The art of bonsai has many traditions, the first one and oldest is the tradition of nature. Bonsai isn't an abstract form of art. Its connection with the world of nature is very tight, and a good bonsai will never be something that doesn't find a correspondence with the shapes of trees in nature. Most of the time, the way that I choose to teach the right way to style a bonsai is to invite all my students to carefully observe trees in nature. I invite them to be part of a tradition started billions of years ago!

The second tradition is about technique. In my opinion, it's hard to believe that someone can create a very high quality bonsai without good bonsai skills. Rarely, a bonsaiist makes a very beautiful tree just with intuition, but this is just beginner's luck! During a bonsai meeting, all the participants are exchanging secrets and innovation because "experience" is the most important tool for making bonsai; your experience and somebody else's. Experience is the only way to eliminate mistakes and to get a good bonsai from your material in the shortest period of time.

The third tradition is the heaviest to carry on your shoulders; the tradition of the school to which you belong. I studied with Masahiko Kimura, who studied with Hamano Motosuke. Shinji Suzuki, Hideo Suzuki and some of the others best bonsai masters in Japan belong to this school, and I feel connected will all of them. In fact, I visit their gardens every time I go to Japan.

Nobody studies with me right now as an apprentice; I'm too young to be a bonsai master. But maybe one day, one day when my hair will be white and I'll start to talk more about Zen instead of explaining how to wire properly, some young boy or girl will study bonsai with me as I did in Japan. It is very important to me to make them understand that traditions in bonsai are all important. There is no need to always break the rules, particularly before we're able to do things as nature does. She will always do something far better than we can, so bonsai is like an homage to her magnificence.