I wanted to announce the restructuring of my LA based classes and to discuss the merits of an intensive based learning structure. Since returning from Japan in 2020 and starting my bonsai business in 2022, I’ve worked with and have taught thousands of individuals. Working on a deep breadth of material has continually expanded and refined my bonsai ability, and I’ve also gained great insight and deep understanding on how people learn and improve.

Bonsai is really unique as both an art and craft. On the surface, there can be obvious aesthetic appeal. You have a plant with interesting colors and textures that can have aesthetically clean shapes or dramatic forms. It’s miniaturized–there is a sense of intimacy and engagement that’s similar to standing next to a giant tree. People begin here and feel a sense of awe and excitement when working with these small trees. So naturally when practicing bonsai, the average enthusiast will start by thinking how do they want their tree to look.

As people get a bit deeper, it becomes more apparent that bonsai is a living tree. We begin to understand that there are considerations to make a tree grow healthy and strong. We start to develop a give and take relationship, where we impose less on the tree but work with it more to give a favorable response.

Eventually, we’ve played out this relationship with enough time and sincerity. Both our skills and understanding of the tree grows. From here, some of the finer subtleties of bonsai emerge and this is when trees really start to become great.

From my professional experience working with people, it’s just as much of teaching skills and techniques that I am really teaching a mindset that can produce excellence in bonsai. It is necessary to practice with clarity–we understand how a tree grows and what type of response is elicited from the work we apply. It is important to practice with honesty–we align our expectations of the result our work produces with the end goal we desire. Lastly it is important to conduct our work with sincerity–anything meaningful we accomplish requires both time and deliberation. Work that is done with respect, love, and patience will always be better than work that is done quickly, crude, and without thought. With a great mindset in clarity, honestly, and sincerity we can draw the full potential out of bonsai, which is an art form that can transpire over our lifetime.

With this in mind I will be transitioning away from the prior workshop format and will begin to offer a limited number of “intensives” in the LA area. This format will have several goals:

1. To enable participants to meaningfully increase their skill in bonsai
2. To create a passionate and serious group of peers who enable and improve each other’s work
3. To produce trees at the highest level, capable of being exhibited at national shows (you do not necessarily need a desire to exhibit your trees)

There are 3 levels of educational opportunity that will be provided in these intensives:

1. Deep bonsai theory/lecture/discussion providing holistic context on the work we do and why
2. Real world and practical case studies by working on all the participant’s trees
3. Work samples provided by trees within my private garden

This intensive format will differ from typical workshops in the following ways. First is that participants will be capped at 5 members of relative proficiency. This is to provide a deeper 1 on 1 experience that larger workshops are unable to accommodate. Second is that the workshop will be formatted to run through a full day, 8 am – 5 pm. Most workshops are truncated over <6 hour working periods which does not allow for extensive or more technical work.

Lastly, I will provide my experience to these workshops which encompass professional training in Japan and a deep breadth of experience operating as a full-time bonsai professional in the US. I have vetted and transparent work portfolio that showcases high level work from complete raw material development to refinement by Japan’s standard. I operate via very strong growing and technique principles create very robust work and teaching methodologies to be able to tackle any kind of material.

If you’re serious about bonsai and based in the LA or greater Southern California scene, then this is highest quality intensive/”workshop” type instruction available.

Currently I only have 3 slots available for 2026. More to be added depending on availability.

6/20 (topics include wiring, deciduous leaf and structural branch techniques, pine decandling and needle pulling)
8/8 (Heavy wire focus, styling for aesthetic goals vs building, temperate deciduous/broadleaf last major round)
12/12 (Fall season work, temperate species balancing, wire and styling)

Cost is $225 per person, lunch provided. Duration will run from 8 am – 5 pm. Participants to bring their own trees, but there is opportunity to assist with other trees within the group. Slots capped at 5. Please contact me at [email protected] with any questions.