Summer Wind

Hot red winds, it's time for loose clothing and cool refreshments.

We just barely hold on to form so that we can be free to create.

Form is just empty bones, all the muscle and tissue is haze on a midsummer day's horizon.

We borrow the utility of form and flow as we like, according to terrain.

It's too hot to care. So I sit, eyes half open dripping, waiting my turn.

Up there in the summer wind I'll redefine the movement.

That tiny sliver of form brought to life by fire and blood.

When it's time to rest, I'll take a cold drink and forget.

Welcome to summer.




(picture: "Summer Collection: Fields of Gold" created by Rosebud Warrior found at http://rosebud-warrior.deviantart.com/art/Summer-Collection-Fields-of-Gold-289561957)

No Time for Games! Only Zhan Zhuang and Cultivation

Actually, I have quite a bit of time, just not for sitting in front of a TV being submitted to the limitations of virtual reality.

Here we come to possibly the most important question in the universe:

"Why?"

For years I've struggled with this question, largely due to the outside world, or at least my desire to appease or impress it.

"Why?!" They all ask.

I've spent my life trying to devise accurate answers. But they're usually not accurate at all, and always too boring or winded for human audiences. So for a while I've tried to come up with funny answers to entertain the asker of the question. That works well, and I'll largely stick with that as long as I'm faced with human counterparts. If the question is malicious, I try to think of something cleverly malicious back ... but I've never been good at that. So, I just try to be interesting for somebody. That way I'm not wasting anybody's time.

Yet this is still not directed to the center, which is what I'm personally most concerned with. It needs to be for me. If I ask myself, "Why?" I need to have an answer that satifies me. The best answer I've found for this is:

"Because I feel like it!"

I've come to believe that feeling is often more important than reason. First the feeling, then the reasoning. When I feel best, this is most clear. Interestingly enough, the most I've ever felt like this was after meditating (if I can put a word to it, though it's not a good one). More specifically, after standing meditation, referred to as Zhan Zhuang. Sitting is great, but I feel more ... at the center when I stand. Perhaps it's the inability to keep my legs in one sitting position for long enough without having them lose circulation or hurt my hips. Maybe it's because my fickle mind needs something more tangible to focus on, like standing ... which is incredibly difficult to do for 40 minutes (the period of time I believe best for this practice.)

So after practicing Zhan Zhuang, what do I feel exactly? First of all, my body feels great: my spine is aligned, my joints feel flushed out, along with the rest of my body, my upper body is utterly relaxed though still holding my hands in front of me, and my legs feel invincible. More importantly, there is an amazing clarity of mind. Most of the worries that antagonize me in daily life, just disappear. Why? Because they're not important. So you're left with this kind of buzzing feeling, which is much less like feeling happily intoxicated by substances, and more like you're really feeling everything around you. There may be some tangible concern in your mind, but you are able to focus on it, and begin straight action to engaging it. Sometimes, there's nothing to do, and you just are, and that's OK. This is something I don't usually feel when I'm not standing. There is nothing to do, so I fervently search for something to do. Instead of finding one thing, I attack the whole world and find more things than I can think of at one time and a matter of miliseconds.

After you stand Zhan Zhuang, the answers to "Why?" become much more clear. There are three answers to the question of, "Why?".

First, because you have to.

Second, because you want to.

Third, you don't know! And that's OK, because we don't know everything. Actually, we may not know anything if you want to get into philosophical debate.

But it's not about philosophical debates of the mind, rather, it's about wholistic experiences of the world around you.

So back to Zelda. It is what it is. It was something that I loved to do when I was a kid. Largely because it sparked something in my imagination unrivaled by anything else. Every level was new and beautiful, and I didn't mind being confined to only what I can do with a small conroller in digital reality. Now, when I play this game, it has the initial creative spark, but I've done all this before. Instead of each step revealing new parts of the universe, it's just the same shit, only tweaked for different dungeons and bosses. I am not in control, but forced to follow the matrix of the game. In this case, it has been one so time consuming I've resorted to looking at "walkthroughs" on the internet, which is a huge killer for the game: it's cheating. The game could perhaps be fun, but it takes too long. There's already so much I want to do, I don't want to spend my time this way.

