Version 3.0: Enter Kyushu

Wings burst from my back and tore apart paperwork chains. So many scars made in waiting, forced to sit. But on that day, the train doors spread apart and I boarded the vessel perfect. Toyama gone. Riding the spine of Japan far to the south, I've come to a land of a different color. Enter Kyushu.

I made it! Actually, I did a little over a month ago. Yesterday I finally got internet. (Why in a country so technologically advanced does setting up internet take so long? Is it like that everywhere? I've forgotten.) So now blogging may resume.

But I warn you, it won't be the same. Because this is Version 3.0. I want it to be different. Surely something has changed in the transitions. It's only half true humans desire security and routine. That other half, the unreasonable need for something new, for everything to be new. That wretched creature is what brought me across the country, for that prophesied New.

Anyway, for simple introductions, I'll just give you the facts.

I've moved to Kyushu,

to Oita Prefecture,

 

 

to Nakatsu City.

It's nice. It's what I wanted. But as I'm not exactly sure what I wanted, I'm not really sure what to make of this place. It is going to take time. Much of it is veiled away from me, and so I'll patiently walk, eat, sleep. This is OK.

Every morning I wake up, and I'm not really sure what to do. I like that. It's going to be a bit more simple, and slower here. The last two years in Toyama City was an experiment in overwhelming action. "Everything all at once, now, and forever because I said so!" I'm not sure how much I accomplished, but I do know it was way too much. Now that time has passed. It's actually gone. And that gaijin is dead, off in whatever heaven he wanted. Behind white curtains, in this new simple white and earth-tone apartment, on a late fall overcast afternoon, a new gaijin sits.

I'm continuing Kyudo, but it's been a bit of a rough start. Probably the most exciting part of all this moving is the new introductions. I walk into the dojo and everyone is new. They see me and we talk, and they seem impressed, that's interesting, but my timing and technique are not settled. Though I've been going to the dojo for two weeks, I barely feel I've started. I was careful to not go too hard at first tearing blisters in my hand, but the blister came, I didn't wait long enough for it to heal. I went anyway, and it's torn open again. I want so badly to push through it, but I know it won't work, because I've done this before and it didn't go well.

Should I go despite all cautions against? Sometimes I really want to. But I have the experience, I have a thinking brain of my own, my life is based on my own decisions, I do kyudo because I like it, so I'm now making an executive decision. I'm passing a law that reads: I will not go until it is healed.

There, we are our own gods.

I remember the last time I hurt my hand and I asked people what I should do. I just wanted them to tell me I should rest, because it's what I really wanted and I wanted it to be accepted by the others. I wanted to take out my own responsibility of the equation so if something went wrong I could point the finger.

Fuck going to kyudo because I want my hand to heal and do kyudo when it's fun.

Fuck begging for others' permission because I am the one responsible.

So yeah, I'm going to take a few days, which should probably be more like a week so I can go in with new skin and start over. What's the rush anyway? I'm the one I do kyudo for. I have my whole life to practice. What would I do with an even more serious injury? I'm just training myself to push through pain though the results are not worthy. I can take a week off.

The dojo is huge, clean, and full of talented kyudoka (people who practice kyudo). However, most everybody goes at night when I have to work. I now realize how lucky I was in Toyama having the main sensei show up in the mornings at the same time as me. But, I'm sure things will work out. If I want them to, they will, I trust.

But for now I wait.

I also wait for a much greater prize. That treasure that defines my move to Kyushu more than any other single phenomenon, my wife, Satomi.

She will finish her job in late December and then move here. That leaves me two months to be in my apartment trying not to dirty it up or do anything too stupid, which may be impossible. Satomi came here for a few days last weekend and it was amazing. It was what this place is supposed to be for us, but alas she returned for the month long homestretch. More than dreams, ambitions, and chores, there is a person I love. That human life to me is more than priceless. It is worth such an invaluable amount that all else could burn and I'd still smile to be with her.

I'm here. Things have changed, I'm just not sure exactly what and how ...

so stay tuned! And welcome to Kyushu.

Aikido Seminar in Toyama Part I: Ukemi

2 days.

4 featured teachers.

About 50 participants.

