Tenouchi: A Grip on Life

(tenouchi)

 

I want to go high places so I look up.

I want to go far places so I leave.

I want places I don't know.

If I already knew a place, I wouldn't want to go.

I want to go, and I don't know. So, I study and build a plan. In order to achieve the goal I protect the plan. A man with a plan in the world: a precarious situation indeed.

How I deal with my plan largely depends on how I fix my tenouchi (left hand grip on the bow in kyudo). As I've mentioned before, budo is often simply just putting the right things in the right places at the right times. This has very little to do with mere physical strength. Nor does it concern the kind of tenacity that blows through obstacles no matter what. It's a game of sensitivity. My teachers tell me specific points that will help me improve my technique. I listen to them and do my best to imitate, but it's not perfect. This is because I try to do what they do utilizing my strength and determination; they do it by just doing it. They utilize only what is necessary to complete the goal while I bring the whole toolbox. "But what if you need more?!" "But you don't."

"Relax" they say. "Strength will not help you."

I watch my teachers do their tenouchi close up on a small-scale and I see exactly what they mean. Their analogies make perfect sense. But, when I stand up there in front of the target, I find myself wrestling against the strength of the bow. This is the part that is hard to explain, not just for me on a blog but also teachers in the dojo.

Very mysterious stuff, this kyudo. And yet, it's all just putting the right things in the right places at the right times.

Oh yeah! I almost forgot about my apocalyptic struggle to understand life and do everything right. So, it's obvious that what isn't going to help me in life is pure strength and determination. A bit of those two things are necessary to be alive, and used in the right circumstances will greatly contribute to my growth, but beyond what I need, I don't need. Instead of blowing through life in order to protect my goal, I need to sit a bit, quietly watch, and treat my actions softly. Holding the bow in kyudo should be like just holding anything. If you're holding it, you're holding it. You don't need to squeeze it as hard as possible. If I'm living, I'm living. I don't need to live as hard as possible, or whatever. I have goals and plans rooted in my imagination, and I will continue to formulate and execute them, to much failure and suffering I imagine, but acceptance of those kinds of circumstances is paramount, just like vision to understand the situation and adapt as needed.

Fundamentally, this is the soft overcoming the hard. We are malleable entities, engaged with other various substances in the world, many of which stronger than us. We can choose to confront them with our own strength which only has two outcomes: breaking ourselves or breaking the other. Personally, I want niether of these. Perhaps we don't notice it so much when we break others (stepping on bugs, intimidating others from confronting us, our immune system fighting off viruses), so for now I'm more concerned about the possibility of me breaking under others, which is something I don't want. If I can't use strength, then I have to use something else. Here we have many options. I can creep into the cracks of the strong and break it from the inside. I could ride the strong and use it's power to my advantage. I could get out of the way of the strong and not even deal with the hassle. (Aikido analyzes this well with its geometric philosophy concerning the square, circle, and triangle.)What I am concerned with is being weak, because I am so, concerning my points of focus. I cannot break my goals like I may think I want. (Isn't it strange that initially we want to be stronger than the world and we never want to lose, and then sometimes, often subconsciously, we don't want to win, and in fact want to lose?)

Perhaps one of the biggest faults of the Hard is that it has a very warped vision of time. Either there is no time and things must happen now, or there is time and things must happen now. For the Soft, there is either no time so nothing needs to happen, or there is time and nothing needs to happen now.

"Need." What do you need? This need will make you hard and easily overcome.

We are human. We have needs. We will die because of link with need.

In order not to end on such a morbid note, I'll tell you about something interesting I learned about my kyudojo the other day.

It's a place of wonder, our small kyudojo. It's in the center of Kojo Koen, a large park that used to be the site of a castle (I'm 99% sure), and it's by far the most impressive park I've seen in Toyama Prefecture. It has a giant moat and indirect walking passages through it, some of the more notable features of it's feudal past. It's full of beatiful vegetation, some natural and some intentionally placed. There are rivers, small hills, and a few wide fields. Also, there are various centers, museums, and even a small zoo. In the very center of the park is a large shrine. Next to that shrine is our dojo. Because it's located in this kind of park next to this kind of shrine, I assumed the dojo had a very old history dating back before the modern periods of Japan, an innocent time before contact with the West. But I was very wrong. It's actually not that old of a dojo at all with respect to my deep imagination of Japanese history. It's about 40 years old, and was built from the pocket money of one man. (!!!) One of the first things I noticed about kyudo was the need for so much expensive stuff and places. The person who explained this to me told me the price, but I've already forgotten it. To be sure though, it's an unbelievable feat. After it was built, the man said that it should be a place for people who want to come to kyudo. Nobody has to do kyudo. If one comes to do kyudo, it should be based upon their own individual desire to enjoy the experience.

I will walk into the dojo from now on with that thought in mind.

(this is not Kojo Koen)

Points of Focus: Kyudo

I need to be sure my back is straight and that my body weight is on the balls of my feet. I need to suck in my butt and hips so that they don't stick out the back and contort my spine.

When I hold the bow with both hands before the uchiokoshi (raising the bow) I need to keep my elbows out so that I stretch my triceps and create tension.

When I go through uchiokoshi I need to keep my right hand slightly higher than the left.

When I move into daisan (turning the bow and spreading the arms a bit before the draw) I need to make sure I move my left arm before my right creating the right tension and preparing my tenouchi with the correct turning of the bow in my hand while keeping them connected at the appropriate line in my palm. In this position I must not bring my right hand too close to my head contorting my wrist, and maintain a slightly downward angle of my arrow to the target; so that water could just slide down the arrow.

