Who are you improving your chopstick skills for? | Manners Salon Cinderella, TOKYO

Many people confide in me, saying, “Actually, even at my age, I still can’t hold chopsticks correctly.”

As children, they likely learned the proper way to hold chopsticks, but over time, they adopted a grip that felt easier for themselves and continued using it into adulthood.

Holding chopsticks incorrectly can lead to dropping food before it reaches your mouth, causing embarrassment in front of others.

As adults, there’s rarely anyone around to correct your chopstick habits.
Even if you decide to fix it, years of using your own method make it difficult. Without genuine determination, old habits quickly return.

When I work with such students, I always ask:
“Who are you correcting your chopstick skills for?”

Most often, the answer is: “For myself.”

At that point, I tell them, “Let’s fix it for the sake of the parents who raised you with care.”

1. People around you might assume, “Perhaps their parents didn’t properly teach them how to hold chopsticks when they were a child.”
2. 
   

When you vow, “I’ll do this so I don’t embarrass my parents!”, you can persevere without giving up and work patiently until the very end.

In any endeavor, the motivation of doing something for someone else, rather than just yourself, is incredibly powerful.

At Manners Salon Cinderella, you can learn not only how to eat Kaiseki-style meals properly, but also how to hold chopsticks correctly.

For those who want to perfect their chopstick grip, we also offer individual lessons. After a practical lesson while enjoying a meal, students submit weekly videos of themselves eating so that their grip can be corrected step by step. (The number of sessions varies depending on individual progress.)

If you’re interested, please feel free to contact us.