Earlier than Marie Kondo captured the world’s consideration together with her exhortations to rid ourselves of things that didn’t “spark pleasure,” there was one other Japanese guru of decluttering.
Her identify is Hideko Yamashita. And whereas Ms. Yamashita, 70, has by no means reached Ms. Kondo’s stage of Netflix-induced fame, she is broadly credited in Japan with spearheading the trendy motion of decluttering our houses — or, because it has come to be known as abroad, “kondo-ing.”
The 2 ladies, born three many years aside in Tokyo, each preach the concept households amass an excessive amount of stuff. Letting go of pointless gadgets and creating minimalist, tidier areas, they argue, can improve psychological well-being.
Ms. Yamashita stated she admired Ms. Kondo, 40, for taking these concepts to the Western world. A spokeswoman for Ms. Kondo acknowledged in a press release that Ms. Yamashita had been a number one determine within the tidying pattern for years, however stated Ms. Kondo had established her personal philosophies.
Greater than twenty years in the past, Ms. Yamashita started providing seminars in Japan on danshari, the Japanese artwork of decluttering. In 2009, her e-book “The New Tidying Up Technique: Danshari” — revealed greater than a 12 months earlier than Ms. Kondo’s “The Life-Altering Magic of Tidying Up” hit cabinets — propelled her to fame.
Ms. Yamashita hosts a weekly tv present that’s broadly seen in Japan, taking over a few of the nation’s most maximalist houses. She additionally runs a faculty the place she trains college students — largely ladies, center age and older — on the way to turn out to be skilled decluttering consultants.
When performing danshari consultations, Ms. Yamashita glides round her shoppers’ houses in a classy one-shoulder apron with a crimson sash. Along with her neatly styled chestnut bob and a heat, barely crooked smile, the septuagenarian radiates power.
Ms. Yamashita and Ms. Kondo strategy decluttering in several methods. In Ms. Kondo’s books and Netflix collection, she presents easy-to-follow strategies for organizing, wrapped in her signature cheer and positivity. Hold gadgets that make you cheerful and thank these that don’t earlier than tossing them away, she instructs.
Ms. Yamashita is extra summary, philosophical and probing — much less approachable, converts of the Marie Kondo faculty argue. When sorting by means of what to maintain or toss away, Ms. Yamashita pushes her shoppers to consider why they’re hooked up to sure gadgets, and to look at what overabundance and obsession do to their emotional states.
“For me, danshari just isn’t about tidying up, organizing or tossing away issues that don’t spark pleasure,” Ms. Yamashita stated, slurping soba noodles out of sesame broth at a restaurant in Tokyo. “It’s about returning individuals to a state through which parting with issues feels pure.”
“When individuals’s houses and minds get clogged up with too many issues, they start to fester,” she continued. “It’s like the way you eat after which launch — it’s a regular a part of our existence.”
“Danshari is about creating an exit and getting that movement again,” she added.
Ms. Yamashita first encountered danshari throughout her college years in Tokyo, when she studied yoga and Buddhist teachings that emphasised letting go of attachments. After graduating and transferring to Ishikawa Prefecture, west of Tokyo, she started making use of these rules to declutter her own residence, which she shared together with her husband, son and mother-in-law.
It was from her mother-in-law that she found the difficulties of encouraging others to declutter. When Ms. Yamashita tried to throw issues away, her mother-in-law would rummage by means of the trash luggage, scolding her with “mottainai” — a Japanese time period expressing remorse over waste.
Her mother-in-law complained that the home was too small. “I wished to scream, ‘You’ll have more room when you simply do away with stuff!’” Ms. Yamashita recalled.
In 2005, Ms. Yamashita, then 50, had one other constructing constructed close to her household house, calling it the “Danshari Open Home.” There, she started teaching her yoga college students on the rules of family decluttering.
4 years later, Ms. Yamashita revealed her e-book — an on the spot success that was adopted by dozens extra. In complete, Ms. Yamashita’s books have bought greater than seven million copies.
