Embrace Tradition: Kimono Experience at Our Retreat

Have you ever tried Kimono on? It’s Japanese traditional clothes!

Although this used to be day-to-day wears in old days, today we don’t really wear kimono every day. This is now more like formal clothes for special occasions, and although I (Haruka) don’t really have an opportunity to wear it even as a Japanese, I still love when I put kimono on, so I decided to include this as a part of our retreat activities in Prana Retreat Japan!

And, that was the best decision!

For this “Kimono Experience” workshop, we have local kimono professionals coming over to the retreat site. Our Kimono teacher and Japanese traditional dance teacher are both super passionate about the kimono culture, and very knowledgeable.

They bring many kimono pieces and belts (Obi) of different colors and patterns, so retreat participants have many options to choose from the collection for their most favorite!

Putting an actual kimono is not an easy job. There are many steps to follow, and many pieces to come together. Even Japanese people find it hard to put kimono on by themselves (especially younger generations!).

Steps by steps, we put all the kimono pieces together with teachers’ great help, and that is always fun!

After we put a kimono on, we learn the basic kimono movements. Yes, there are some rules for it.

There is a proper way to walk, a proper way to look around, a proper way to point out to something, a proper way to eat, a proper way to greet, a proper way to sit down and stand up, a proper way to open and close the door, and pretty much all the daily movements in life.

In one way, kimono belt (Obi) gives a great support to our spine, but at the same time, it creates restrictions in many joints and muscles. Moving around with kimono on is actually so much more difficult than it looks!

After our movement and traditional dance lesson, we put Tabi (some people might call it Ninja socks), and Geta (Japanese traditional slippers) on and go for a little walk in streets. Even just for a minute short walk, you will find how tricky it is if you are not used to Geta slippers!

There is a nice local shrine right behind our retreat center, and that is a prefect spot to take pictures after a short walk. (We are all so glad it’s only a few min walking distance, not 10 min!)

This Sensu (Japanese traditional fans) are so cool! We use these Sensu for our traditional dance lesson, and of course there is a proper way to open, close, and fan ourselves with the Sensu!

With lots of details required for one single movement, we really need to bring our full concentration to each body part, which is a great mindfulness practice.

One of the kimono teachers run her own kimono rental shop, and she was downsizing her kimono collection (of thousands of thousands… wow!) during the 2024 spring retreat programs.

In the kimono experience class, she generously brought her kimono pieces (she no longer needs) and gave them away to retreat participants. Everyone was so happy with this authentic sourvenirs, which was a great surprise. I really appreciate her generosity and kindness.

We are offering seasonal programs in spring and autumn so that people can experience the best time of a year in Japan. Please follow our socials or check our website to find out our upcoming programs.

We are looking forward to meeting you in Fukuoka!