Aikido Seminar in Toyama Part II:

Kuribayashi Sensei was great.

Kind of a big dude. Not fat at all, but big: broad shoulders. He was taller than me, but maybe not six foot. He's bald, so it kind of gives him a Mr. Clean kind of aura. Also, his wrists were notable large, which changes a lot when you do techniques with him, both as uke and tori. He mentioned this about himself, and that it's good to practice with different people to get used to different bodies. How should you hold someone's wrists when they're large? How about when they're skinny?

Kuribayashi Sensei's techniques were simple. This is something I notice about all great teachers. Many teachers will have their own flavor, favorite techniques, and maybe some special techniques that other teachers don't do, but what is most important, especially when doing a seminar, is emphasizing the basics. His technique is good ... no, excellent, because he minds the basics 110% percent. That means doing proper ukemi, keeping a solid stance, turning one's hips enough in the right positions (correct hanmi posture), relaxing unnecessary muscles, keeping the spine straight, utilizing correct timing (especially not rushing through a technique), etc. Every great teacher I've watched in a demo does this, be it my own teacher, the doshu (head honcho in the aikikai hombu dojo and descendent of the founder, Ueshiba Morihei), or with these various other teachers I've seen. He didn't do any special techniques, but rather emphasized the ukemi explanations given before by Oyama Sensei, and pointed out why the basics are so necessary in the simplest of techniques.

This is interesting and important to practice, no matter your level ... I think.

What was special about Kuribayashi Sensei were his talks between techniques. His background is in physical education (I don't think I'm using the right term exactly), and so a lot of his talks were about the specific properties of the human body.

For example:

Our human body is home to over 200 different bones and over 300 different muscles. When we move through aikido techniques, and life in general, it would be advantageous to move using as many as possible to achieve various tasks. When we jump up and down, we aren't just using the knees and lower leg muscles, we are also using our upper legs and upper bodies and everything else to enhance the action and reduce the stress on the body. When we move in aikido, executing both techniques and ukemi, or when we do anything in life, we should strive to use all of our muscles and bones as one single unit.

Of those 200+ bones, 47 are in each hand. Along with all of those bones, are tendons connecting them together and with muscles, making our hands extremely sensitive to sensing the outside world. When someone grabs our hands or wrists, we are very sensitive to the amount of movement and strength the owner of the hand is employing. Vice versa, when we grab someone's hand or wrist, we are aware in a second of that person's use of muscle or movement. This is why we must relax our hands and arms while executing techniques, so that our partners won't notice our movements. Furthermore, we often guide partner's along the lines they are already moving in order to trick them into your technique. They are falling further and don't react to your movements because they don't feel them. Then, all of a sudden they have fallen into your technique and are defenseless.

This use of stealth is why people wear wear hakama (traditional pant-legged-skirt-looking clothing on the lower body), it's to hide the movement of one's feet. If an opponent can't see or feel what you are doing, then they don't know what is happening and you can move into the most ideal position catching your opponent unawares.

Again with the bone talk, the largest one is your pelvis. This giant bone is what we use to guide our movements and direct our partners where we want. By stacking the pelvis behind our actions, we are utilizing our greatest asset of stability the body can provide. By unbalancing another's pelvis, we rob them of their greatest ability to gain control.

Aside from such theories utilizing the condition of the human body, Kuribayashi Sensei was a very friendly and funny guy. He liked to joke with the other practitioners and laughed a lot through the seminar.

He said one conversation you won't hear in aikido is:

"Ganbare!"

"Hai!"

When faltering in a technique, you probably won't hear a teacher scream, "Try harder! Push it!"

Instead, he said you'll probably hear:

"Ganbaruna!" Stop trying.

When things get hectic in aikido, we need to relax, stop trying so hard, and think instead about what is going wrong and how we can fix this. In this kind of conversation, we transcend the limitations of our bodies and start using the greatest asset given to humankind:

the Mind.

Though he started training after O'Sensei had already died, he said people often say that he would change his techniques everyday. The technique he had done yesterday was wrong, weak, inferior. Today's technique is what's happening, what's real, and what is built upon work done before. There's no use in practicing what was done the day before, because today's is better. Though we practice set techniques and may respect tradition for various reasons, tradition in and of itself has little affect on quality technique. If you can improve the technique, then you should.

