Buddhist marksman’s skill has lasted through age and WWII internment

HANAPEPE-A small crowd of 25 people witnessed an amazing display of archery last Saturday at the Hanapepe Zenshu Temple.

They also saw an amazing display of longevity.

Both were demonstrated by a master kyudu archer, retired Buddhist Bishop Gyokuei Matsuura, who proved he is definitely 89 years young.

Matsuura was invited to display his skills by the Hanapepe Zenshu Temple’s Rev. Kosho Itagaki and the Barking Sands Archery Club.

Matsuura approached his shooting exhibition methodically, cracking his knuckles, loosening up his fingers and bowing to his archery glove before putting it on.

Matsuura’s forearms, striated with muscle and looking like the arms of a much younger man, barely quivered as he pulled back the 22-pound bow that was almost as tall as he was.

He fired at the small target about 25 to 30 yards away. All but one of his arrows hit the target, and his third shot was a direct bullseye.

Afterward, through an interpreter, Matsuura talked briefly about his shooting prowess.

Smiling, he said the major difference now (from when he arrived in Hawai’i 64 years ago) was his bow.

“Although they last for life,” Matsuura said, he has gone from a 25-pound (pull) bow to a 22-pound bow as he’s gotten older.

That’s not much of a concession to being nearly 90, but Matsuura isn’t a man who seems to have conceded much in his long life.

Although historians say it is unclear who brought kyudu archery to Hawai’i, Rev. Gyokuei Matsuura arrived in 1936 and a year later was demonstrating bojutsu (sticks martial arts) at an exhibition on Oahu.

Waimea Shingon Shu, on Kaua’i, opened a kyudojo on temple grounds in the summer of 1940. The chief instructor was the same archer who put on last Saturday’s demonstration.

Matsuura was reassigned by his church to the Big Island in 1941, but all kyudu activities were soon suspended because of World War II. The American military confiscated all the bows and arrows and a number of instructors, including Matsuura, were interned.

Matsuura saw a lot of the United States in this unpleasant fashion, being interned at Kilauea Military Camp, then Sand Island, Oahu, then Angel Island in San Francisco, Calif.

Later during the war, Matsuura was relocated to other camps on the mainland: Fort Sill, Okla., Camp Livingston, La. and Santa Fe, N.M.

When the war ended, kyudu was revived and the American military returned the archers’ equipment.

The Hawaii Kyudu Kai formalized itself in 1947. There are few practitioners left of kyudu in Hawai’i, although kyudu archers are still revered in Japan.

Last year, Clifford Fujino, a veteran practitioner, told the Hawai’i Herald that the sport was threatened.

“Our problem is we have no teachers. Most are all dead, except for…Matsuura,” Fujino said in the Herald article.

Last Saturday’s exhibition was sponsored by the Barking Sands Archery Club.

Club Member Don Decker, who retired to Kaua’i from the mainland eight years ago, said the group is composed of recreational shooters.

Before the exhibition by Matsuura, Decker said, “I’ve been looking forward to this. I’ve heard so much about Japanese (kyudu) shooting, but I’ve never seen it before.” Decker said club members meet and shoot indoors on the third Tuesday of every month.

Decker has been target-shooting for 40 years.

“Many of the other members hunt, but I don’t,” he said.

The club is looking for new members who have a love of archery to join the “10 or so” currently shooting. Decker said dues are modest.

Additional information is available from Decker at 742-6743 or from Thomas Batis at 335-4440.

Staff writer Dennis Wilken can be reached at 245-3681 (ext. 252).