KIWI YAMABUSHI
Kia ora Koutou, I'm Tim Bunting, The Kiwi Yamabushi. I am a practicing Dewa Sanzan Yamabushi Japanese mountain ascetic (What's a Yamabushi?). I have been living in Yamagata, Tohoku, north Japan, since 2010. Since 2016, I have trained as a yamabushi under Master Fumihiro Hoshino through Daishobo pilgrim's lodge on Haguro-san, and through Dewa Sanzan Jinja. If you want to find out more about how you too can train in the ways of Shugendo, check out Yamabushido.jp (tell them I sent you).
In my spare time I write stories about the overlooked side of Japan, namely up here in the Tohoku region. I write a daily blog, have a newsletter with over 1,000 subscribers, have a YouTube channel also with over 1,000 subscribers, and am on most socials as @kiwiyamabushi.
I am currently on a mission to summit and document all 100 Famous Mountains of Yamagata.
I am available for online consultation, public speaking in both English and Japanese, and I am able to guide you on The Dewa Sanzan mountains by working through Yamabushido.jp or DewaSanzan.com. As a Master Yamabushi and the creator of Dewasanzan.com, I believe I am the most knowledgable native English speaker on these three mountains.
POPULAR ARTICLES
My newsletter articles are free to read on Substack for a week, but you can just get them sent to your email for free if you subscribe. After that, they are only available to paid subscribers. However, articles that get more than 1,000 reads I put here so everyone can enjoy them. All of the articles can be found here.
DAILY YAMABUSHI
Here are some of my Daily Yamabushi posts. Get more here.
I heard of a challenge from Seth Godin to write everyday. I have learned the importance of effective communication by being a teacher, translator, and interpreter over the years, and I'm going to write this blog, even if it's crap, everyday for as long as I can. My reasoning is purely selfish, to be a …
I was a little taken aback the other day in one of my junior high school English classes because the teacher had told the students to work alone on their self-introductions just because he wanted them to finish quickly. Actually I was angry because I said that they should ask each other before they ask …
When you are put in charge of teaching English to young children it can often be quite challenging. They need to be constantly entertained and engaged, which means either one really fun task, or lots of little ones are necessary. Any activity that is not the least bit fun will have the children off-task and not learning, so … More easy activities for the low-level language classroom Read More »
KIWI YAMABUSHI
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Sakata City, Yamagata, Japan
timb008@gmail.com
All photos my own unless otherwise stated. Contact for more.