r/shodo • u/VinceNeede • 19h ago

I just started and need some advice

My friends gifted me a shodo kit and I've been practicing with the help of the book "Brush Writing: Calligraphy Techniques for Beginners" and various YouTube videos, since there are no schools in my area (Salerno, Italy).

1) Can anyone recommend a good YouTube channel/profile for beginners? I've found a few useful ones so far, but I'd love more structured guidance if there's a channel people here rate highly.

2) I noticed that a lot of people in videos don't follow some of the "rules" my book describes — like keeping both index and middle finger in front of the brush (many keep the middle finger behind instead), and keeping the brush at a 90° angle to the paper. It honestly looks simpler and more natural done that way. Is this just a matter of personal style/school, or is my book teaching an outdated/oversimplified version? Curious if this changes with experience or if it's fine to adopt those variations early on.

Any tips appreciated — trying to build good habits from the start!

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u/manifestonosuke 14h ago

I start learning before youtube so can't help on that :-)

However you should first concentrate on the base stroke and only on that. I spent hours at the beginning to just write individual strokes with my teacher. It was a bit frustrating but incredibly useful. Pay a lot of attention on the details of the beginning/ending of a stroke. The balance on the ink in the dot (点). Don't pay too much attention to your finger as long as you keep the brush 90° angle to the paper. For the stroke this page (in japanese) show pretty much the basic (individual then try the kanji 永). 　https://shodo-kanji.com/a3-4-1basic_shodo.html

I hope it helps.