The Three Paths
By Dennis Vander Houwen Tenkara is what brings my life peace. It is no mistake that my blog is called “Tenkara Path.” For me it is how I am traveling through life. Tenkara has been a great teacher and healer to me as well. I know others who have made it a very important practice in their lives too. This said, I also know that there are people who do not follow tenkara with the same sense of reverence I have. For them it is just another style of fishing. I can accept this because not everyone is on the same path but whatever path they are on it is to the same destination. For a couple of weeks now I have been really working to find a way to look at the bigger picture of tenkara. This article is the result of many late nights writing and rewriting my opinion in a way that I think represents a better tenkara for our future. This is how I see tenkara and how I will teach it to others going forward. Before I dive into this, I think we need to establish some basic agreements. If we can agree on a starting point, then we are working in the right direction for keeping the basics of tenkara intact and well defined.
Let’s agree that tenkara is a “fishing style.”
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First I believe we can all agree that this is the commonality that we all share with tenkara. We all see tenkara as a style of fishing. Simply a rod, a line and a fly. We all know this mantra. Let’s agree that tenkara and western fly fishing really are two things. Tenkara really is its own form of fly fishing. Tenkara and western fly fishing are similar, but they have two very different histories and even more differences than similarities when it comes to their techniques and tackle requirements.
Finally, let’s also agree that there are different “ways” to fish tenkara. People who fish tenkara make choices along the way as to how they are going to embrace tenkara. “Each of these paths are different and yet, they all work to travel to the same summit.” Each person’s path is a choice they make. I propose that there are three definitive paths that are taken by people regularly regarding their relationship to tenkara. They are “Tsuri, Renshū, and Dentō”. They can be seen as different paths however they are dependent upon each other in a way that makes them all really one path to the summit that is a place I call the “heart of tenkara.”
