Before Marie Kondo captured the world's attention with her exhortations to get rid of things that don't “spark joy,” there was another Japanese decluttering guru.
Her name is Hideko Yamashita. And while Ms. Yamashita, 70, never reached the level of Netflix-induced fame, she is widely seen in Japan as spearheading the modern movement of cleaning up our homes — or, as it's called abroad, ' kondo'. -ing.”
The two women, born thirty years apart in Tokyo, both preach the idea that households collect too much stuff. Letting go of unnecessary items and creating minimalist, neater spaces, they argue, can improve mental well-being.
Ms Yamashita said she admired Ms Kondo, 40, for bringing these ideas to the Western world. A spokeswoman for Ms. Kondo acknowledged in a statement that Ms. Yamashita had been a leading figure in the decluttering trend for years, but said Ms. Kondo had developed her own philosophies.
More than twenty years ago, Ms. Yamashita began offering seminars in Japan on danshari, the Japanese art of tidying up. In 2009, her book “The New Tidying Up Method: Danshari” – published more than a year before Ms. Kondo's “The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up” hit shelves – made her famous.
Ms. Yamashita hosts a weekly television show that is widely watched in Japan, featuring some of the country's most maximalist homes. She also runs a school where she trains students – mainly middle-aged women and older – on how to become professional tidying experts.
When conducting danshari consultations, Ms. Yamashita glides through her clients' homes in a stylish one-shouldered apron and a red sash. With her neatly designed chestnut brown bob and a warm, slightly crooked smile, the seventy-year-old radiates energy.
Ms. Yamashita and Ms. Kondo approach tidying in different ways. In Ms. Kondo's books and Netflix series, she offers easy-to-follow organizing techniques wrapped in her signature cheerfulness and positivity. Keep things that make you happy and thank those that don't before throwing them away, she instructs.
Ms. Yamashita is more abstract, philosophical and penetrating – less approachable, converts from the Marie Kondo school claim. When figuring out what to keep or throw away, Ms. Yamashita encourages her clients to think about why they are attached to certain items, and to explore what abundance and obsession do to their emotional state.
“For me, danshari is not about cleaning up, organizing or throwing away things that don't make you happy,” said Ms. Yamashita, as she slurped soba noodles from sesame broth at a restaurant in Tokyo. “It's about bringing people back to a state where saying goodbye to things feels natural.”
“When people's homes and minds become clogged with too many things, they begin to fester,” she continued. “It's like how you eat and then let go – it's a normal part of our existence.”
“Danshari is about creating an exit and getting that flow back,” she added.
Ms. Yamashita first encountered danshari during her university years in Tokyo, when she studied yoga and Buddhist teachings that emphasized letting go of attachments. After graduating from college and moving to Ishikawa Prefecture, west of Tokyo, she began applying these principles to tidy up her own home, which she shared with her husband, son, and mother-in-law.
It was from her mother-in-law that she discovered how difficult it is to encourage others to clean up. When Mrs. Yamashita tried to throw things away, her mother-in-law would rummage through the garbage bags and scold her with “mottainai” – a Japanese term expressing regret over waste.
Her mother-in-law complained that the house was too small. “I wanted to shout, 'You get more space if you throw things away!'” Ms. Yamashita recalls.
In 2005, Ms. Yamashita, then 50, had another building built near her childhood home and named it the “Danshari Open House.” There she began coaching her yoga students on the principles of housekeeping.
Four years later, Ms. Yamashita published her book – an instant success that was followed by dozens more. In total, Ms. Yamashita's books have sold more than seven million copies.
Tomoko Ikari, an associate professor of consumer behavior at Meisei University in Tokyo, said danshari resonated so strongly in Japan for a reason: the idea of living simply and breaking away from desires is embedded in the Buddhist teachings that help shape Japan.
However, despite the popular image of neat Japanese homes and lifestyles, rooted in a Zen minimalist aesthetic, Japan is a country with limited space and a high concentration of people in large cities. Many homes are small and overcrowded with belongings, Ms. Ikari said.
“There were people who knew about danshari, but before the rise of Ms. Yamashita, it was small,” Ms. Ikari said. “Years later, what started with Ms. Yamashita has reverberated into the global 'sparking joy' phenomenon we see today.”
Early one morning last fall, Ms. Yamashita arrived for a Danshari consultation at a small apartment on the eighth floor of a nondescript building in northwest Tokyo. Her video crew was in tow to record the session for her YouTube channel.
Dressed in light-wash jeans and a white ruffled blouse, Ms. Yamashita walked down the hall to the living room and paused to take in the scene before her.
Towers of tote bags, baskets and hampers full of clothes and toys. In one corner, dozens of dusty bottles sat behind beanbags, while a miniature trampoline lay on its side. Virtually no surface was visible, buried under an avalanche of old gadgets, photo frames and office supplies.
“Well, this doesn't feel refreshing, does it?” Mrs. Yamashita noted and smiled as she turned to Risa Kojima, the wide-eyed apartment owner who was standing in the living room. “Are you planning on brushing this up?” she asked.
Ms. Kojima, 41, and her husband, Takashi, both work full-time and have three sons: one as a toddler, one in kindergarten and one in elementary school. In addition to her day job, Ms. Kojima keeps busy with several side gigs, including photography and event planning. Her husband does most of the housework and childcare.
Ten years after they moved in, the couple's 700-square-foot apartment had been in disarray for so long that they no longer really noticed the mess.
From the living room, Ms. Kojima and her husband began sorting through baskets full of old pens, gaming devices and a tangle of charging cords. Ms. Yamashita darted around the room in her signature apron, wiping down surfaces and peppering the couple with questions.
One early question: “The comfort of this space and your attachment to these items – what is more important to you? Which one has more value?” – seemed to catch Ms. Kojima off guard, leaving her speechless.
By the end of the five-hour session, as often happens on Ms. Yamashita's television show, Ms. Kojima had found some answers.
“You notice that there are too many things out in the open, but we need to dig deeper into the fact that you have so many things,” Mrs. Yamashita said halfway through cleaning.
“I think my mind is cluttered,” Ms. Kojima responded, both from work and elsewhere. “There are so many things going on in my head all the time,” she says.
Ms. Yamashita insisted, “Obviously no one can see into your head, but it is visible in this room.” Then she gestured to the living room. “Can you see how the challenges you're dealing with in your head are physically manifested here?” she asked.
“I think the problem is that I can't even recognize when there is too much,” Ms. Kojima said.
During a break between the morning and afternoon sessions, Ms. Yamashita, accompanied by her video crew and Ms. Kojima, walked to a small noodle shop down the street. Ms. Yamashita sat down at a low table in a corner of the straw-mat-lined restaurant and commiserated with Ms. Kojima about how challenging danshari could be.
“In many ways, facing our things is like facing ourselves,” Ms. Yamashita said. “We all take on so much and it's hard to work on cutting things down when it comes to relationships and work.”
Her goal, she said, was to help the working mother of three become aware of when things become too much. “What we do with stuff in your house, it's just training,” she said.
