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?

Open Gaijin Explorer Season: Mountain Bike + Zhan Zhuang

It's finally come! I've waited long, yet the arrival feels abrupt. BAM! Sunny weather and tolerable temperatures to rip through the wind on two wheels. The snow has receded just enough to give me passage to the foothills here in Toyama. A random day-off in the middle of the week couldn't have been more timely, and today I made my first real adventure of 2013.

 An island of trees. Amid clearings of rice fields, one can always find a shrine where cedars sprout upwards.

 

 

One year ago, I entered my first spring living in Toyama City. It was the same prefectural home I had had two years prior, yet I was separated from my normal riding grounds in the east where adventure lay only about fifteen minutes to the mountains. In Toyama City, it's a tedious one hour until the real fun, yet the adventures compensate adequately. Each month I discovered new routes into the mountains while losing myself on their one lane roads and pouring over various road and topographical maps. Despite the latter, the former seemed more frequent. I closed the year, along with most of the forseeable journeys completed. Plans have been made to evacuate Toyama for a new version of Japan in Kyushu as early as June, but it seems such a move will happen in late summer to early fall. With all this time ... where will I go?

A bit reluctantly, I opened my Toyama mountain guide book to look for places I didn't believe existed. Yet it was only minutes until I had already planned enough trips to fill few months. This place is certainly not dry yet. I plan to make the most of my time here, and I don't think I'll be lost for mysterious mountain destinations. Spring is floating up the mountains devouring snow, but it's quite a slow process. I found the smallest of the mountains assuming it had the least amount of snow, and so today I went up Hageyama, 466 meters high in the Kamiichi area of Toyama.

This is what I love about the woods. This is what I love about Toyama. This is what I love about Japan. This is what I love about life. This, whatever you want to call what I did today. Alone, except for those I meet along the way. Free, except for the setting of the sun. Inspired, by the experience of a place I've never been. It's my secret life, yet it's not really a secret in a "people aren't supposed to know about it" kind of way. You're reading it now. But perhaps you've never met me, which makes this a different kind of experience for both of us, you: reader, me: writer. Some of you know me personally, which makes this a special experience as well, you know this side of me not many others do. I've told other people about my adventures, but they don't care, do I don't. It's not worth the trouble unless someone is actually listening, but if they are, maybe it's not such an interesting story anyway.

ANYWAY ... it's been a long dirty winter. The seasons mean different things to each of us. This is something I have a great amount of interest in. I'm very mindful of the changes of the seasons, and enjoy tracking its effects on the human world: mostly, my own. Very often, the winter is a quiet time for me where I enter some kind of hibernation and refrain from doing a lot of things. I had my hibernation, but it was cluttered and fanatic. Then I took on a lot more extra responsibility for a couple months making me busier than ever. Now, I'm looking forward to the spring in order to start over, with a lot less, doing what I want.

What I want has to do with ... less. Throwing out all of the superfluous crap I've hoarded and constructed, or inadvertantly accumulated, and making room for all the good stuff to happen. This is where Zhan Zhuang (standing meditation) comes in. Though it is an activity of itself, which requires energy and time, it is a great purifier, aligning me to be in my life as I ... am, and allowing me to avoid all of the stuff ... I don't need to do. It's not like there are lots of physical objects to get rid of, or habits to stop, but more so making a shift in perspective. Yet it's not just an instantaneous shift of viewing the world which will change it all for good, but rather the maintanence of a kind of being where I can live in a way that ... I prefer. That preference is not just "me" and "what I want", but also about accepting "what I don't want" and all of the outside phenomenon of the world, for better or for worse.

It's about action. It's about being. Thinking is important, but it's a tool to be used appropriately. Thinking certainly cannot be underestimated. However, I feel my young adult education in Japan has been teaching me to act, and then think later on. I make plans, I have ideas, but if I get stuck inside of them, I lose myself somewhere other than where I am for the most part. It's a strange quandary: I would like to write about it all, but if I just write about it all, then I won't be having the experiences that make life worth living. But if I just go out and experience, then I won't have time to write it down for the world. I have never regretted putting down the pen and picking up the bike. Perhaps this is the trick of life. We put our own personal style into the world by how we make our decisions. No one person will do something exactly the same as another. Often, what two people do can be completely contrary. Many people will stay inside to hone their craft away from the world. I, however, will abandon my craft for the world. This is apparent in everything I've ever done, and perhaps a curse preventing me from specialty in one specific area. Doing this, saying this, thinking about this, this is very much me. Perhaps I will never be rich or famous like I've dreamed, but I know I'll be happy.

