People often think of tenkara as a simple Japanese fishing technique: one rod, one line, one fly, no reel. That is true. But anyone who lingers with it soon discovers that beneath the simplicity lies a real philosophy — a way of being at the water's edge. And it is from that philosophy that a practice I am exploring and developing was born: Ten Chi.
This article answers two questions at once. First: what is the philosophy of tenkara, this art that came down from the mountains of Japan? Second: what is Ten Chi, and why blend fishing with tai chi? Think of it as an invitation to slow down — both in the reading and on the river.
The philosophy of tenkara: simplicity as a discipline
Tenkara was born in the mountain streams of Japan, where working anglers needed a tool that was efficient, light, and hard to break in rough conditions. Out of that constraint came an elegance: removing everything that is not essential. No reel, no vest bristling with boxes, no arsenal of flies. A telescopic rod, a line fixed to its tip, and a fly — the kebari.
This simplicity is not poverty; it is a discipline. When you take away the gear, all that remains is the gesture and the attention. The great popularizer of modern tenkara, Dr. Hisao Ishigaki, likes to remind us that a single fly, well presented, is enough. The idea unsettles the Western angler used to constantly swapping imitations. But it shifts the center of gravity of fishing: it is no longer the equipment that catches the fish, but the rightness of the presentation, the reading of the water, the patience.
There is an obvious kinship here with a certain Japanese aesthetic — that of wabi-sabi, of the beauty of restraint, of the sufficient. Tenkara is less gear and more presence. You do not "fight" the river with technology; you tune yourself to it.
This economy of means has a side effect that practitioners often mention: it calms. By removing the noise of equipment, tenkara makes room for attention. You hear the current, you follow the fly's drift, you feel the faintest take in your fingertips. It is a kind of fishing that brings you back to the present — so much so that many describe it as meditative without ever setting out to find that. Where modern Western fishing often pushes toward the "ever more" of equipment, tenkara offers an "enough" that frees the mind as much as the back. This is perhaps the most Japanese part of the art: not a recipe for catching more fish, but a way of fully inhabiting the time spent on the water.
From the fishing stroke to the inner gesture
Watch a tenkara angler who casts well and one thing stands out: the fluidity. The movement comes from the body, not just the arm. The shoulder stays low, the wrist alive, the rod loads and then stops sharply, and it is that stop — not force — that lays the line on the water. A good cast does not look like effort. It looks like a controlled transfer of energy, almost still.
This is exactly what the Chinese internal arts such as tai chi pursue: a movement that rises from the root in the ground, passes through a relaxed body, and releases at the right moment without tension. Where the martial artist seeks to issue a precise force, the angler seeks to set a fly down with delicacy. The vocabulary differs, but the mechanics of the body are strikingly alike.
Others before me have sensed this link. I simply decided to put it into practice, and to make it a named practice.
Ten Chi: when tenkara meets tai chi
The name Ten Chi carries several meanings, and that is on purpose.
In Japanese, 天地 means "heaven and earth" — exactly the axis that tai chi and tenkara share: the feet rooted in the ground, the crown of the head rising toward the sky. The character 天 (ten, "sky") is also the etymological root of the word tenkara itself, often translated as "from the sky," a reference to the fly settling down from above onto the water. And "Ten" is also ten — because the method I built has ten gestures.
Ten Chi, then, is not a new way to fish. It is a short sequence of preparatory gestures, inspired by tai chi, that you move through slowly before or during fishing. In it you prepare the body — the rooting, the loosening of the shoulders, the breath — and you rehearse the cast in slow motion: the load, the stop, the retrieve. The warm-up and the technique become the same movement.
The full sequence has ten gestures, several of which carry a Japanese name borrowed from tenkara, tai chi, or archery: the Root (Ne), the River's Breath (Kawa no kokyu), Cloud Hands (Unshu), the Living Wrist (Te no uchi), the Load (Tame), the Stop (Kime), Listening (Chokei), and more. An express version in four gestures — Root, Load, Stop, Listening — can be done right at the water's edge when time is short. I detail each of these gestures on the method page and in a single-page reference sheet.
The principles that run through the practice
Beyond the gestures, Ten Chi rests on a few principles borrowed from the internal arts that turn out to be surprisingly useful for casting.
Relaxation (song, in Chinese): useless force gets in the way. A tense shoulder shortens the cast; a hand gripped too tightly kills the rod. You learn to tension only what must be tensioned.
The release that frees (fa jin): in the cast as in the martial gesture, it is not the push that projects, but the sudden deceleration. The rod, loaded and then stopped sharply, transfers its energy to the line. You stop in order to release.
Listening (ting jin): to feel, rather than to look. The attention sinks into the fingertips, onto the line, the drift, the take. It is the art of perceiving the faintest thing.
The interval (ma): the space between two gestures, the silence between two notes. In fishing, it is the pause before recasting, the time to read the water. The emptiness is part of the movement.
One practice, three ways
One of the things I love about Ten Chi is that it adapts to the moment. You can practise it in three ways.
Bare-handed, like a morning mobility routine, simply to inhabit the body and the breath. With the rod collapsed, holding the telescopic rod folded like a tai chi stick — ideal for rehearsing the mechanics without clutter, even seated. And with the rod extended, at the water's edge, where the gestures blend directly into real fishing. The same sequence, three intensities, depending on whether you want to warm up, to learn, or to fish.
Why it changes the fishing
You might think this is an add-on, a decorative ritual. It is the opposite. Ten Chi does not get added to the fishing; it distills it.
When the warm-up already is the technique rehearsed in slow motion, you arrive at the water with a ready body and a gesture already inscribed. The tension drops. The first casts, so often spoiled by haste, become composed. And above all, you fish with a different quality of attention — less in performance, more in presence. You stop trying to "catch" and enter into a dialogue with the current.
It is the line that closes the method: the river is not only in front of you — it runs through the movement. The water is not only at the end of the line; it passes through the body that casts.
Where to begin
You do not need to master everything to taste Ten Chi. Start with the Root: standing, feet hip-width apart, knees soft, let the weight sink into the ground and the crown of the head stretch upward. Three slow breaths, and you have already begun. Then add the Load and the Stop, the rod collapsed in your hand like a stick, to feel the mechanics of the cast without the pressure of the catch. The full sequence will come on its own, at your pace. The goal is not performance; it is the quality of presence you carry out onto the water afterward. Five minutes at sunrise, or two minutes at the river's edge, are enough to feel the effect.
An open exploration, not a doctrine
I want to be clear about one thing: Ten Chi is a practice I am experimenting with, not an ancient tradition I would claim to possess. I am building it by living it, season after season, on the rivers of Quebec. Some gestures will sharpen, others will fall away. That is precisely what makes the adventure interesting.
If the idea of uniting the simplicity of tenkara with the movement awareness of tai chi speaks to you, I invite you to try it — even just the express version, four gestures, two minutes, at the water's edge. You will tell me what it changes for you.
And if you want to follow this exploration closely — the full method, the ten gestures, and the online course I am preparing — the simplest way is to subscribe to The Sunday Letter: a short tenkara read, every Sunday, to start the week right. Subscribers receive, as a gift, the single-page reference sheet of the ten Ten Chi gestures.
Tenkara teaches us to take away the superfluous. Ten Chi, perhaps, teaches us to put back the essential: the body, the breath, and the water passing through.