It's OK to change techniques, as long as it is an improvement.

This leads me to a point concerning the other teachers in the seminar from Toyama Prefecture. I don't mean to offend anyone, and I do not hold ill-feelings toward anyone, but there are qualities to these teachers' techniques that I believe are less than ideal for practicing aikido. By bringing light upon them, we ourselves can learn better about the nature of aikido and learning it's principles.

The first teacher told us it was his 67th birthday on the day of the seminar and that he's been practicing aikido for over 40 years. He talked at length about various stories in aikido in a very quiet voice that most people couldn't hear. I think most people were aware that he was telling a personal story, but couldn't hear the details, and were just waiting to do some aikido. One thing I remember him saying was that he often got confused with the varieties of different techniques when he was younger. To get caught up in this is confusing and a waste of time, and instead we should look at all of the techniques as one. I agree with this. But when we started techniques, I didn't see any kuzusu (unbalancing the partner), and little regard for ukemi. Without these two, aikido is lost, and you're just moving around with someone else. He used techniques that locked the muscles and went contrary to everything I believed to be aikido. I talked to my sensei about this, and this is why he can't work together with such teachers. He seems to be happy doing what he's doing, and has students of his own. I tried his techniques, and just don't think they help mine. No offense, I don't think what he is doing aikido, and it's not for me.

The second teacher emphasized the connection between aikido techniques and the bokken and jo (wooden sword and short staff). I was excited about this, because it's a very important part of aikido, and one you don't see all that often. We use bokken and jo in our dojo, but not nearly as much as open-handed techniques, and for some reason I haven't seen a lot lately.

He pulled out his bokken (wooden sword) and began to show us techniques with a partner. He was very fast, very controlled, stopping the sword just before the opponent, and moved around a lot. It was like a whirlwind of movement around the partner who would only move slightly. The partner would raise his sword and come down in the time the teacher had already cut him three times. It was mystifying; confusing and alluring. He would then show the related empty-hand technique, and have us practice that. The result, was a lot of people standing around getting stuck with the first movement.

"What did he do?"

"I have no idea!"

Some people got it, some didn't. But all of us who weren't familiar with the techniques spent most of the time just trying to unravel the movements he made. He would come over and correct mistakes, but they were difficult to remember, and couldn't be replicated in a handful of tries. He then started showing us the execution of the technique while holding the bokken, and then had us practice with our own, which was helpful, and interesting at some points. Perhaps we should have done that more.

We kept practicing, and after a half hour I still wasn't getting used to his techniques, and just saw flailing bokken movements at still-standing opponents. At one point, I started to practice the techniques with Kuribayashi Sensei (the point of such a seminar!) and found myself doing the right movements, but merely moving around in circles while holding his wrist as he stood there motionless starting at me. This is the sign of a failed technique. If you're supposed to be manipulating your opponent, but instead are doing a lot of excess movement without affecting the partner, you're just wasting time and leaving yourself open to counter attack. I remember apologizing to him:

"Sorry, I have no idea how to do this."

But he leaned over to me and replied smiling, "I have no idea, either."

This made me smile, and so we both struggled to find a way to unbalance each other through these strange movements.

As I mentioned earlier, I believe the two most important characteristics of aikido technique are ukemi (proper reactions to techniques) and kuzusu (unbalancing your partner), and this sensei's techniques involved niether. Instead, we were left with an excess of unnecessary movements. As far as building technique, it felt like a waste of time, and I felt a bit embarrassed. These two incredible teachers from the Hombu Dojo came all the way from Tokyo to spend half of the weekend seminar listening to personal unrelated stories and trying to do aikido via defunct techniques.

"So this is what people are doing in the country when they say they're doing aikido..." He must have thought.

