How can I find something I don't know?
In kyudo I'm searching for perfect technique. I watch those better than me, I listen to sensei's advice, I have small goals, but I just don't get it.
On the one hand I'm trying to achieve something I'm not, so that I can be better. If that happens, I become an advanced person.
On the other hand, it's something inside of me that's been there all along. All I have to do is realize that power inside of me and then I'm there. But I don't know what it is. Is it not inside of me? Does it need to be placed there first so I can reveal it?
It's like I'm mining for gold in this mountain. I think I know it's there, and I'm trying to think about it intelligently so that I can better find it, but in all honesty I don't know the gold is there until I see it, feel it, be it.
The weirdest thing about kyudo is that you'll realize something and do it, and then completely forget it. It's eternally frustrating. Last week I really had confidence in my tenouchi (left hand that holds the bow). I was realizing things I had been trying for so long, all of a sudden my hand was doing things I couldn't before, then this week I can't do it at all. It's like I've been transported back in time to where I was really sucky. I realize this, and try to fix it, but I couldn't do it today.
Somehow I've lost confidence in kyudo. I don't have the confidence to hit the target like I have in the past. My eyes blink amid the shooting, and I know I'm not going to hit the target. It's just a waste of time. Before I finish the arrow I already want to go on to the next, even though I know I won't hit that one either.
It makes me want to just walk straight up to the target and stab it right in the center.
I'm mining for gold, but I really don't know what it's like.
After all this time, I still don't know. Maybe everyone is like this.
I don't know!
Hurrying doesn't help, muscling it in doesn't work ... so I'll be patient and humble, and trust that that gold is in fact below the pick and axe.
"I saw the angel in the marble and carved until I set him free."
ReplyDeleteMichelangelo
This comment has come to define a lot of my belief, and thought of it when I wrote this post. I believe this to be a big part of the belief of an artist.
ReplyDeleteHello, perhaps Kyudo is not to achieve a shooting technique, perhaps is to find a inner knowledge. When you stretches the rope and wait before shoot an arrow, is in that lapse of time you maditate and reaches the satori. Shooting an arrow is not the goal, the goal is inside you.
ReplyDeleteWell said adppguardacostas! I especially agree with that moment of time before you shoot in the full draw ... that is a very special part of kyudo, and the experience of that goal inside of the practitioner.
ReplyDelete