We extended the practice period by one month until May to continue training before the ro (brazier) season, so we set up the furo (portable brazier) in June, a month later than usual.
In the tokonoma (alcove), we displayed a calligraphy scroll with the phrase “Ichigo Ichie” (“One chance, one encounter”), and arranged white hydrangeas from the garden in a tsurukubi (crane-neck) flower vase.
For the charcoal, we used the practice pieces without actually lighting them. We practiced naming each of the utensils used in the charcoal procedure (sumidemae), as well as the names of the individual pieces of charcoal. We also practiced how to place the charcoal, the initial sweeping (sho-baki), middle sweeping (naka-baki), and final sweeping (go-baki) using the feather broom, and actions like “cutting the moon shape” (tsukigata o kiru). The difficult terminology gave us quite a challenge.
