St Petersburg Yacht Club
11 Central Avenue
St Petersburg, FL 33701

Complimentary self parking

Doors of the Ballroom open at 9:30
Demonstration starts at 10:30
Luncheon starts at 12:00
Basket Raffle and Silent Auction to follow

Luncheon Cost is $75

My passion for flowers and nature started early in childhood through my mother who raised her own flowers and in her own way inculcated the value for mindfulness. As I engaged in international marketing, I needed to employ calming strategies after a day of competitive interactions. I discovered Ikenobo Ikebana while in Japan and eventually sought lessons from Bessie Banmi Fooks for three years in the early ‘70s while living in Taiwan. I was the first student she certified in Banmi Shofu Ryu, the school she was authorized to found, grounded in the 16th century Shofu School. Little did I know that I would be installed by virtue of fictive kinship as the second-generation headmaster after she passed in 2005. I have devoted more than two decades in refining and documenting kaden or rules of engagement for future ikebana students and sensei, and represented Banmi Shofu Ryu in local, state, national, national, regional and international ikebana congresses. Ikebana remains to be my parallel occupation or passion so while working as an occupational therapist and neuropsychologist, I have studied the occupation of flowers or ikebana as a mindful, leisure, and therapeutic medium, and have published and published my research studies in refereed venues and  publications. Three of these projects have investigated how western sensei have evolved centuries old roles, routines, and habits in this contemporary world. Recently, I developed the courage to write a heuristic autoethnography of my own ikebana journey, about to be published in a scientific journal. I am about to conclude a collaborative study that employed the realistic synthesis methodology with other scholars from the US, India and Japan. The monograph of this study received an innovation grant from Ikebana International’s Iwaya Fund for distribution to all II chapters around the world. Hopefully, the publication will provide ikebana information to individuals who otherwise will not have been exposed to the ancient flower art.

 More information in: https://ikebanabanmishofu.com/;
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Banmi_Sh%C5%8Df%C5%AB-ry%C5%AB;
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j3QbUg8Dqgc; https://iichapter1.com/2013-2014-events/;
https://iichapter1.com/2013-2014-events/