Tsurugi-Dake, not the highest, yet arguably the most impressive mountain in the Northern Alps. A feature of the ride I enjoyed from beginning to end.

 

Back to Zhan Zhuang. For years I've been in and (most often) out of the practice, but two years ago there was a period of three months I was able to stick with the practice almost everyday. That's the longest single period I've ever done it for, and it felt amazing. How was I able to maintain it? By starting very small, and building slowly. As I've said before, I think forty minutes is the ideal for me, but going from nothing to forty, and expecting to maintain that is foolish for me, I know I won't last. Instead, I will start much smaller than what I can actually do, and build at a pace unrecognizable from day to day. Small accumulation. So I started at 5 minutes two days ago. It's over before I realize it, and that's ideal for the beginning, I think. Yesterday I did 6, couldn't feel a change. Today I did 7 atop the mountain under the sun before the view of Tsurugi-Dake, and it was amazing. By the time I get up around 40, my body will have naturally adjusted to the practice and I will have re-learned how to incorporate it effectively in my daily schedule. We'll see how it goes. I'm very excited about this routine, which is most important.

 

 

 The Toyama Plain where I sleep everynight! Down there in the middle of the horseshoe lies Toyama City, the small city sprawl I call home. In the distance on the other side you can (maybe) see the Noto Penninsula in Ishikawa Prefecture. Very cool.

 

 

It's all time and energy, both of which we have a lot of. Or we don't, and it doesn't really matter. Nothing really matters. But that's not true. There are quite a few things that really matter, but it feels different when they're mired in excessive mental refuse. Often times I'm shocked at the great numbing. Gasping for air amid the mundane trivialities, it's a sea of grey I could care less about. But rising to the mountains, standing, all falls away with our eyes closed, and we open them to see a few things that really matter. Those things, are certainly enough. They are certainly worthy of all of our human effort. It's enough to make you cry. It's enough to make you laugh. It's enough to make you want to live. It's plainly, enough.

A place no one has been for a long time.



The Fall Routine: It's a Revolution!

 

I can only get two days of kyudo this week.

Just like last week.

I can't study Japanese like I used to.

What the hell am I going to do on the rush hour train to aikido tonight?

I can't save money like my friends.

All the complaining.

 

This is not OK.

I am "bad".

No. Fight.

But I won't be able to relax?

Shutup. You'll have skills.

I'll be tired.

Then drink coffee.

But what about having fun?

Drink at night.

What about something new?

Schedule it in.

The other weekend I went out drinking all night with the other English teachers after a seminar. I realized how amazing some of them realy are, especially one. He'll be leaving soon, and it disturbs me that I totally overlooked his presence. I wish I could have hung out with him more. There's just no time.

The other morning I slept in with my girlfriend and had all morning and afternoon to hang out, and we did. I struggled to relax as my mind searched for ways to make the day useful.

I'm waging a war with life and it's costing me everything: My health, my sanity, my friends, and anything else that isn't part of my megalomaniacal scheme to be different, better, or worthy.

The stagnant gargantuan summer humidity has dissipated across the sea. Now, red autumn razors fall from the sky. The early night breeze slices eyes and I see that I have never been here before.

 

There is so much of me I don't need. Collections of habits and modes of thought I've been reluctant to let pass. I've just been collecting and adding them together, conscious that it is too much, but negligent of the results it will bring. Well, it's time for a revolution. Not just a reformation, but a complete turning upside down of the central mode of thought. Until now the idea has been to fill every second with something contributing to my betterment. It's been a year. If I actually upgraded skills as I had planned, then I guess I have them. What I see now is that what it really did was create or reveal a lot of monsters. What I have learned is that it cannot go on like this. Now I understand what needs to happen: relaxation, enjoyment, Truth, being.

 

How does that sound? A bit too much like the New Age section in Barnes and Noble?

Well, lets get back to budo.

If there is one most fundamental and ultimate principle I've experienced in my martial arts experience, it's ...

 

Relaxation.

But relaxation alone won't get things done.

There's focus. It's in a look. The spine is straight. There is tension. They eyes are open, focused on everything; the essence of looking is found in just "looking" itself. No extra anything is being used. Deep breathing.

