Origin of Chosei Zen Shakuhachi

As the founder of Chozen-Ji Shakuhachi (a format adopted as a do, or Way, by Chosei Zen) I felt it is necessary to describe how it is different from traditional shakuhachi schools. The major difference is that it follows martial arts training instead of the usual way of learning to play the shakuhachi.

Anyone who trained with Tanouye Rotaishi is very familiar with his insistence on the value of extreme repetitive training when learning any of the martial or fine arts.

The reason that repetition is the best way to master any martial art is because it will lead to perfection of desired skills, since incorrectly performing a skill wastes energy and is inefficient. Doing anything incorrectly is more exhausting, but if you don't stop you eventually will get it right.

This idea is the reason the core principle of our training is to play for long periods of time.

We began shakuhachi class in 1978 at Chozen-Ji from a teacher using traditional methods. After he passed away I wanted to continue learning to play the shakuhachi, but I felt that the traditional style shakuhachi music was not the best match for Chozen-ji.

I decided to apply what I learned from Tanouye Rotaishi's method of extreme repetition in martial arts to shakuhachi playing, with the goal of being able to play continuously for an hour. I believed doing this would eventually lead to increased mastery of the instrument.

It took many years of practice to accomplish this, but my intuition believed this method was correct.

Over the years while I was doing this, Tanouye never said anything to me about what I was doing except to say that one note properly played is sufficient to put a person in samadhi.

After a dojo member passed away, he asked me to play at his funeral.

This confirmed to me that our training method was sound, and that is how Chozen-Ji Shakuhachi began.

Shakuhachi class, with Joe Kizan Pittelli Sensei, meets the first Sunday of each month from 6-7pm Central Time in the Virtual Dojo. To participate in this class, please complete the registration form found here.