The main event of this seminar was a 7th dan (degree blackbelt) named Kuribayashi Takanori (栗林孝典) from the Aikikai Hombu Dojo in Tokyo. With him came Oyama Yuuji (小山雄二) a 4th dan. This seems to be the normal case for such seminars, at least in Japan: a main teacher brings one (or more) lower ranking member from their dojo. It helps for a teacher to have a familiar uke (partner) who will react properly to his techniques in order to effectively communicate with an unknown audience, gives the younger member a chance to watch and participate in such events in order to one day conduct them themself, and is usually a good model and source of information for the other participants as well.

From Toyama Prefecture, there were two teachers from Takaoka City (second largest city in Toyama Prefecture).

The seminar ran as such:

          -One hour session with Oyama Sensei
          -One hour session with Kuribayashi Sensei
          -Lunch
          -One hour session with one of the Takaoka teachers
          -One hour session with the other Takaoka teacher

On the second day, the last hour session was omitted, but the training sessions were stretched a bit longer. There was also time for a closing ceremony, which always takes a good chunk of time in Japan.

So, on with the juicy Aikido details.

Oyama Sensei was great. Young (maybe mid to late 20's, but it's hard to tell, he could have been early 30's) and full of fresh energy. He has great technique, but his focus was mainly on ukemi, the person receiving the technique. Actually, receiving the technique is not a good way to explain it, really, and Kuribayashi Sensei explained at length why it isn't. I say receiving the technique, because you usualy have two people, and one of them is predetermined to do so-and-so technique will the other person will be the body to practice with. So, that other person in a way is the practice dummy, but they are far from such. They are a living reacting skilled partner to practice a technique with. There are predetermined ukemi for particular techniques, but the uke doesn't just blindly follow through the motions. That is empty and meaningless aikido. The uke reacts to each motion from the tori (person executing the technique). If the tori does good technique and the uke reacts accordingly, then both the technique and the ukemi generally end up as they are supposed to. One cannot do the technique without the other, and the success of the technique depends upon both members.

When we practice, think about, and visit seminars about aikido, it is easy to often get stuck on just doing the technique from the tori side of things, but if the ukemi isn't correct, then there is nothing. Working with somebody who doesn't do the proper ukemi is probably the most frustrating thing in aikido. It's really not about being good at ukemi as much as doing it right. I suppose if you're good at ukemi, you can move faster, deal with more successful technique from the tori, and the ukemi may be less painful ... but that's really not important. That is something that happens after you learn to do it correctly, and spend a lot of quality time practicing. What's important is initially doing it correctly.

Ukemi is actually really simple if you follow the proper steps. Some of those specific steps I remember Oyama Sensei talking about were:

1.) When you are being thrown back and bend one leg to fall in that direction and eventually slap (breakfall) on the ground ... one should not just fall straight onto their back because our neck will whiplash and the back of the head will hit the ground, which is very very bad as this may result in concussions, uncosciousness, death, etc. Instead of falling straight back, one should fall on their side, reducing risk of head and neck injury, enabling a proper break-fall, and enabling one to do a high fall if necessary.

2.) When you are lowered, one should do their best not to bend their back, but bend their knees instead. This is in order to keep one's balance through the movement of being unbalanced. One's back won't be perfectly straight through technique, but it ends up being diagonal (45 degree angle with the floor) instead of flat (parallel) with the floor. This should be natural and easy. It's like picking up something off the ground. If you just bend with your waist, it puts a lot of tension on your muscles and puts you off balance. Also, if you're holding hands and walking with someone much smaller with you, if you bend your waist, it's uncomfortable and tough on the muscles and joints. If you bend your knees you reduce a lot of that unnecessary tension. Of course, it's a strange picture, and one wouldn't walk in such a way holding hands with someone that much smaller, but then again we also wouldn't choose to be thrown by someone in the real world as we are doing with ukemi. Ukemi is not a permanent situation, but a way to move through adversity and regain balance.

3.) When doing iriminage, in order to keep the back straight and bend the knees, it's OK and recommended to put your inside hand down to brace against the floor for a brief moment before you stand again. Also, one should look inside towards your partner who is throwing you. If you look to the outside, you are putting yourself further off-balance than you already are. It's like walking straight ahead of you, but turning your head and looking directly to the side. It's uncomfortable and will make you walk in the direction of your head. One should turn their head in the direction they are going, which is to the inside towards your partner in iriminage.

