Day 23 -- Woman's Day

Last night, I woke up in the middle of the night, noted the dull pain in my lower abdomen, and marveled at being a woman. My cycles are not predictable, but for several cycles now, I have been able to sense the first physical sensations in my abdomen hours ahead of time. Those first sensations are extremely subtle, and I didn't catch them for years. I find it fascinating when my body collaborates with my hormones, my stress level, and nature's rhythms to alter my state and change me, month after month after month.

I got chills and feverish for about an hour today, but I decided not to take a painkiller. I usually take ibuprofen. Today, somehow, I just wanted to feel the cycle as is. Feeling my natural way reminds me of my special gifts and responsibilities. I even had a moment of feeling grateful, where the pain didn't feel like pain, but just like a sensation, like when you touch bath water and for a moment you aren't sure whether it is very hot or very cold.

I love being a woman.


Total minutes early: 194

Day 22 -- Feast Your Eyes(Sirdar inspired)

One of my favorite parts of being here, as I shared before, is the food. For presentation, freshness, quality, variety and taste, I wonder where one can find such splendor as here in Japan. I don't eat meat, but I do eat seafood, and the possible taste combinations even with a limited diet, are endless. I wanted to share with you a vision of just a few of the meals I've been able to feast on. Have you all ever partaken in this kind of Japanese meal? All of these shots are from onsen(hot springs) houses, specialty restaurants, or izakayas(small restaurants with bars). I can remember where I ate each of these meals.






They go back to this one on the right here. I was having a sayonara party with members of the Arao International Commitee, before I moved to Tamana. I was served the eye because I was the guest of honor. It had a hard core I had to spit out. First and last time, I hope, I have to try eating an eye. It was also at this party where I was served a "mystery sushi." It was tasty, but I was not happy to have eaten it when I learned it was whale.




This fish on the left was from the bonnenkai, the year-end party with the Shoheijuku Aikido folks. Sometimes you can see sashimi raw fish come out and the fish's head is still moving and the tail is still flipping. It's a little strange to see, but of course, guaranteed fresh.



A lot of the celebratory meals for events like parties, ceremonies, etc., are of this style, with many small dishes and several courses. Almost invariably, after eating the first items, usually fresh or raw and reminiscent of the season, out comes tempura, some kind of hearty pudding or soup, and last is white rice, tea, and usually fruit for dessert. One of these meals is from $30-$80. Not bad, considering the experience.



Later, I'll show you some photos of home-cooked meals I've eaten, plus some other made-in-Japan specialties. Japanese home-cooking was new to me when I came here, and I'm still learning about it. I don't know if many of the foods from Japanese home-cooking can be found in my home, Colorado. Maybe you can spot some you are familiar with.

But that's for a later date.

Total minutes early: 185

Day 21 -- Thrills

Jeez, Sirdar, you should have told me to take pics before I went! Actually, it rained all day, pouring for the most part, so fog covered whatever views might have been seen from the car and the dojo. It was a nice place, inside a community center building, with wood paneling and a spacious mat area, fairly new. I could see some mountains towering over the building through the mist, and I imagine it would be a sight to see on a clear day. I'll take a bunch of pictures next time.


The oldest dojo I've been to, believe it or not, is smack dab in the middle of Kumamoto City. I'll definitely go and take some pictures of that place when I get the chance. It looks like a run-down haunted house sitting alongside of a shrine, with tall buildings surrounding on all sides. Furu-san took me there the day of the hanami cherry blossom party in the city. That reminds me: I do have a picture from the hanami I'd like to share. This is O-san doing "Thriller" under the cherry trees. (Well, it was some Japanese form of "Thriller," but it didn't actually have the same words or the same tune. But in my mind, it was "Thriller.") We actually did go and sing real karaoke with a real banana for a mic after this pic was taken.

Today I was 10 minutes early. I'm still working on the waking up part.

Matthew--genki desu yo. I feel pretty lucky to have been able to come over and learn all the things I'm learning. I think I got lucky in one particular regard by originally being placed way out here in the boonies. I live in a kind of suburb, which is even more forgotten than the countryside, I think. I have a lot of chances to experience the Japanese lifestyle I don't think I could have if I was say, close to Tokyo or Osaka. It can feel isolating at times, but I'm grateful to have the chance to be here. Thanks for the thoughts and for reading.