In a way it's true. What the teachers in Toyama said was that a lot of these techniques were the product of a past teacher. This past teacher had learned aikido, but mixed it with separate sword techniques, and in the end made his own. I can dig that. Kuribayashi Sensei even said we should change our techniques if we seek to advance them. But I do not believe these changes to be desired. Instead of effective methods of combat, they were products of an ambitious imagination, and became traditions to be revered. Perhaps there are museum pieces such as these that should remain behind glass unchanged by the turning generations. I remember reading such a statement in David Lowry's books about the kenjutsu he practiced. The moment I read that was the moment I lost respect for his budo. That's cool, I guess. But it's not what I want to do. I want to practice techniques that improve my life. More specifically, I want techniques that improve my ability to work with outside forces in life. In other words, I want to sense my level of strengths and weaknesses by interacting with outside forces. My practice is not time to make me feel better about myself, but to learn about the world.

So yeah, enlightening experiences, though often at the hands of less-than-desired events. I feel incredibly lucky to be able to attend such seminars, and happy to do so with so many other enthusiastic members. We all came with the purpose of improving aikido, but each of us left with different impressions, none of which are better than the others. My impressions fit me just as others fit others. I say that my ambitions are motivated by a desire to improve my technique, and thus improve my life. Perhaps many others feel the same way, but react differently. Who are we to judge? I leave my impressions subconsciously and hope to rectify misunderstanding with effort. Forgive any mistakes, but I must put my foot somewhere.

For all of you budo practitioners, I wish you best and hope you may cross hands with many other partners. For those who have no interest in budo, I hoped you enjoyed the article!

Thanks for reading.

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.

Budo Changes You

 

I am always somewhere in nature. I am thankful for this. No matter what city I'm surrounded by, or what room I'm in, I'm also always in the natural world exactly where I want to be. For a while, I have been in a forest. Just trees in front of me, an articulate realm of green to progress slowly through. But lately I've found an outcropping cliff hanging over the sea. My blackbelt test in kyudo must be the biggest part of this. In a way, the greatest single physical reason I came to Japan was for budo, and such progress is most clearly represented by rank. A black belt, is a very clear spot in the progression. It is a point alone above the surrounding area.

 

I passed the test, got the belt, and feel some satisfaction, but much more angst, for some reason. It really has little to do with kyudo. When I think about it, it has little to do with anything. I don't know exactly why I feel the way I do, even though I've found such a vantage point to sit and look out at it all: the forest I've been through, the body I am, the feelings I have, and an ocean spanning out beyond.

 

After the test, I went to a two-day heavy metal festival in Tokyo (Ozzfest, and actually it was in Chiba). It represented something significant as well, and provided me with tremendous experience and inspiration. But as I'm finding with such experiences, they are as epic as I imagined, but make much less sense in the end. I came back, got sick for a week, and am just now re-emerging back into the normal world I live in, but it's really different. That weekend concert is a dream world nobody else knows about. I can't talk to others about it here, because they wouldn't understand. It's the same with the mountains. It's the same with budo. Certainly I've found myself on lonely quests. But I guess it's what I wanted from the start.

 

So now I'm looking at all these things that are normal, and I'm not sure what to think, all of these things in my life. Some of them I don't like. Some of them I don't mind, but wonder why they're there. I look at the things I've treasured, and watched how they have changed or faded, or have gotten more complicated. The issues I have now are very tricky knots I can't just slice through. I wondered before why they wouldn't go away, or why they would always come back. Now I can look at them and see their nature a little better, and I can see them moving ever-so-slowly, further on their path. I've never really stopped to see them before. Now I am. I can't cut through them.

So I need a bomb.

And some acceptance.

 

I need to accept the tendencies of certain things in the world. But those which I don't agree with, or those which I believe I can alter, I need to shock with all of the thunder and lightning I have.

This pair of circumstances is very important in budo. Seeing this pair is very important in my life. Sitting on an elevated rock at the edge of the ocean, budo is a very important part of me, and a part  I think will survive the atomic blast.

Budo changes you.

But not really you.

Rather, it changes the way you interact with the world. Budo is a system that becomes a mode of communication between you and the outside world.

Budo is a system to be utilized. Budo is a system that will teach you to process and handle things in a way pre-determined to be effective.