4.) MOST IMPORTANTLY! So so so very very very much importantly ... when you grip your partner's wrist, arm, whatever, in a technique, one must maintain the grip with the whole of their hand, or more specifically, the center of their palm. By grabbing your partner's hand, you are connecting with them, and you want to connect with them as much as possible in order to have good technique. I say this MOST IMPORTANTLY because it's soooo basic to technique, and it's something most people I've encountered don't do. This is what I'm talking about with frustrating partner's who don't do proper ukemi. The purpose of aikido techniques is to unbalance your opponent, and you can only unbalance your opponent is if they give a real committed attack. Most of the time, the partner grabs your wrist, you move to unbalance them, and they don't get unbalanced because they are not connecting with you. At that point, everything else is worthless.

The really shocking part about all of this is the fact that people don't do it no matter how many times they are told. Even in seminars like this, when everyone is looking and supposedly listening to the one teacher who is telling them to do this very simple and easy thing ... people still don't do it. Why? WHY?! Didn't you come here to learn something? Apparently not. You came here to just play with yourself. Might as well go home and masturbate.

Whoa! Sorry about that, but it's true. The last seminar in Toyama where a sensei from Tokyo came, the same thing was said, and immediately after, even sensei's from Toyama didn't do this simple thing. They merely went through the technique as usual and smiled and did nothing. This is the most frustrating thing in aikido for sure.

OK. So, ukemi is so super important in aikido, if you don't do that right, everything else is nothing. It's the most basic part of the art, but apparently a part that doesn't usually get enough attention.

This is a source of various issues with aikido in Toyama. It's political stuff between the different teachers here, and at a very basic level it is an issue with technique, or more appropriately ukemi. I don't want to spend much time on this issue, and so I will make it as brief as possible, but it needs to be said to understand basic things in aikido, and my particular situation.

When my current sensei was a lowly 2nd dan, he came to Toyama and looked for dojos to train at. He found the main one in Toyama City and began training. Though the teacher was much higher rank, maybe 5th dan, my sensei felt his technique was much better. The teacher couldn't do successful technique, because he couldn't do ukemi properly. Training was a huge waste of time, and the teacher didn't seem to recognize his own faults or desire to improve them, so my teacher started making trips to the Kobayashi Hombu Dojo in Tokyo to train. There he found what he was looking for, and started running his own classes in eastern Toyama.

The schools around Toyama, mainly the largest one in Toyama City, wants to organize a Toyama Aikido Federation. The hombu dojo in Tokyo also feels this way. By making a federation, aikido-ka around the prefecture, and throughout the country, and world I suppose, can unite under accepted levels of technique and better connect to practice. This is a good thing. However, in the way it is being conducted, my Sensei doesn't care to participate. The process requires a lot of talking, meeting, and aikido un-related business that would need to fit into an already busy enough schedule of working, living, and training. That's not so bad (though actually unbearable in a lot of ways, maybe), but the part is who this federation is with. In my Sensei's eyes, it's with a bunch of unskilled "teachers" who want to make Toyama special through beauracracy. My Sensei doesn't care to train with them, and all of this seems like a waste of time. However, the Hombu Dojo in Tokyo does seem to be encouraging this kind of activity in Toyama, and if they're going to keep sending teachers here, that kind of thing will be a requirement, it seems.

To be honest, I really only hear the side stories here and there, and even of that don't understand it completely, both linguistically and politically, but I think my impressions are pretty accurate. Honestly, I sympathize with my Sensei on this. Our dojo is doing just fine. Whether or not the federation is made, we still train well, and visit/receive other teachers from around the country.

Well, all this is necessary to the discussion, but has taxed me and probably you as well, so let's leave it at that for now. What did we learn?

Oyama Sensei was awesome and I learned a lot about ukemi, both its particulars and overall importance.

Dojo politics are lame. Just train effectively and have fun. That's what we're all there to do anyway right? Anything else, and I'll go learn about tea ceremony or calligraphy.

Check in next time for details on Kuribayashi Sensei's teachings and the rest of the seminar.