Total minutes early: 175

Day 20

Tomorrow morning, I'm going to a place called Aso, which is really pretty deep in the countryside. There's a volcano that is famous there. I went there on my first week in Japan(back in '04!) and bought a piece of bright yellow sulphur at the tourist stand overlooking the lava pool, which by the way, was green.

There are some other countryside-type events that Aso is famous for, the most exciting of which is the annual fire festival. It's a traditional burning of the fields, but they've turned it into a pyrotechnic's heaven. People take turns lighting barrels of hay on fire, swinging them around, and I think, throwing them. There are all sorts of flamed-filled events, the last of which is to light a giant "火"(fire) on the side of one mountain. I heard from a friend the mountain is huge and the symbol looks about a quarter-mile long! I've never been, but if I can, I'd like to go next March. (Click here to read more on this festival and other cool events that happen around here.)

Anyway, I'll be going tomorrow to Aso with Sakabe Sensei a few other members of the dojo. I'm looking forward to training in the quiet peace of nature, and afterwards hanging out with Sakabe Sensei and the others, maybe watching videos of O'Sensei at his house in the city.

I was early on Friday morning. That part is getting much easier. So, before I finish the 30 days, I want to focus mostly on the getting up part because the being early part has gotten much easier. I'm grateful for the comments and support I've been getting. It helps.

Total minutes early: 165

Day 19 -- The Day That Had to Come

Well, I suppose today had to come. So tired from working hard and getting to bed late for several days now, I woke up when the alarm went off, and then slept an extra 20 minutes. Funny, I was still early(9 minutes) and I didn't regret the decision to sleep in afterwards.

On another topic, I resisted the urge to watch that video with the killer from Virginia on it. What's the point in releasing something like that into the public? I dunno. I didn't watch it, so maybe there was some point. But it seems wrong somehow. Like spreading negativity across the world or something. Obviously, people have a lot of thoughts about this topic. Feel free to comment if you like.



Total minutes early: 157

Day 18 -- Sluggishness!

Would've thought by now I'd exhausted the list of tiny invaders into my humble Japanese abode. The slugs were brought in accidently by yours truly. A little old lady who lives next to the school saw me walking while she was working in her garden. She yelled "Sensei!!" from far, far away, and I almost didn't hear. Then I stopped, turned and realized she was calling to me. She scuttled over to me and said she'd been saving me some beans. This was our first meeting, but she must have seen me walking by before and guessed I was a teacher at the school. So I took the beans, gave her my cow and now there is a huge beanstalk growing in my kitchen. Then she decided she wanted me to have some lettuce too, so she dug up four heads, put them in bag, and sent me off.

Four heads is a lot of lettuce for one person. I put them in the sink and kept them in water so they wouldn't wilt, and I ate a whole head for lunch. When I came home tonight, there were slugs crawling all over the sink! Sigh... do slugs have a lot of protein?

I got up again this morning to a happy little tune. I got up right away without thinking. Little by little...



Total minutes early: 148

Day 17 -- Got Up But Still Klutzing Around

Last night, after I blogged, I crashed. Recently, I've been sleepy and tired and haven't had much time that is not occupied by teaching, cooking, studying or doing Aikido. I don't have time to feel lonely or sad, or even happy. I don't know what to make of it. But I do remember what it feels like to be in training again.

It feels like the teacher is taking a spoon, and scooping out the inside of me, taking out all the junk and leaving a shell of myself. Into that, the teacher shovels in overwhelming amounts of information. It's wonderful and exhausting at the same time.

Right now, I'm just trying to catch on to the basic drills in class. There are 10 or 15 basic drills/kata, I estimate, mixed into class time. They use different footwork patterns and movements from various attacks. Some are from seated, some from standing, some from hanmi-handachi(one person sits, the other stands). At this point, I'm mostly concerned with which foot is forward and which is back, and whether I should be turning my hand up or down, for example, yet I know that there is a much more sensitive and subtle exchange going on in these drills. It's hard to know that deeper level is occuring while I am klutzing around.

