Benefits of Fear

Fear sucks, but it's often said that it can help you improve.

How?

I'll give you a few reasons here stemming from one example: the string pre-releasing in Kyudo.

First you raise the bow in front and above yourself in uchiokoshi.

 

(Dude, I think I know this guy! I found it off a website from Oyabe which is in Toyama. I'm 99% sure I've seen this guy at tournaments. Pictures found at http://oyabekyudoukai.web.fc2.com/shaho.html)

 



Then you pull a third of the draw moving into daisan.

 

From there you perform the draw, hikiwake, and settle into the full draw, kai, in which you stretch yourself out in both directions for about 8 seconds.

It's usually in the drawing process (hikiwake or kai) that the string can slip out of your grip and slap you in the face. I went through a phase of chronic pre-slipping, and it still lingers everytime I pull in the guise of fear. When the string slips, it either completely ruins the technique or most likely slaps you in the face which really hurts, is a huge shock, and is incredibly embarrassing. This sucks. The prospect of this happening sucks. There is fear, and that initially sucks.

However, that fear can help us improve in two important ways.

First, the fear makes us smarter.

When I enter the draw, I know that if the string slips it's a direct result of bad technique, specifically, not turning my right hand inwards enough to hold the string. When that fear flushes my mind, I know that I must turn my hand to the right degree. So, I do so and my technique is improved by the fear. I have overcome the fear with reasoning and can rest easy with my manipulation of physics in the draw.

Second, it gives us courage.

It's often said that we cannot be brave without fear. I'm not sure if it's exactly that simple, but in this case, that fear does in fact directly give us courage.

After understanding that the string slips out because of mis-applied technique, I should be able to rest easy knowing that the string will not slip out as long as I adhere to the fundamentals. However, that fear still slips into my being. Even though we know that what we fear will not come to pass, we are still afraid. We can overcome this fear with faith: trusting with complete confidence that that string will not pre-release. To take it a step further, we must pull the string with the faith that it will not release even though we don't know for sure if it will release for some reason or not. At that point we must realize that anything can happen and accept that no matter what happens we will be OK. If you're not OK with any potential mistakes, then maybe you shouldn't be doing Kyudo in the first place, or whatever it is you're doing that induces fear.

I've overcome my chronic sting pre-releasing, but still fear it, and so I often go into the draw with the string a few inches in front of my face and then after I have entered the full draw I bring it to touch my cheek, which is definitely not good technique. Instead, I need to make sure my hand is turned sufficiently, and then pull the string back in a straight diagonal line from the daisan to the kai.

Fear can make us smarter and give us courage, but that's only if we're willing to take the time to analyze it and prepare to make our stand against the pain.

Interestingly enough, we could be talking about "failure" and it's the same dark Sensei that threatens our success.

Be brave and smart! That's what budo is trying to teach us.

Shinobu 忍ぶ: Patience

So I asked my kyudo sensei what I'm supposed to do in the draw just before I shoot, and he answered 忍ぶ (shinobu).

If you notice one thing about kyudo, it's that you hold the draw position (会, kai) for a pretty long time, about 8 seconds. For a lot of beginners, or maybe even well-seasoned practitioners, that 8 seconds can last a really long time to stand there holding the bow at full draw. In fact, your arms are probably shaking from the pressure and in your head you may have already finished and want to start the next arrow. This summer during my trip home, I tried archery for the first time and was totally shocked at the lack of time you hold the draw. I found best success actually when I pulled and immediately released. But in kyudo that definitely won't fly.

So you hold the draw for about 8 seconds. In that time you're very slowly breathing out ... very very slowly ... through your nose. You're also looking at the target, and just that with your eyes; not blinking, not thinking, just looking. You're also spreading your arms apart from the chest. This is in fact probably the best answer to the question of: "What are you doing in the draw?" You're spreading your arms apart, from the joints in the shoulders, from the center of your chest and your whole being extending towards the target and equally away with the other arm, as you're also stretching upwards and downwards from your spine.

 But ...

what the hell are you really doing in that 8 seconds?

My sensei read my question exactly as I meant it (the wonders of a good teacher/student connection), and he said: "忍ぶ, shinobu".

忍ぶ translates as roughly as "to be able to stand...", "put up with...", "to endure ...", and also "to hide."

For all of those kanji nerds out there, you probably noticed that the character 忍 also means "ninja." When I talked to sensei about this, he said they shared the same kanji, but what he meant by 忍ぶ wasn't exactly connected to ninja.

There is a more commonly used word in Japanese that has the exact same translated meaning as 忍ぶ, and that is 我慢　(gaman). At face value, or literal translation, I don't see a difference between the two words. However, I do in fact sense a deep difference. At my level of Japanese (or arguably anybody's level of any language) is largely intuitive. I listen to the words, hear how often they are used, see who uses them, look at the kanji, and infer my own meaning from the experience of the word. Perhaps there is an exact and very specific and literal difference between the words shinobu, and gaman, but all I can do here is make the best intuitive guess I can.

Sensei said one must "shinobu" in the draw. I looked up the word in my dictionary and saw "patience", and asked him in Japanese:

"Is it like being able to wait until whenever? Is it like gaman, being able to put up with anything?"

"Well, yeah but ... it's also about putting up with a lot of pain. Even if it hurts, you shinobu. Even if you don't to, you shinobu. No matter what, being able to "shinobu" is important."

Sensei mentioned pain, but he's not some kind of masochistic freak that thinks pain is necessary for progress. I don't think this is a conversation he can have easily with all students. I think many would be turned away from the pain, or others would start training until everything hurt. The everyday practice of kyudo is different from this. It shouldn't be painful. But, perhaps this is where the deep cords of kyudo hang down far into the abyss of budo. Down at the very bottom where it is black and we deal with issues ignored in our daily life. Down in a very real place we exist as spirit, where decisions are matters of life and death, and where we must take full accountability for our lives while accepting the void.

To be aware of 忍ぶ, is to walk at the bottom of the kyudo ocean.