I constantly need new stimulation. So I search for it with the small time I have delegated for such an activity. Either I find something truly "new" to me, and I submerge myself inside of its world learning it's laws and gems. Or, what I found isn't what I want and I need to move on. As one gets older, one realizes this difference quicker, and I see the time to stop playing Zelda is now. I won't feel bad about the money I spent on the game, and the extra controller I needed for it. Niether will I lament over the time I have spent with it. It was fun, and taught me an important lesson: I don't need video games. However I still have nothing but love for the game series and it's hero, Link. He will forever be an important part of my construction.

Are you bored of my windy explanations? Perhaps I'll think of a joke for you next time. For now, I will try to write as concisely to the greater point at hand.

I don't want to be a spectator, I want to be a creator. I've played enough games and read enough stories to create something interesting of my own. The media I submit myself too should be like quality food, feeding my imagination in small quantities to make big effects. I want to spend my time creating and harvesting skills I deem worthy of my time.

-writing
-standing
-aikido
-kyudo
-Japanese


And most of all, exploring the mountains and forests of Japan by mountainbike and hiking boots. Snows are melting, and it's almost time to begin the adventures again.

That is all for now. I have to go work now.

I leave with some wise words from the Red Hot Chili Peppers:

"Throw away your television!"

Early Spring

 

I say "early" because Spring seems to be coming earlier than usual this year in Toyama. Today it's a warm 6 degrees celsius (42 F). The sun is shining in a way that doesn't happen in winter here. It's bright, even a bit golden. Later in the week it's supposed to get up to a whopping 19 degrees celsius (66 F). Yesterday may be the last day snowboarding for the year. It was an epic day boarding-wise. I could leave it at that.

Aside from the physical rise in temperature and the end of snowboarding, this is also the last week of a two month side job teaching English on Tuesday and Wednesday mornings to station and hotel employees. This will take away a lot of added stress from work, and open up those two mornings for kyudo. This is huge. Also, my rib injury has healed and I can return to weekly aikido. I've gone the last two weeks, and it has been a wonderful home-coming of sorts. In times of absence from our passions, especially when added errands demand our energy, what one really wants to do becomes much clearer. Perhaps not "clear", but certainly less foggy. I want more writing and budo.

Funny thing is, I'm taking on a small project that will temporarily fill the empty space: playing video games! HA! I should be more specific though, this is no mere waste of time mindlessly spent in front of the Box. If you know me, or have read my blog for some time, then you know I have quite an affinity for the Zelda series of video games produced by Nintendo. It's so much more than just a game, to me at least. It lies at the bottom of my stomach where my inspiration for adventure springs; or at least it is one of my most ancient images for the feeling. When I adventure on my bike, or hike through mountains and forests, I am Link, the main character of the story; journeying through foreign lands to unlock mysteries, fighting demons, and bringing peace to the land ... all with the final goal of saving Princess Zelda. (That's funny, too. Haven't really thought about that.) So I've borrowed a Nintendo Wii from a friend, pulled out the TV to use for the first time since I've lived here in a year and a half, and bought the game "Legend of Zelda: the Skyward Sword". Part of it is just embellishing in a luxury I love on such a base level. But more so, it is an adventure and study into the creative imagination. Nothing sparks my imagination like these games, and I think this one will be just what I've been looking for. Or it won't and I'll go elsewhere.

So yeah. Postings have been a bit infrequent due to a rise in business over the last two months, and will continue for a bit more so that I can indulge in video game fantasies.

I've had more fascinating revelations in kyudo and life than I could possibly write about, but I'm pretty sure they're not going anywhere, so a more frequent cataloging of them will continue soon.

All of course for the purpose of sharing my experiences of my life so that you may gain a bit of inspiration yourself. It is not just me, it's you too, and all of this world we are living in.

If you are wondering why the gaijin isn't posting, just know, he may be less than five feet away on the futon sailing the cosmos of creativity as my favorite alter-ego: Link.

the "Art" in "Martial Arts": Part One of Many

 

I think in images. They are followed by feelings. This is largely how I make decisions in my life.

