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Ancient Brush Workshops - Testimonials Ari’s approach to teaching ancient brushwork provides a challenge for me to learn, experience and reflect more intimately with my own energy. The strokes I make are a mirror for me. They are true refection of the condition I was in at the moment I made each mark. They show hesitation, lack of focus, wandering mind. The brush becomes my silent gentle and truthfully honest teacher. I have pursued the painting experience for 30 years. Thank you for opening a new door to a deeper understanding of my nature.
As a student of Ari Tomita for many years I have come to understand the power of the ancient brush as a significant healing tool. I have find the structure of its method teaches me to focus, ground and connect to myself. By learning to focus in such away, the state of my mind becomes very lucid and revealing. This is a very personal and authentic method of self-discovery.
Studying with Ari has been an important and exciting experience for me. She provides a deep well from which students draw information and enlightenment. Ari’s gentle and firm encouragement and her challenges help me to express myself visually to a degree I could not have imagined a year ago. I believe this very direct and immediate method of expression will stay with me for life.
As a Canadian, with a mostly Western background, I am amazed at how quickly Ari was able to move an understanding of the form and its execution. The end result has been that my eyes are more open to seeing what was once a mystery. I believe that Ari Tomita has developed a very original ancient brush method.
She has proven to be a most inspiring teacher. My mind has thus been widened in ways that I would never have thought possible before embarking on these studies with her. I’m sure her influence will be felt in all of our conceptions of the world beyond our previously rather narrow purviews. She is a unique individual and I consider myself privileged to have had the chance to learn some important lessons from her.
She draws on parallels from sports, music, and nature to convey the ancient brush method. She is adept at understanding each student’s personality and skill level and personalizing the instruction to best help that student to develop. Her passion is always evident, yet she displays great patience.
Working with Ari has profoundly changed my condition. For the first time in my life I am being given the tools I need to help me to learn and to grow. She is constantly aware of individual personal growth patterns and the needs of each student, yet she encourages the class to work in ways which allow the collective unconscious to influence the group as a whole. The way the teaching method exchanges, mingles and combines creative inter-cultural ideas is generating unexpected results and also bringing her students together in significant ways we could not have anticipated or believed possible.
I am astounded at how deep this ancient brush painting process is. I had no idea what I was signing up for. The more I learn the more I want to learn. I come from a 16 year deep meditation practice I have had some difficulty living my meditation practice in my daily life. This brush technique I think will help me bring meditation and action together. I am excited about finding a way to express that your teaching Ari is very masterful, your presence, your energy, your clarity have been a big gift to me.
I have found this workshop particularly inspiring. It’s as if a whole new dimension of viewing has opened up for me. Particularly a centeredness and focus that I have been lacking. An appreciation of Zen, its philosophy and imperative has been conveyed. I see the brush strokes, their force, subtlety, and beauty everywhere I looked in nature, art, sound, and gesture. This is a lifetime connection – practice and study.
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