Ann Kameoka Sensei was recently appointed to the SMAA Board of
Advisors. She is the co-author of The Japanese Way of the
Flower: Ikebana as Moving Meditation (Stone Bridge Press).
Kameoka Sensei has studied Ikenobo kado, the oldest form of
lower arrangement, for many years under top Japanese experts.
She lives in California and holds a teaching certificate from
the Ikenobo headquarters in Kyoto, Japan. Ikenobo is the
original form of flower arrangement from which all newer systems
have originated. She also has teaching certification in the
Shin-shin-toitsu-do system of Japanese yoga and its related
healing arts. Kameoka Sensei presented a very well received
flower arrangement lecture/demonstration at the first SMAA
National Seminar in July of 2005. We hope that she will continue
to teach at future SMAA events.
Her appointment as an SMAA Senior Advisor is an indicator of
our association's ongoing effort to offer SMAA members information
about other time-honored Japanese art forms, which have parallel
principles to budo, principles that can further one's understanding
of certain aspects of the Japanese martial arts. Likewise, bringing
Kameoka Sensei onto our Board of Advisors is part of the SMAA's
continuing endeavor to further our ties with the Japanese and
Japanese-American communities.