HAOKA, Yoshihito（羽岡義仁）
Biography （生い立ち）- JP will follow EN
Date of Birth 1989 in Tokyo
Master - YOSHIHARA, Yoshindo, Yoshikazu & Kuniie（吉原義人・義一・國家）
The swordsmith license authorization in 2013.
Yoshihito Haoka was born in 1989; e.g. the new imperial era Heisei started, in Shibamata、 Katsushika-ku ward in Tokyo.
In his childhood, Yoshihito was a very active boy who liked to go to a candy shop in his neighbors with a nostalgic atomosphere where there were still public baths and candy shops, and to play outside in the nearby park. Both his grandfather and father were carpenters and he was a boy who made things with scraps of wood in his grandfather’s workshop. He could not assemble wood, but he could use a saw, chisel and planer to cut and carve wood. He made wooden swords for playing samurai fights, so called chanbara in Japanese. (I think most Japanese men have their experiences with this play in their childhood.)
Kids’ chanbara samurai play
photo copy @ Mainichi Newspaper（毎日新聞）in 1950s
He could not use a plane like an adult but he fixed the plane upside down like a bonito brush shaving tool and scraped the bottom of the plane by sliding the wood.
bonito plane（鰹節鉋）
When he was in elementary and junior high school, he got into making plastic models, especially Gundam robots.
It may have been natural for him, who liked handicrafts, to study architecture at high school. He also studied design but crafts class was mainly basic curriculums. He learned how to use tools with grafting woods in class. During high school era, he no longer made things in his grandfather’s workshop like he used to do when he was a child. He was a kind of boy who liked working with carpentry tools more than woodworking. He was keen on sharpening and he was sharpening his chisel and plane all the time.
I would like to tell you why Haoka decided to become swordsmith in this series.
生い立ち
平成元年(1989年）の東京葛飾区柴又生まれ。
吉原義人、義一、國家に学ぶ吉原門弟の1人で2013年に刀匠認可。
幼少期にはまだ銭湯や駄菓子屋が残る風情のある街で駄菓子屋に通ったり、近くの公園で外遊びが好きな活発な少年でした。祖父、父共に大工で祖父の家の仕事場で小さいときから木材の切れ端を使って何かを作る少年でした。彼は幼い頃は木材を組み立てることが出来ませんでしたが、鋸、ノミ、鉋などを使って木材を切ったり削ることはできたので、チャンバラをして遊ぶための木刀ばかりを作っていたそうです。鉋を大人が使うようには出来ませんでしたが、鰹節削りのように鉋を逆さまに固定して、鉋の底面を木材を滑らして削るようにして作る工夫をするような子供だったようです。小中学校時代にはプラモデル作りにはまり、ガンダムを好んで作っているような少年時代でした。
工作が好きだった少年が高校で建築科に進むのは自然だったのかもしれません。授業では設計も学びましたが、工作は基礎学習がメインで、道具の使い方は木材の継ぎ方などを授業で学ぶようになり、幼少の頃のように祖父の仕事場で何か作ることはしなくなりました。木工よりも大工道具を触っているのが好きで、研ぎに凝り、ノミや鉋をしょっちゅう研いでいるような高校生時代でした。
そうした羽岡青年がどうして刀匠になろうと思ったのかは次シリーズの「刀匠になろうと思ったきっかけ」でお伝えしていきたいと思います。