Most of us with less folding ability than we’d like find reasons to justify our modest efforts – “I’m not patient”, “Life’s too hard”, “I’m not artistic”, “the diagrams are not clear” and even the old classic, “the paper’s not square!”. I suspect a lot of it is down to confidence and being prepared to put the hours in to refine our techniques.

Now and again, you learn about an individual who puts things in their proper perspective, for example Saburo Kase.  Kase lost his eyesight at elementary school, but it didn’t stop him from becoming a gifted teacher and creator of origami. I was lucky enough to attend one of his classes at the COET and he was so calm and confident. At one point, his translator asked “Mr Kase asks if anyone has problems”. One eprson did and handed his model to Kase, who calmly and nonchalently unfolded the last step, corrected it and gave it back.