First, it does so by affecting how you unconsciously make decisions in the world. The purpose of technique is that you practice physical responses to the point at which you don't think. In self-defense, this means moving your body in a way to avoid attacks and execute your own. In kyudo, this means having your body go through the myriad physical checks necessary in order to focus on the shooting. We retrain our natural physical reactions by practicing budo.

Secondly, budo changes how you consciously deal with stimula. This is most clearly seen in encountering adversity. In budo, obstacles are overcome by eliminating all extraneous stimulation in order to focus on the matter at hand. Emotions are not the sole base of decision making, and attempts are made to try to figure out what lies beneath or beyond them. Natural reactions are studied, "Why do I feel this way?". Decisions are made to the best of ability and are followed through with resolution. Success and failure are less about the results and more about one's own effort.

 

We get confused with the world. "Why is this happening? Why did that happen? What is going to happen? What should I do?" In order to put their minds at ease something they can believe, what we cannot control is believed to be reigned in and taken care of by ourselves, or a system with which we employ. But these are all false. From that very beginning, us not knowing, we must accept this, not because it is good, or the way it is, or it will make us happy ... pehaps I am wrong myself, and the word "should" has no place in this idea. There is us, and us not knowing. That is all. In that moment our reactions may trigger emotions, which may trigger thoughts, which may trigger actions.

Budo is a system, which changes how we deal with the world. Yet, it is advanced compared to many other systems in that it provides itself with a skapegoat to survive definition. Budo is a way of doing things, but it is also a way of not doing things. Budo exists, and yet the fact that it exists means it also doesn't exist. Budo should be employed, until it shouldn't be employed. Budo is, and is not. This is what makes it a living entity. This adds to its continual misunderstanding.

Our actions are the only things that belong to us. Budo is not one's identity, but a way in which one's identity can interact with the world. It is also it's own entity. That being said, our identities are not even our's to own. We are born into the world without a choice, given circumstances without a choice. But if there is anything we can control, it is our actions. This is where our reality meets with a system, and our lives are altered. So Budo is the closest thing we have to affecting control in our lives, while also realizing the chaotic lack of control we have. It must be both. If not, it is not Budo.

 

Budo makes me curve and dull my edges in order to blend with the world. Become safe in the world like a blanket, like pastel colors, like happiness.

But it also sharpens me to an edge, made as fine as possible to slice through all of existence. I don't understand this. I would say it's like war or violence, but I can't make a connection with them easily.

When the budo takes a hold of me, I am completely submerged in it's grasp, enthusiastically following it's tenets. I become an incredibly productive and safe individual. I am so much so that the longer I practice, the deeper I find myself in it's periodic delusion. Only when I step back do I realize how blindly I ran into the dark. I'm somehow ashamed of that when I realize it. That sharpened edge, the violence of my will, it's the purpose of the system, but that system is smaller than the whole living organism. I am larger than the system. Budo is a foolish tool I worship. Budo is not the master of me, but backwards. But budo falls through my grasp, because it isn't mine, and actually isn't anything at all.

People naturally use their surroundings to support and enact their will. People manipulate their pasts, their memories, so support beliefs of their own, which is false. The past does not belong to us, just as nature. Just as this living system, Budo.

Well, I didn't talk about anything I planned to when I began this entry, so the conversation will surely continue! Just not here and now. Thank you for reading.

My Kyudo Black Belt Test in Japan

Yatta!

I did it!

After almost a year of practicing kyudo (Japanese traditional archery), I took my shodan (black belt) test and passed. A year ago, all I knew was that I was going to start a two month kyudo course with a friend because I had free time in the morning and wanted to experience a different kind of budo. I imagined that I'd taste it, and move on quickly to something else, not giving much thought to pursuing it long or far enough to come to this point. I guess I didn't take it very seriously at the time. Regardless, I took the course, continued on, went through the deepest pits and highest peaks of budo I've experienced yet, and I just kept taking the small steps that were in front of me. Now, I don't know how long I will continue the practice, but as long as I'm living here in Toyama I will be chiseling away at myself through this wonderful practice.

As for the test, many of you may not be familiar with kyudo, so I'll explain some of the details.