When Aikido is More Work Than Work

Summer is absolutley the worst time for aikido. Actually, I'm convinced it's the worst time for any martial art. A combination of beautiful weather, summer events, and friends who don't fill their free time with activities that depend on consistent practice all make for a difficult time in getting to the dojo. I've been able to rationalize setting aside that 6:00-10:30 pm block of time for budo on a regular schedule during other times of the year, but it inevitably suffers in the heat. What should we do? Abandon our practice for the immediate callings of now? Or devote ourselves more intensely to our art shutting all else out? I used to think there was a "right" and "wrong" answer, but have come to realize that we in fact create the answer, and "right" and "wrong" are only involved if you allow them to be.

Monday day off. My one day off sandwiched between two four-day-periods of "Summer School", intensive courses for the children's English school I work for. One of those experiences that seem to make people say, "Fuck it, I'm doing exactly what I want on my day off." For some people this means sleeping as much as possible and watching lots of TV. For others it means utilizing every second of daylight for physical activity. Both are worthy reactions to heavy work schedules, I just tend to choose the latter. I had plans for a long ride into the mountains and then go to aikido.

On the train home the night before, I got a text from another English teacher who lives in the same building. She wanted to go out for a drink to celebrate our halfway point in Summer School. I had already been thinking of how to walk into my apartment and fall straight onto the futon for as much rest as possible before my adventure, but I really couldn't refuse such a request; especially since I rarely do so with the people I work with. (Perhaps another topic worthy of a blog: Self-inflicted lonliness on the budo path) I went out, and long story short, I spent more money and got less sleep than I had hoped for ... oh well. These days off also have a way of destroying inhibitions concerning the little things. This event did push my morning departure an hour and a half later though, which may or may not have changed the entire trip.

The next day's adventure was an epic journey; just what I wanted. But in a sense, one full of a lot of "failure". The biggest of which was the failure to decide fully what I was going to do with respect to aikido. Theoretically, I could go on an all-day adventure and make it back in time for aikido. Practically, this is a horrible idea. First of all, my body physically can't take it while maintaining a good mood (perhaps a topic worthy of another post). I've done the summer bike ride followed by aikido when I used to live in Kurobe, but I am lifeless and usually have some kind of stomach ache because I didn't eat enough or I ate too much while my body is trying to adjust to the heat. Secondly, the bike rides I used to take would last about 6-7 hours, whereas now they run 10-12 hours. "Why don't you just take a shorter ride?" one of my coworkers says. Yeah ... that's not going to happen. Thirdly, what really kills the bike ride + aikido equation is the commute to training. Walking 15 minutes to the train station, riding for 30 minutes, walking 20 minutes to the dojo, followed by a return trip just as long, kills it. No one wants to be a soggy baked potato for an hour train ride. If I was really being nitpicky, I could complain about the $15 cost as well. Even on regular days, this taxes my mind: 4.5 hours and $15 for 1.5 hour training that I already pay monthly dues for. Well, if training in aikido is really what you want to do, then you should just bear up and do it right?

If you really want to ride your bike in the moutains you should just do it right?
If you really want to do both you should just do it right?

Then it's work.

I think it's hard for people to accept martial arts into their life as just a hobby. It's got something to do with the standard of perfection: Utilizing everything to achieve a goal, aiming for "mastery", kill or be killed. I don't know exactly, but the tendency is there. If work, like your job, is something that you have to do to live in society, then martial arts becomes something like super-work. You can have your job, lose your job, but throughout, if you want to master martial arts, you have to always be practicing. It has to be as much as possible all the time if you want to be your best, right? I think we can see a lot of problems with this mode of thinking, but the one that resounds most with me is that, it's just not fun anymore. I really want to go to aikido, but I REALLY want to go on a bike ride. If I'm going to spend my day doing exactly what I want by going on a bike ride to the mountains, forcefully shoving other plans into the equation just ruins all the fun. If that's the case, then screw perfection. It's kind of like, "Hey, if you want to master the sword, then you should practice the basic downward strike 10,000 times a day. But I want to super-master the sword, so I'll do it 20,000 times! YEAH!" Doesn't sound like much fun right now.