I didn't really talk about budo there, but how about here. I have never had a teacher tell me to tense up before a technique (with the exception of kiai, but even that isn't a simple tensing of muscles, or even contradictory to relaxing). If there's one most commonly used phrase from all of the budo teachers I have ever had, it is "relax." Looking now at any budo skill I employ, all of them would be instantly improved by more relaxation. In fact, it seems that what martial arts are trying to teach us is that it's about relaxing and then putting things in the right place in time. If I could learn to do this in the martial arts, it would help my daily life, and vice versa wouldn't it? That's the idea at least.

Then there's "fun". I remember listening to my coaches in sports give long explanations on strategies and the need to give it our all, but they always finished with, "And don't forget the most important thing to do out there is have fun." I didn't think much of it then, but it's starting to make sense.

Fun is really why I continute to put so much time and effort into martial arts. I perform my best when I'm having fun. But it's not just that immediate feeling of fun, it's also propelled by interest. If you are interested in something, and having fun, then you are already in the best possible position to progress. Interest is what really allows me to practice consistently. Practicing consistently is what leads to progress. Progress is what I want. So I must follow that small gem of "fun" if I want to get what I want, or perhaps good things I've never even thought of.

Let's go back to relaxation for a second. Relaxation isn't merely the physical relaxation of muscles which will enhance the physical movement required in martial arts, it opens up one's awareness. If you are full of stress, then that is all you have. If you fill your mind completely, then whatever it is you filled it with is all you are going to see. How are you supposed to react to violent physical threats if you can't see them coming? How can you experience anything new at all for that matter? It's the same with our bodies, if your arm is tense and you want to throw a punch, you first have to relax your arm and then move it. This is a big waste of time and energy. However, if the arm is already relaxed, it can freely move to it's target. Economical action of the body, and mind, are what allow for survival and growth.

With my new adoption of relaxation and fun, I've been playing my Nintendo 3DS on the trains. The other day I was playing the new Super Mario. It was frustrating. In video games you operate within a limited world of places you can go and things you can do, etc. You have to do just what you're supposed to, but why do you do it? The answer usually is because you want to, because it's fun. Otherwise you just wouldn't play the game. This human life is just like that! But it operates on a much broader scale; one we are submerged in and cannot escape from.

 

So why do we do what we do? Because we like it? What about it do we like? How do you know?

There is so much in my life that I don't have to do, but I do anyway. A lot of those things I am convinced are needs ... but how do I know if I really need them or not?

By seeing them.

Seeing is separating yourself from yourself, creating a space in which you can breathe and see. From that space you can see patterns and causes and effects more clearly, you can see better what is really needed. Seeing is the key.

In order to see we must wait. In order to wait we must be patient. In order to be patient we must relax.

In order to wait we must be OK with not-doing, not-having.

This runs contradictory to myself, and every human being I suppose. This not-doing, not-having, not-needing self. If there's space, then you fill it. Space is nothing. "Space is waste!" they say.

But this seeing is wisdom, this separating ourselves from ourselves. This is a good thing. And yet, it is still a small picture, because we are one and everything, we really can't separate ourselves from ourselves. So, the commonality is being. Just being itself. This being is "us" no matter what, in a direction of absolute honesty, absolute survival. No matter which "ourselves" we are looking at or thinking about, I believe this is true. We can do it well, or we can do it not well. I'm not sure how to explain it, but something is better when our wise effort is utilized.

 

I'm rambling into the pits of things I cannot accurately describe. But do you see what is the logical result of this discussion? Do you see what action is needed to put things right? That action to see, to relax, to be?

Zazen.

But I'm not going to say zazen anymore because it is a very specific word with a particular practice and image, and I don't follow it exactly. But the basic idea is the same. What I do is sit; sitting Zacky Chan style. Perhaps I'll describe it in a post in the near future, but for now, this is fine.

This is the revolution: A dropping off of the need to need all of these things that I really don't need, and in that fertile ground that is left, sitting. From there, seeing those things that I want in my life, and seeing what kind of routine follows, which is certainly not empty.

So here is my fall routine.

     Do:
          -kyudo and aikido
          -sit everyday
          -read what I like (English fantasy novels and Japanese manga) and play Nintendo 3DS
          -write on the blog

     Don't:
          -have my own personal martial arts routine
          -have a Japanese study routine
          -fill up every second of time
          -do extra eikaiwa for money
          -buy food and drinks just to distract or energize myself
          -worry

 

Nobody knows these mountains.

Where are the bears and boars?

It's so simple. I'll never get bored here.



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.)