For a shodan test, you shoot two arrows in the formal procedure with 3 to 4 other people. This includes particular movements for entering the shooting area, shooting in turn with others, and leaving the shooting area. This process takes about seven minutes. It isn't necessary to hit the target, but your arrows need to at least be relatively close to the target. From there, one's technique needs to be at a certain level of proficiency. I'm not sure how to describe this, but you should generally be adhering to the basics. If you're doing anything too strange then that's not good. But you also don't have to do everything perfect. What judges want to see is that you understand the basics of shooting and can put them into practice under pressure. What's more important than this, is the taihai: entering the dojo, performing the right steps in the right order and timing, and leaving the dojo. Actually this is definitely the most important part, and probably where most people fail the test. It doesn't matter how good you can shoot, if you can't do the taihai correctly, you won't pass.

There is also a written portion of the test. A month before the test, a sheet with about 20 different questions is revealed. On the day of the test, two will be decided by a local teacher and you will have 50 minutes to answer them in writing. Some of the questions are about specific numbers (distance to the target, distance from the ground to the center of the target, angle at which the target is tilted, etc), others are about the specific techniques of shooting (list the eight steps of shooting and briefly describe them, what is so-and-so technique, etc), and some are open-ended (Why did you start kyudo and what have you learned so far from the practice?)

The two that came out were: 1.) Why did you start kyudo and what have you learned so far from the practice. 2.) Describe the toriyumi posture. (The posture you are in when you are standing and holding the bow). These seem appropriate for shodan, as they are fairly easy to answer and concern some of the most basic parts of the art.

One interesting bit about the writing test for a gaijin like me is, do I write in English and Japanese?

What do you think I did?

For a while Sensei had been talking to me about the shodan test, but once the questions came out he came to me and said,

"Ahh, Zac, maybe you can't take the test."

"EH?! What do you mean?"

"Here are the questions for the test."

I looked at them and said, "Yeah, so what?"

"Can you read this?"

"Let me see."

3 seconds later ...

"See! You can't read it."

"Well if you tell me what it means then I can remember it, no problem."

"Really?"

"Of course!"

"Oh, OK. But we need to have a day to go over this with Masami (the other person I'm testing with)."

"And so I have to write this in Japanese?" I said getting excited about the challenge.

"Of course not, just write in English."

"Are you sure? I can do it in Japanese."

"No, no, just write in English."

"How are you going to know what I write?" (Sensei knows about 10 words in English.)

"I'll know what you write."

And so it was decided against my will that I would write in English. "Whatever, it'll be easier. So, I'll just write in English." I thought.

If I were to write in Japanese, I could write some kanji (Chinese characters) for the test, but mostly it would be in hiragana (phonetic alphabet of Japanese). This is a problem for Japanese because there are no spaces between words, so what would result is just a long chain of hiragana, which is cumbersome to read. Kanji is used to differentiate words and such, without them, reading can actually be much harder. I could memorize the kanji for the answers, but Sensei thought that would be too much work. So English it was.

I sat down in the room with a paper and pen, read the questions, and finished writing in twenty minutes.

As for the taihai, I think I did it to the best of my ability, which is sufficient for the test. I made one very small mistake though. When beginning the exit of the dojo, you're supposed to step with the right foot but I just barely started with the left, something I've never done before in practice (go figure). I corrected it immediately. Perhaps nobody noticed, but then there were five judges watching our every slightest move.

As for the shooting, my first arrow was high above the target. The arrow went higher than I'm used to, and a bit far off the mark for a shodan test. Generally the technique was OK, but the release wasn't so good, which is what sent the arrow high. Regardless, I sat and waited for my next turn in the painful kiza sitting posture where you sit on your knees and the balls of your feet. Usually makes you shake with discomfort and pain. The purpose of the posture is to strengthen the backs of your legs, and your force of will, I suppose. My turn came again, so I stood and began the shooting process. All of the moments clicked in much cleaner than the first shot. When I was in the full draw, all was well and I took aim. My body put me into what I felt to be a natural position, but I noticed how high the last arrow went, so I lowered it just bit. SMACK! The arrow hit the target, and I began to exit the dojo (not without that first tiny mistake mentioned earlier.)