So I've become familiar with this quandary of how to fit aikido into a days off like this, and pretty much have it reasoned as set out above, but I still wasn't completely convinced at the time of my last ride. I set out that day 90% sure I was going to skip aikido. I tried to keep the prospect of going to aikido in a small corner in the back of my mind, but unfortunately, it was an ugly super-work monster sitting on my handlebars staring at me all day. "Man, that mountain looks really interesting, but if I go then I definitely won't make it back in time." "Whoa, look at that onsen, but that will add another hour and a half probably." Each major step along the path was marked by looking at my watch and contemplating an early return for aikido. I think I physically went all the places and did all the things I would have done even if I hadn't been worried about making it back to aikido in time ... but those thoughts were a big waste of time ... or at least they weren't fun. In the end, it didn't matter anyway because I didn't end up going to aikido, though interestingly enough I made it back in time to be able to catch the train if I wanted.

That day's trip was particularly far away, and included a lot of flat land riding through towns. I don't like this. But it usually isn't so difficult and is just a pain in a time consuming way. So on the return, when I reached what I would call the beginning of the home stretch, I stopped at a conbini (convenience store) for a road beer. This was a kind of subconscious sabotage against aikido, and would make me 99% sure I wasn't going ... but there's still that 1% lingering. Anyway, riding my bike through the town's extremely ill-maintained sidewalks while trying to drink a beer was really unpleasant, so I stopped to enjoy it in front of some apartment complex. I sat on the concrete next to a small stream and stared up at the clouds which was incredibly relaxing. Hot summer afternoon after a long epic ride, drinking a beer in an unknown place ... heaven for me. But what about when you finish the beer? When the music's overrrrr ... Shit, I need to get home. Oh well, saddle up and just get through it. Let the beer's effect on your mind put you at ease and just cruise home. Well, along with an elated mood, the beer also made my legs feel like rubber. By drinking that beer, I told my body "Congratulations! You did it!" But then my body said, "Then why the hell are we getting back on the bike?"

Well, the return reminded me of one of my absolute least favorite things about Japan: the roads. I don't mean the conditions of the roads, they're usually very nice. It's their ... roundabout way of getting places, probably due to the fact that the towns are centuries older than the roads, and there's 10x as many people and things as back home. I was in one major city, trying to get to another, one could easily draw a straight line between them on the map, but you can't just get a straight road there. You wouldn't believe how many times I'd be on a straight road headed directly home, and then all of a sudden it starts veering off to the side. "Whoa whoa whoa, what the hell!" Then I'm winding around small hills, ones that feel mountainous after 12 hours on the bike, faded by beer, and still thinking about making it back in time for aikido. Certainly some form of hell.

This ... is crazy. My mind is in knots. I'm Thesus in the Labyrinth with my string trying to find my way, but before I know it, the Minotaur shows up in front of me. I find myself fighting, but all I want is out.

But do I?

I'll take a leap and say that this is some kind of addiction ... addiction to excess in the things I want and the struggle involved. A megalomaniacal pursuit of what I consider to be the good life, further provoked by the rationalization that there is nothing standing in my way. Perhaps I love the beast that is too big and hairy and nasty for me to even see ... and it's probably getting bigger. I want to change, and yet am skeptical of it's absence.

Perhaps I'm letting the goblins run loose on this blog post.

In the end of the day, I got home and watched a movie accompanied by bottles of Asahi, and got a long night of sleep. It was a painful day of riding in many ways. I won't let all this processing go to waste.

I learned some huge lessons that day:

1.) Don't underestimate the ride from Takaoka to Toyama.
2.) Don't drink beer until the end.

and most importantly ...

3.) Don't try to go to aikido when I do these day-long bike rides.

Why do rules so often become "Don't ..."?

One last thought.

When I was a kid I used to play a lot of video games. Two of my favorites were the Legend of Zelda, and Mortal Kombat. Not only did I enjoy playing them, but the stories and philosophies behind them captivated me, and have continued to do so years way beyond playing them. One could say a large part of my motivation to learn martial arts can be found somewhere in the thoughts of Mortal Kombat. The same could be said for exploring new lands and going on adventures with Zelda.

I guess Zelda always was my favorite.

(The pictures in this post were taken from the bike rides I've taken this month.)