Why do some people shake their tenugui off?

My sensei kind of "shakes off" his tenugui before wearing it. What is the meaning of that?


Answer: Thank you for your question. Why don't you ask your teacher? Everyone else might give you a wrong answer. Only your teacher knows about it.

Now my guess is that usually he uses a tenugui for a few times unless it looks really dirty. And probably the tenugui is wrinkled up. So to “smooth” it out, he shakes it off. But this is a guess. Does it really smooth the tenugui out? I don't think so.

Or he does it anyway, whether wrinkled or not, because he saw his teacher did it and he learned it by watching it.

I think I do. I do it for no reason. I think I saw someone doing it and learned it. But to be honest with you, when our tenugui is smooth because we iron it, then we don't need to “shake it off”.

Hope this helps!

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