As I said before, it isn't necessary to hit the target for the test, but damn it feels good. There are two other people who started kyudo in the same two month class last year as me and we've been companions through the whole process, taking the tests and going through the motions together. One of the friends and I hit the target in the test, but one didn't. He knows it's not important for passing the test, but you could tell he had a bad taste in his mouth. The difference in technique can be so minute in hitting or not hitting the target, and we all know it's not important ... but damn it feels good to hit the target.

I remember when I took my first black belt test in Hawaiian Kenpo and my Sensei explained what shodan meant. He explained it was only the beginning, and not a finality. When you look at the Japanese characters for the word (初段), 初 (sho) means beginner/beginning and 段 (dan) means step/rank. It's a simple concept to understand: a blackbelt is not the end but only the beginning, but it's completely different according to experience. This idea hits me on a much deeper level know, and I understand it much more than I did nine years ago when I took the Hawaiian Kenpo test.

The day after the test I didn't go to kyudo practice and just rested. Probably lots of people take a week or so break after such a test. Maybe more. Maybe people just think about it. Maybe no one does. The next day instead of indulging in a longer rest, I went to practice just because I wanted to. I showed up and shot my first few shots at the makiwara (practice hay bail you shoot at before the target). Sensei came up to me and said:

"Congratulations on your shodan ... but we've got to fix your tenouchi ..."

Back to work! The path certainly doesn't end at shodan. Instead, it really is only the beginning.

Japan Blog Carnival: Samurai Sushi

Blog Carnival!

What is it? It's where different bloggers get together and write about a similar topic. Thanks to Sophelia at http://sopheliajapan.blogspot.com who organized all of this , a few of us gaijin here in Japan got together and wrote about food in Japan. Check the links below for some interesting stories  from some very cool blogs.

Then at the bottom you can find mine ... SAMURAI SUSHI!


(NOTICE: AT THE TIME OF POSTING THIS, THE OTHER BLOGS MAY NOT HAVE POSTED YET, PLEASE CHECK BACK IN A DAY TO SEE THEM ALL)


http://sopheliajapan.blogspot.com/2013/04/being-vegetarian-at-japanese-work.html">Being Vegetarian at Japanese Work Parties
by http://sopheliajapan.blogspot.jp/">Sophelia's Adventures in Japan. Sophelia regularly blogs about teaching, adoption, dogs, vegetarianism and general geekiness.

< br />
http://squggly-inkblots.blogspot.jp/2013/04/eating-my-way-around-island.html">Eating My Way Around an Island by http://squggly-inkblots.blogspot.jp/">Big Red Dots and Squggly Inkblots. Furiida blogs about her experiences as a JET Programme participant in the rural prefecture of Oita.

< br />
http://angrygaijin.wordpress.com/2013/04/27/history-of-yakiniku/">The History of Yakiniku by http://angrygaijin.wordpress.com/">Angry Gaijin. Cameron Ohara is a Gaikokujin (foriegner) living in Japan. But get this - he was actually Japanese in a previous life! Now it's all he can do to get his Japanese comrades to look beyond his red hair and tall nose and see the Japanese human that exists within!

< br />
...

Samurai Sushi

“Eat, drink, cook” she said … what a great topic! I’m not sure if the genius was intended, but there is no way gaijin living in Japan could not write on such a topic. That is unless you have your moms send you more than just coffee and oatmeal in the mail. I for one, rate cooking　way down on the list of “things about me”, and yet I have one Japanese-master-secret -technique to tell you about.

 

But before I talk about the process directly involved in filling yourself with Japanese food, I’ll instruct you on the proper scenario required for such a feast. As is with many things in Japan, you can’t just get started putting things together and call it … well, something to be talked about.

 

First of all, this meal is best to on your day-off. This meal is a gold nugget amid a day of doing only exactly what you want. Any hindrance on this purity will only degrade the experience. Ask yourself what your favorite thing to do on your day off is, and do just that.

 

Secondly, this meal comes best after some kind of expended effort. This kind of meal is  something to be earned, not expected. Though the effort expended should be the best you can give, that doesn’t mean the hardest necessarily, but that kind best aligned with your interest. Surely you are interested in something you can expend effort for! I recommend something physical. Personally, I take this meal after a long bike ride into the mountains. This is very important.