Class is a lot of this "no thinking time" stuff. Everything is so fast, faster than I've ever done training before. Of course, I'm still learning, so people slow down for me, and the teacher often comes over and we go through the footwork together or some such thing, but I know that if I don't start picking these things up, I won't get this special treatment much longer. So, I'm wondering how to retain, and what I can do on my own, and how I can improve more quickly. This is all kind of exciting for me.

Anyway, I was so tired that I waited til this morning to take my (nightly) shower. So, I was but 5 minutes early. Today, however, I got up right when the alarm went off. I didn't try, like we talked about. Somehow, I just woke up, and got up. It was a very natural feeling. I want to do that tomorrow, too.

Until then, sayonara!

Total minutes early: 142

Day 16 -- No Time to Think

11 minutes early. And up 15 minutes earlier than last week. I found a bunch of cute tunes on my alarm/keitai(cell phone). So I'm waking up to happy melodies like Rhapsody in Blue, I've Got Rhythm, Clair de Lune, etc. It's niiiice :-)

I'll try putting my alarm further away from the bed, although I don't want to. It's a case of wanting to wake up happy as opposed to alarmed or annoyed. But I will try, because it is reasonable suggestion and it might turn out to be a good thing. We'll see.


Tonight's Aikido practice was "dame datta." "Dame datta" is a great Japanese phrase that means "abominably bad ." It is usually used to refer to one's own hideous abilities, as in "How did you do on your Japanese test?" "Dame datta," or in this case, "I failed utterly." Sometimes it is used to tell small children that have been really naughty. They usually cry because no one likes to be told "dame datta." It also means "It was no good," "It was useless," "My feet were crossed half the time in Aikido class," and so on. A very useful Japanese phrase.

I found that although my body was fine, my brain had burnt out earlier in the day, after 4 classes and two meetings. Furu-san happily chatted away during the hour-long car ride to the Musashi Traditional Arts Center while I sat unable to understand a good part of the conversation but too out-of-it to take the time to clarify what we were talking about. I know there was an urn, that time he got a black eye, and a part-time job involved, but I'm not sure of the correlation.

Class, as usual, was a high-speed blur of Sakabe Sensei executing one righteous technique after another, followed by my poor attempts to imitate all-around. He works with a variety of people when demonstrating-- black belts, white belts, two people, sometimes even four people, and we use wooden knives, swords and staffs every class. I think my favorite part of class right now is when we do what he calls "ukemi renshuu" or falling practice.

He'll call up each person individually and have them attack him again and again and again. Then he'll call up someone different [and sometimes ask them to bring a weapon--for me tonight it was jo(staff)] And he'll keep throwing on and on, until he's thrown everyone and they're beat. But he doesn't get out of breath. He's very wonderful at moving with little effort, and at keeping his breathing under control.

Before I know it, class has flashed by like lightning, and we even dash across the mats with our janitor's brooms, maybe 6 or 7 of us at once, to clean afterwards. It would make me laugh, but I don't have any time to think at all.

When class is over, undoubtedly I'm the last one to put away my gear and change. Beats me how everyone is so efficient but so relaxed. I have a lot to learn. Too bad nothing stuck tonight. There's always tomorrow, I suppose. And that reminds me that training to be very efficient with time is going to help me even more in the mornings...

total minutes early: 137

Day 15 -- Aikido rocked again

For some reason now, my mind is confused and subtley believes that 7 minutes is 10 minutes.

I tell myself as I walk out the door, "Now self, you aren't going to be 10 minutes early if you leave the house with only 3 minutes to get to school."
See, this is true, but it's too late at that point.

I just know the secret lies in getting up the moment I wake up. How, oh how, can I do that?? I want to, I will myself to, but I have yet to be consistently successful. Well, Monday I get to try again. That's the great part about a self-challenge. I can just keep trying until I get it. I'm not impatient with myself, and I know I won't learn if I'm hard on myself or try to trick myself with rewards and such. How does it go...: 'The slow and steady early bird catches the worm." no. "You can fool yourself some of the time...," wait wait wait. "Time flies when you get up late."

I got it. The moral of the story is: "Time flies when you can fool yourself some of the time, but the slow and steady early bird never confuses 10 minutes with 7." Thank you very much.


Once again, I appreciate the comments. Hope you decide to stick around Matthew, and good luck. As for chocolate, I am learning about that, yes. Life really is turning out to be shorter than I had thought. What I mean to say is that I've lived a good deal of my youth, and I don't feel like I made all that many decisions about how I want to live.