When I start the kai (draw of the bow) I need to pull the string way over my head as far as possible, without bending the wrist too much at the full draw. In the full draw I need to touch the string to my chest and the arrow to my face at the level of my mouth. Then I must aim; see the target hiding behind the grip.

I must hold this position until I can't anymore, then it's all quiet; hanare (release).

There are many more things one is doing when they are doing kyudo, but these are the places my mind must be to ensure correct shooting at this moment.

Is this not the same in our daily lives? It's as complicated as managing all of these steps, all of these steps which may be more than our attention can be given too; so much in fact we can't get it just right. And yet there is so much more going on, but belonging to things we do which we need not put much conscious thought into.

Then it's so simple. You just do it right, and you do it to the best of your ability, but you don't worry about missing the target. This is kyudo. This is what my life feels like.

I have my first test this weekend for ikkyu. So instead of worrying too much about the actual shooting, everyone is concentrating on the approach; all of the ceremony leading up to and following the shooting. And that's a whoooollllleeee 'nother pile of cheese.

Kyudo: My New Study

Almost a year has passed since I shifted jobs and locations here in Toyama Prefecture, Japan. That's also how long I've been away from frequent and consistent Aikido training. For almost a year I've been in exile here in Toyama City, visiting children's English classrooms instead of dojos after nightfall. I had a lot of ideas about how this new chapter would run, and how it would transition to the next phase. I suppose I was accurate in the presumption that I would take advantage of this new situation by cultivating a solid independent study of martial arts and Japanese. Those have been successful I'd say. But I didn't foresee the large amount of time ... wasted(?) ... perhaps that's a little harsh ... time spent ... worrying(?) ... or maybe just brooding, on my life and current situation. What I have with my new situation is a large amount of free time in the mornings and afternoons. With that I've climbed mountains, literally as well as figuratively with my own studies ... but I also went through a lot of swampy terrain in my head, which I'm not sure was necessary. Well, it is what it is, and without digressing too much, it is enough to say that I haven't taken the time to find new budo practice with my free time; at least until about a month ago. It all started with a conversation with one of my sempai, a coworker-mentor of sorts; English doesn't seem to have a good word for this particular relationship.

Sempai: "Dude, I think I'm going to get back into Kyudo. They're offering a two-month course at Kojo-koen in Takaoka."

Me: "Really? Can anybody join?"

"Yeah, doesn't matter who you are as long as you pay the cash."

"Mmmmmmm..."

"Wanna join? It's Tuesday and Friday mornings from 10 - 12?"

(Thinking to myself in my head: "Mmmm, Kyudo??? I'd rather just worry about aikido. And 10-12 in the mornings? I'm kinda trying to do my own English lessons on the side for cash, I can't be starting Kyudo as well right?")

"Nahh dude, I'm kind of busy."

"Whatever, dude."

After I went home ... with a lot of that open time I have, and just thought. I thought and thought and thought a lot. I guess that's how a lot of my time has been spent. It sounds boring, but when you drown it with coffee and think about all the other little details of things you should do, it really feels pretty busy ... hectic even ... actually apocalyptic at times.

So I thought, and then a part of me stood against the rest of me:

"Are you f$%#ing SERIOUS!?!?!?!...

 You came to Japan exactly for this reason! You would have done tea ceremony if it was offered from the beginning, but instead you found exactly what you wanted in aikido. Well, things changed, and you're trying to get back ... but are you seriously going to whine about not being able to practice budo in Japan while being offered this course in one of the coolest budo of all? TAKE THE FLIPPING CLASS!!!"

I then talked to my sempai face to face about joining and he took me immediately to the park to sign up.

And so now, two mornings a week, I practice Kyudo and I absolutely love it. Should I have started it earlier? That's a stupid question. I'll just write down some of the details about the class now, and elaborate with funny stories and revelations later on.

Location: Kojo Koen, the most beautiful park in Toyama Prefecture in my opinion, located in Takaoka City, the second biggest city in the prefecture and a 20 minute train ride from my house (close compared to aikido practice). The dojo is a beautiful building, with a long grass lawn until the 5-target set up.

(a picture of the Takaoka Dojo, the grass is more overgrown right now and looks cooler I think, also there's usually one more target on the left side)

Cost: 5,000 yen for the 2 month course, 2,500 yen for the small essentials like a rubber practice apparatus, string, guidebook, cloth that goes over the hand underneath the glove you use. (once I get more familiar I'll probably use the official Japanese terms. But I don't expect you guys to be familiar with the terms either, so maybe it's for the best)

Class Members: Tuesday mornings: Me, my friend, Sensei, and three of his senior members present solely for the purpose of helping me and my friend. Any of you budo practitioners should be messing your pants after reading that, because it's an unbelievable oppurtunity! 2 students and 4 teachers! All to ourselves for 2 hours! Friday morning, there are two other members, which hardly affect Sensei's time. If that's not enough, there's an evening class offered as well, which has 18 students. I don't even know how they all fit in the dojo holding bows. And, there's only Sensei and one senior member helper. I guess I'm pretty lucky for my open mornings after all.

Sensei: Strong, funny, aware. Excellent qualities. I've come to like this guy a lot, and have built quite a bit of trust with him. In my budo experience, the people, and for a student's sake, the teachers, are what are most important, and with that, I progress happily through this two month course.

(this is a picture of the actual inside of the Takaoka Dojo)

This morning I realized we only have three classes left in our 2 month course. Due to prior obligations, my friend will return to his prior dojo at the end of the course in another town. But as for this gaijin, I will be taking measures to make Kyudo a very important practice in my life with this dojo.

But not too important. I still have other things to do ... like drink beer ... or at least the cheap imitation stuff I can afford to consume.