 

Thirdly, this is a meal to be enjoyed alone. I hesitate a bit with this very crucial step, but it has less to do with any anti-social behaviors of mine, and more to the fact of enjoying this meal without unnecessary chatter or judgments. … OK, well maybe you can eat it with someone else, but only if they’re really cool.

 

So on with the ingredients; what are we going to eat!? And drink!?

 

Sushi!

 

Or more specifically, sashimi, that which is bought from your local supermarket. You’ll often find different packs of various pre-sliced sashimi, but I don’t mess with that. I go for the long solid slabs of salmon. They usually have tuna available as well, but I happen to like salmon better, so that’s what I do. In my experience, there are two price ranges which aren’t so far apart, but make a huge difference. If I find a one-person-size piece of my favorite sushi and it’s less than 200 yen, it’ll be the bad kind and ruin the whole meal. But, if I go for the 300-400 yen range, it’ll be the best sushi I’ve ever bought at the supermarket. I’m sure there are more ways of figuring out what makes such a huge difference, but translating the label in my head while I’m being swarmed by obaachans in the fish aisle seems like a lot of work.

 

So, you get the fish, and all the rest is super-easy. Make white rice in your rice cooker. Boil hot water to add to the miso soup packets you got at the supermarket with your fish. Then buy lots of Asahi in the large glass bottles, 2 works good for me, and one small-medium sized bottle of sake, I go for Tateyama, largely because it’s from my prefecture and really good. In fact, that’s important too. You should get local sake, or Tateyama because it’s just really good.

 

Now there is one last step and it’s not dessert. The last step is watching a period-film by the famous director, Akira Kurosawa along with the meal. I’d give some recommendations, but the list is far too long. Just rent/buy/download a Kurosawa film involving samurai and you’ll be good to go. This step really adds the right mood to the meal. It doesn’t have to be like preparing for seppuku or anything, but the black and white of it all makes it feel important. Somehow, the stereotypes of samurai and sushi really do go well together.

 

That’s it! So go now to your calendar, mark one of your next days off as “your own sacred day”, go have an adventure during the day, and then treat yourself to this meal of at-home-samurai-sashimi.

Shape of Quality

 

This is the one connecting road I see between cities, mountains, islands.

Posts have been infrequent this month. That does not mean there is nothing to talk about. Rather, it's quite the opposite. Too many things to talk about render me frozen amid sparse breaks from the movement. The changes are too fast. At the moment of impact, I could potentially imbellish curious minds, but the passing of mere moments already begin the rotting process.

Spring winds change the clouds so much in a single day, I can't remember the blue sky under such grey broodings.

Like going to kyudo, I can never predict what kind of practice it will be. False anticipations only make the results more the strange.

A quality form, base, skeleton, is important.

A room's shape, simple and strong. Bland is a quality to build from. Various furnitures can define spaces, pictures can direct moods, plants can breathe. Dirt can accumulate inside, clothes can litter floors. But those walls, that shape, comes before and lasts beyond it all.

In kyudo, aikido, and tai chi bodies are placed into desirable positions in order to maximize all abilities. From those correct positions, various techniques grow out for myriad purposes.

I can see these things, like a magazine. I flip through the pages and let my interest guide eyes to something of an undefined "quality."

But what about the mind? What is the shape of our mind? How is it structured? What is it designed to do? How can we adjust these settings?

It's like trying to see the back of your head.

All you need is a couple mirrors, or a camera.

So, I guess we can just move along and not care about such matters.

Or we can use some tools to figure it out.

The mind, its use and un-use. This is what I've been thinking about lately. How does that base structure of my mind affect my actions and the world I move in.

It's not static.

It's fluid and changing. We cannot stop to rearrange. We cannot accurately judge what's good and bad. We move in directions, falling, floating, swimming, gliding. In that shifting moment we move ourselves in ways beyond what we can conceive.

Like James Bond.

Quality. That single word can be magic. A compass amid worlds of painful complexities. Quality is a shape we color in with the instruments of our decisions.