Figuring out what I really want is very hard. It's takes patience to sort through the important vs. the essential, conviction to believe in the dream once having seen it, and dedication to follow through and see it come to life. And those wonderful examples of heroes we were talking about before -- where would I be without those? Probably sleeping away life in despair.

So, there is milk chocolate or bitter chocolate, and not as many people are able to love the bitter as they love the milk. But seeing as they are all chocolate, wouldn't it be amazing if they all seemed, somehow, to taste, well... good?

Total minutes early: 126

Days 13 + 14 -- Heroes and Lovers (and kids)

I was 7 minutes early yesterday and today. It wasn't easy, but it's getting easier still.

I appreciate the comments from Day 12. I thought a lot about them yesterday. I wonder if I could ever be someone's hero, inspire someone the way my heroes inspire me. I thought about what my heroes have in common with each other. It surprised me to notice that there are no violinists specifically among my heroes. I found it strange because I play the violin.

I also thought about if my life will be complete if I get married and have kids. More and more, I think I just want to be plain old happy, and live an uncomplicated life, whatever that is. But I also want to live life with a deep meaning and especially with a connection to my/the universe's nature. You know what I mean. I don't want to sleep through life and wait for it to be over.

I wish I could say that I've decided I'm getting married and going to have kids or not going to get married and have kids, but something there in that realm has yet to become complete for me.

Namely, I can't decide whether to stay here in Japan for another year or come home. If I stay, I probably won't get married for a while. If I come home, I expect that I will probably get married and more than likely have children much sooner. And if neither of those things will come about, I suppose I will either become a nun or a rich old lady. Score!

But I don't know what to do just now. I need some new goals because the old ones are starting to get, you guessed it -- old -- and not motivate me anymore. I have to decide what I want for the coming time. I already know no one will do that for me. It's nice to have a say for yourself!

That being said, I do have confidence that I will be at least 10 minutes early tomorrow to work. wink wink

Total minutes early: 119

Day 12 -- A New Way

I did it. 10 minutes early and done in a leisurely manner.

I have the feeling recently that my life is being cleansed. My desk at work is clean. The clutter that used to take up space in my house is gone. I know what's in my closets. There sits on my bed a pile of clean, folded clothes. The dishes are also done. Having arrived home from Aikido about an hour ago, I am also now clean.

A few weeks ago I took care of a bunch of those things I'd been meaning to do for a long time: buying a rod for the curtain across from the door, polishing my boots, making space in the front tatami room, buying a new bag for my weapons, vacuuming the inside of the car, etc. I even cleaned out my email box and replied to all those old ones that had been sitting there for too long.

So I had said before that I am full and empty. Life is full of classes and students and teachers and goldfish and mendelssohn and kanji and suwariwaza shomenuchi ikkyo ura. There are drinking parties and conveyor belt sushi bonanzas and taiko drumming games and iris festivals and castles and okonomiyaki. There is English club, Kado club, Japanese class, Sunday tutoring, Thursday night out, etc., etc., etc.

And yet, the dishes are done.

Full, yet empty.

This is a new way of being for me. It's exciting, full of potential.
I feel something as I gaze at the picture of the man sitting in the middle of his own spider web.

Total: 105 minutes early

Day 11 -- 6 minutes past the punch

I'm so enthralled with this new Aikido I've been learning. Class whips by and all the meanwhile I find myself absorbed for its entirety.

Tonight I was a little late for class, but it wasn't actually because of me. I've been driving to class with the guy who teaches me on Tuesdays, and he works right up to the minute we have to leave for class. He tells me it's only Mondays, and I ask him if it's only school teachers who work every day of the week in Japan. He assures me that he is not a workaholic, and we get on our way.

This guy himself is pretty cool. He doesn't even know he's cool, which is so fun. Apart from having studied this style of Aikido for 7 years, he does karate twice a week. He's been doing that for four years.

I didn't have my Japanese language class at the YMCA last Saturday, so I went to train with him at the Tamana budokan (martial arts hall). Unfortunately, he'd gotten hit by a punch to the solar plexus in Friday night's karate class, and he couldn't move his neck! Needless to say, it was a light training session, and low and behold by today, Monday, with the help of a chiropractor, he has 'fully' recovered. That reminds me of a post I once wrote about the astonishing medical care I've been witness to here.

