Product Spotlight - The Kyokusen

We’re written before about the story behind the Kyokusen Swing Seat and its inspiration and inception, there's a whole story behind the seat, but we would like to tell you some more about its enduring appeal, 15 years after we launched it.

The Kyokusen is one of our best sellers and is certainly known as our signature piece. From its sensuously elegant curves to whichever back design of our five is chosen, it’s a very special swing seat.  Many have likened it to a sculpture in their garden, standing proud and adding an element of almost spiritual peace to its surroundings.

Recently we welcomed a couple, The Barrons,  to the Sitting Spiritually Garden, they had seen our swing seats at the Seaside Boarding  House at Burton Bradstock, The Bishops Palace at Wells & most recently at Lympstone Manor, Exmouth, so they had followed us for a while. They instantly fell in love with the Kyokusen in the garden here, the original one, made 15 years ago,  and they commissioned us to make them exactly the same swing seat, a Four Seater Swirl Back.

Due to the unique nature of its frame and sculptural top beam, the Kyokusen takes four weeks to make in our Devon Workshops.  The completed commission was duly delivered to Hampshire and only days later we were thrilled to receive the following words, and photos, and we make no excuses for reproducing them here, in full, with immense pride:

“At first, I thought Sitting Spiritually was just a really good marketing name. Having seen your garden and how you work I thought it might be a bit deeper. Looking at a beautiful garden view from a swing seat is definitely a good way of finding inner calm. Also there is the Japanese view that making something beautiful as well as you possibly can is a spiritual act. I have a Japanese guitar that was made about 45 years ago by a luthier who lived a monastic life in a mountain workshop making guitars because he thought it was the best way to spend his life. I recently had the guitar health checked by a modern UK luthier who declared it to be as near perfect as could be measured with modern measuring instruments.

However, I now realise that the true reason for your name is even more sophisticated. Our seat is capable of swinging when it feels like it. Yesterday in the pouring rain it was swinging quite hard almost all day. I presume it was stressed about its first experience of rain. Today the Sun was shining and the Solent was at its best. The swing was mostly swinging gently but sometimes still and sometimes enthusiastic. It must be using the wind but there does not seem to be much correlation between its swinging and the strength or direction of the wind. I now presume that it is swinging spiritually.

Thanks for all your help”

Best wishes  Mike & Gill Barron

As a team we were all absolutely over the moon, we all love what we do, but words like these, out of the blue, make everything we do so worthwhile.  Huge credit of course goes to our maker, James Amato, who produced this thing of beauty, but every one of us is involved in some small way, so to share a story like this on the blog fills us with  such pride that we wanted to share it with you and we hope it goes some way to telling what a very special piece The Kyokusen is.