For me, practicing budo is how I consciously affect my mind. Budo is quality. But it's not the only thing. Budo is a shell, and my guts are the decisions I make.

I don't know. Nobody knows. Some moments I'm peacefully unaware. Other times I'm trying to figure out how to get out.

Sometimes, it all feels just right.

That is quality.

(picture above found at http://www.photographycorner.com/galleries/showphoto.php/photo/25216)

Early Spring Mountain Darkness

A day off. What to do while everyone else packs off to begin the work week and school? Ride.

 

Something about the morning was amiss, so I took the stairs instead of the elevator. This I found, a pot fallen from someone's sill. Or purposely cast perhaps. Regardless, the plant continues to grow.

Things have been strange lately, much like early spring skies. Blue cloudless moments allow golden sunlight down for brief spans until dark clouds sweep back through to remind us of dark winters. Wind blew me sideways the whole ride through the plains, slowing my pace while demanding more effort. Why?

I adjust to each shift, but tire from the change. It's only recently I've begun to realize what people mean by "Hope". A lot of peole like to talk about it, as if it's the one bright sword to fight all demons. It is a special thing indeed. When you fall down cracks, digging further down, concepts of good become so far away, and a small flash of this so-called Hope can change it all. But change it will again, when you forget.

The road I wanted was barred by a flimsy barracade. Obviously it was meant to keep cars from entering, but offered little incentive to avert one's effort. I assume it's less about impending danger or severe penalty, and more about the roads not being maintained to a perfect condition for normal cars to go through. Hesitantly I rode past. Soon I found though that it was one of the best roads I'd been on to date, relatively flat, small one lane smooth road, with just enough debris to make it fun to dodge.

Soon parts of the road revealed long stretches of snow. No one has been here in a long time. I wonder what kind of things have settled here in the absence of humans, during those long months of quiet isolation. People know nothing of this silence; it's not in our nature. Yet, we can see it.

Every once in a while I need a break. When I need a break from riding, I walk and push the bike. When I can't do that, I park the bike.  I couldn't sit because there was snow everywhere, so I just stood there. What am I supposed to do on a break? Why don't I just go? Such a simple question seemed so difficult for me to answer. My own silence in the world seems impossible to grasp.

What am I supposed to do?

What do I want to do?

At one point the snow became to deep to easily push my bike through. I looked in my guide book, stared at the mountains, and judged what I thought to be the mountain I was attempting to climb. I saw the route. It was very long. I calculated the time. 2 hours up. But, I always undershoot the time, and I also had no idea how much snow was on the path ahead. At this rate it was just barely tolerable, and it only came in short patches. What if it was deeper, the whole way? Ascending further, one could only assume so. I made it to the dam pictured above.

This is what lay on the other side of the bridge. I had spats covering my lower legs, but my boots are old and not water-proof. My feet were already soaked from stepping in a deep puddle while looking up at the trees. I was hungry, and only had a couple conbini sandwiches. This was my day-off.

What am I supposed to do?

What do I want to do?!

At an earlier time I decided that riding my bike to climb mountains was what I wanted and should do. I've come here, doing it, but failing the mark. If I succeed, all of the suffering will be worth it. If I turn back now, what will that be?

I quickly stopped the overly-concerned spirit battles and plainly decided that climbing the mountain wasn't nearly worth the risks involved. So I ate my sandwich, and walked back to my bike to descend back to town.

It was a pleasant ride back, as it usually is. Just downhill cruising. The small patches of snow provided entertaining challenges, and most of the time I had forgotten about climbing the mountain at all.

I stopped at onsen, ate at a new restaurant for lunch, and bought food for my at-home sashimi meal which would be accompanied by an Akira Kurosawa film I hadn't seen yet, Kumonoso-jo,"Throne of Blood." It was amazing.

I also got great blue-bird skies to watch the mountains from. Here's our regular friend, Tsurugi-dake below.

When I got back home, I remembered it was the beginning of spring, and arguably the most beautiful time in Japan. The sakura are blooming, and most people take the time to relax, drinking and picnicing with friends. I however rode to blocked off roads in the mountains where snow can still be found, fighting against myself and impossible nature for ...

what?