Tomoko Ikari, an affiliate professor of shopper habits at Meisei College in Tokyo, stated danshari resonated so strongly in Japan for a purpose: The concept of dwelling merely and detaching from wishes is embedded within the Buddhist teachings that assist form Japan.
Nonetheless, regardless of the favored picture of tidy Japanese houses and existence rooted in a Zen minimalist aesthetic, Japan is a rustic of restricted house with a excessive focus of individuals in massive cities. Many houses are small and overcrowded with possessions, Ms. Ikari stated.
“There have been individuals who knew about danshari, nevertheless it was small earlier than the rise of Ms. Yamashita,” Ms. Ikari stated. “Years later, what began with Ms. Yamashita has reverberated into the worldwide ‘sparking pleasure’ phenomenon we see at this time.”
One early morning final fall, Ms. Yamashita arrived for a danshari session at a small condominium on the eighth flooring of a nondescript constructing in northwestern Tokyo. Her video crew was in tow to report the session for her YouTube channel.
Wearing light-wash denims and a frilly white shirt, Ms. Yamashita breezed down the entry corridor into the primary dwelling space, pausing to soak up the scene earlier than her.
Towers of tote luggage, baskets and hampers overflowed with garments and toys. In a single nook, dozens of dusty bottles sat behind beanbag chairs, whereas a miniature trampoline lay turned on its aspect. Just about no floor was seen, buried beneath avalanches of previous devices, image frames and workplace provides.
“Properly, this doesn’t really feel refreshing, does it?” Ms. Yamashita remarked, flashing a smile as she turned to Risa Kojima, the condominium’s wide-eyed proprietor standing in the lounge. “Are you intent on making this refreshed?” she requested.
Ms. Kojima, 41, and her husband, Takashi, each work full time and have three sons — one a toddler, one in kindergarten and one in elementary faculty. Along with her day job, Ms. Kojima juggles a number of aspect gigs, together with images and occasion planning. Her husband handles many of the housekeeping and baby care.
A decade after they moved in, the couple’s 750-square-foot condominium had been in disarray for thus lengthy that they now not actually seen the mess.
Beginning in the lounge, Ms. Kojima and her husband started sorting by means of baskets full of previous pens, gaming units and tangles of charging cords. Ms. Yamashita flitted across the room in her signature apron, wiping down surfaces and peppering the couple with questions.
One early query — “The consolation of this house and your attachment to those gadgets — which issues extra to you? Which has extra worth?” — appeared to catch Ms. Kojima off guard, leaving her stumped.
By the top of the five-hour session, as typically occurs on Ms. Yamashita’s tv present, Ms. Kojima had discovered some solutions.
“You’re noticing there are too many issues out within the open, however we have to probe deeper into the truth that you will have a lot stuff,” Ms. Yamashita stated halfway by means of their cleansing.
“I feel my thoughts is cluttered,” Ms. Kojima replied, from work and elsewhere. “I’ve so many issues always being jammed into my head,” she stated.
Ms. Yamashita pressed: “Clearly, nobody can see inside your head, nevertheless it’s seen, on this house.” She then gestured at the lounge. “Are you able to see how the challenges you’re coping with in your head are bodily manifested right here?” she requested.
“I feel the issue is that I can’t even acknowledge when there’s an excessive amount of,” Ms. Kojima stated.
Throughout a break between the morning and afternoon periods, Ms. Yamashita, accompanied by her video crew and Ms. Kojima, walked to a small noodle store down the road. Settling at a low desk in a nook of the straw-mat-lined restaurant, Ms. Yamashita commiserated with Ms. Kojima about how difficult danshari could possibly be.
“In some ways, having to face our issues is like having to face ourselves,” Ms. Yamashita stated. “All of us tackle a lot and it’s tough to work on decreasing issues relating to relationships and work.”
Her aim, she stated, was to assist the working mom of three study to turn out to be conscious when issues have been attending to be an excessive amount of. “What we’re doing with gadgets in your home — it’s simply coaching,” she stated.
