brush with ink, she brushes your scroll. And only when the scroll is just right and meets her approval, she signs it and affixes her seal, completing your original scroll.
12 1/4" × 43" (31 × 109 cm) Japanese Scrolls
The scrolls have woven damask borders and special layered Japanese paper (washi), designed to last generations by a scroll maker in Gifu, Japan, with whom we have worked for over two decades.
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Explanation
礼に始まり礼に終わる (rei ni hajimari, rei ni owaru): the saying the Japanese martial arts share, that practice begins and ends with courtesy, the bow and what it stands for.
In the dictionaries, 礼 means the forms of courtesy that keep people's dealings smooth, and also the bow made to show respect. The encyclopedias give the saying under jūdō, which values those forms: the standing bow and the seated bow.
Kendō manuals of 1911 to 1914 make the saying a rule of practice. In a manual of 1912, the sentence on the bows before and after practice goes straight on to the mind. If the mind is not right, it says, the courtesy is not right. Writers of 1914 and 1916 said the saying means courtesy kept during practice as well as at its start and end.
By the 1930s the saying belonged to jūdō and karate as well as kendō, and tea books said it of tea in 1915 and 1927. The twenty precepts of karate attributed to Funakoshi Gichin open with it, and he gave it as a saying of karate, not as his own words.
In English the saying was in print by 1967, of jūdō, as begins and ends with courtesy. Books on aikido have given etiquette and respect.
The words appear to turn an older Japanese proverb on drink, which Bakin gave in 1828 as beginning in courtesy and ending in disorder; the turned form was said of banquets in print from 1884 (the National Diet Library's full text), and the earliest martial use in Nakatani Yasushi's study of 2022 is a kendō article by Naitō Takaharu of 1907.
Learn More About These Words
We want you to be as happy with the meaning as you are with Master Takase's art. To learn more, visit Philology of 礼に始まり礼に終わる.
