My First Trip To Boon's Bonsai Intensive
- paulkellum
- Jan 3, 2013
- 2 min read
So the time came to fly out to my first class at Boon's and the excitement that had subsided from the phone call months ago was back. I cant lie its a long flight coast to coast for the first time. I arrived in San Fransisco and caught the BART rail over to my hotel not really knowing what to expect the next day.
So the plan was to meet out front of the hotel in the morning and to my surprise it was just me. It happened that my first trip out was one of the classes where the other 5 people where all locals. I have to say meeting Boon for first time was great he is very passionate about what he does and a great person.
Its hard to say why but I know I had made the right choice.
The first time you get to the house you meet the dogs and a few minutes later you wonder back into the garden. The garden shows you very quickly that you made the right choice. Tree after amazing tree and you spend your first moments in the morning looking. I had no clue what I was looking at but I knew this looks like the trees on google from Japan.
The first class was confusing and lord it was fast but I loved it. It was a quiet group of people and we worked on our assigned trees as Boon came around to give instruction. The crazy thing is that each student is at a different level. I was at “whats is wiring?” level and others had graduated and and return to continue their education.
I learned wiring and when you have never done bonsai wiring is a foreign concept. I was tormenting this little juniper in a nursery pot. It was so frustrating to see this figure 15 thing and realize as a grown adult that couldn't figure it out. Then you start to feel like its going good and nope its wrong. I think I started just looking at same branch anticipating what I was going to do wrong next. I cant say it got better that first time as wiring is a skill that requires tons of practice. I think after 3 days Boon had shown me how to practice. I learned much more than wiring but hands on wise it was a lot to figure out.
I had no question that I was coming back and wanted to learn more. I see these trees he has and they are not just alive but they healthy and growing. I think my first trip help put that concept in place. Never work on a tree thats not healthy and if you have a tree that alive it doesn't mean I found myself seeing the tree in a different light.
I returned to NC and practiced wiring on sofa at least a night a week with a tree limbs from the woods trying to figure out this road map of wiring.
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