As a young boy, I was a drawer. Of all the childhood activities that were scattered through my time, it was putting a pencil to blank white paper where I practiced with the most enthusiasm. I remember it well: the complete freedom of a blank page, that one simple instrument. I didn't erase much. If I did, the previous line would be replaced by a better one, and I would move on. I would draw a picture for maybe thirty minutes to an hour, then put it somewhere never to be seen or thought of again.

 

I don't draw anymore. Since then I've attempted several returns to that age, but they just don't work. So, I don't try it often. The great change came with puberty. A maturation of muscles and development of desire in a social world ushered in an age of physical activity: namely organized sports and skateboarding. A creature of activity, satiated only by physical motion. But not just physical motion itself, physical motion with a goal. I'll get back to that in a second.

I am still like that, I think. My life is largely determined by physical motion. The difference is that it started in organized team sports and has evolved into practicing Japanese martial arts; namely aikido and kyudo. (One interesting constant though has been board sports, skateboarding when I was in middle and high school, and snowboarding now in Japan). I said "Japanese martial arts", because it's a very specific practice within the umbrella of "martial arts" as a whole: its differences greatly affect my experience of martial arts. One of the most intelligible differences can be found in the suffix "dou" (karate-do, aiki-do, kyu-do, etc). But that is a topic worthy of another post to come. What is relevant to this discussion is the image of Japanese martial arts, and the feelings produced from those images and its practice. I express my tendency to images by being interested in the image of Japanese martial arts, and by most of all being the image by participating. By participating in the art, I am using my physical body in motion, and the combination of my imagination working with the images and my body with the physical world, a certain feeling arises and exists. Kind of like the kokyu that arises from correct form in aikido, or a clean hanare (release) built from proper form in kyudo. Everything together is the picture of art that I make, each segment playing its respective part, yet totally inseperable from each other as the whole. This is my art. I practice for a couple hours at a time, consciously making corrections by the guidance of my peers, and forget the experience after I'm finished.

 

So there's my current practice of martial arts which I consider to be a legitimate medium of creativity. There's the little boy who used to love drawing pictures. There's sitting zazen. These are like islands of definite something rising above nebulous mists. I don't often try to draw anymore because I just don't know what to do. I sit there for an extended period of time, draw a few lines I'm disgusted with, erase, try again, and give up. I have such a strong desire to "create", but it doesn't come through. When I was a boy, I had a strong image my hand just seemed to create with purpose. Now all of those pieces are hopelessely disparate. I like writing. Actually I love writing on this blog. I always carry a pen and paper with my and on average scribble about 2 to 10 pages a day of varying levels of nonsense. Sometimes I write uncontrollably. Sometimes only a few words a day. This tendency is very important, but its focus also belongs in another post. What's important is that sometimes I want to write something poetic. Then ... blank whiteness. I'll have some kind of image, and the intense desire to create something of worth in writing, but all else is lost. I'm sure other writers must find this strange desert in the imagination as well. On the contrary, writing on this blog is where I feel best, and within all of my range of blogs, it is the ones of very specific detail that I am most fond of. Usually either communicating specific realizations found from training sessions in aikido or long stories of bike rides in the mountains. (Funny thing is that I haven't done that much in the last year) What is the difference between my desire to write poetry and the documentation of my blog?

Purpose.

My personal expression of art needs this kind of purpose. If any of my writing could be called art, or skilled in a kind of art, that is other than just relaying facts, it is not of conscious design but merely an effect of the overall mission to write. If there is beauty or art in my movement of martial arts, it is not for that purpose, but merely an effect of that specific technique. This truth is not built by thought, but an effect from my life. This is very important, and it finds its way snaking deep down in the depths towards some kind of core from which the roots of other arts blossom.

 

The other day I visited an ikebana (the art of flower arranging) exhibition and was absolutley blown away. First of all it was just beauiful; and there were so many different kinds. This is a kind of art that is designed for beauty. It's different from my arts. But it is all art. I don't know ...

I don't really know what it is like to create art for the sake of beauty; I wonder how much I can relate to painters or practitioners of ikebana. I think of music as well, an art designed for creating sounds. That is very different as well. That is very interesting to me. That is all.

The "art" in martial "arts"; it's real.