All this and I was only 4 minutes early this morning to work. How that's related, I don't know. My dad implies I should be able to make this 'missed time' up, if the same holds true for time as it does for sleep. But I can't make these minutes up. These are my life. I can't get time back. Every time I don't reach my goal, I have to try again to do what I set out to do, no excuses!!!

Let's add: 91 + 4 = 95 minutes early.

And 19 days left to arrive!!

Days 9 and 10 -- Little Obstacles

I apologize for not getting yesterday's time up yesterday. I was 9 minutes early.

I was 7 minutes early today. Straight after last night's welcome party for the new teachers, I came home and fell asleep. I didn't wake up until morning and when I did, I was still in my clothes! So I hoofed it and took a morning shower instead of evening, and still managed to be early, although not 10 minutes early.

As much as being early has become important to me, I have to say that doing it in a relaxed, leisurely manner is just as important. We'd all rather be stress-free in the morning, take our time, move at our own pace, right?

So creating more time is going to be necessary. I'm moving back my wake-up time by 15 minutes.

Day after day there are small obstacles that always seem to change. But being the same as I go through them is the real challenge.


Total minutes early: 91

(I can do better than that.)

Day 8 -- In time for tea

10 minutes early but still a little rushed. It's part of the old habit. The rushing comes right at the end, and seems to be a way of compensating for not getting up right away and therefore having to hurry at the end of the routine. I'm going to keep going and get one inch closer tomorrow.

It's spring break at school now, and the cherry blossoms are streaming down like rain. I have all free time all day in school. Most of the teachers take their vacation days during this time, so it's quiet in the staff room, but I like it. I already made the plans for classes, so I get to do whatever I like as long as I stay on school grounds.

So, what did I do today? I spent the morning studying and writing kanji. I took a walk to get my lunch and I spent the entire afternoon, from 1:30 to 5pm, playing the violin. After I came home after work, I went almost straight to Aikido. That's all I did today. I am at once full and empty. There's more I could say about that topic, but that's for another post.

Total minutes early: 75

Day 7 -- Routine

Well, I only have three minutes to add to the total today.

It was hard to get up, probably because I arrived home from training late last night. The drive is just about one hour, and class ends at 10pm. I was very tired when I came home, but I took my shower and set out my clothes. It just took some extra effort to lift my body out of bed come morningtime.

I trained tonight too, in town. I'm learning so much. It's humbling and I feel really lucky. I also fell asleep in the bathtub, accidently. But I think I can be 10 minutes early tomorrow, regardless of how I feel tonight.

In the meantime, I've put together a night time routine as suggested by a couple of people. It's just as straightforward as the morning routine, but I have to start earlier than I'm used to in order to get everthing done. All this routine leaves no time for any goofing off. Really, there's no time to think if I'm to get it all done.

During the daytime, at least recently, I'm finding the same thing. The things I do involve intention, from arriving at school to say good morning to journaling to preparing to studying to practicing, etc. There is less and less unutilized space. For some reason, this feels like a wonderful way to live life; within certain boundaries, but also with a sense of freedom and ease. The boundaries are self-created, so they are just pretend. It takes self-discpline, therefore, to follow them, because no one else knows them, right?

Total minutes early: 65

Day 6 -- Dreams come true and Angels are real

I was 10 minutes early to work today. It was not so difficult today because I did as Sirdar suggested and laid my clothes out the night before. I also changed around the order of a couple of things in the routine to make smoother.

A lot has been happening in other parts of my life, by the way. Besides going to three parties during the weekend, I had been asked to take a second-degree black belt test at the Shoheijuku Aikikai dojo here in Kumamoto and the tests were on Sunday. I had originally set my mind towards taking the test, but as the time approached I didn't yet have the confidence I would need.

I decided that I could only take a test if I could prepare well enough, so I asked the teachers and some of the other students if they would meet with me on different days to help me prepare. The only person that agreed to do it was of course, Awesome Guy, but with just that little extra training, it wasn't enough for me to become ready. I learn a lot at the dojo, but training is slow and my body is out of shape.

Looking for other ways to train, I found a poster in the local budokan(martial arts hall) for an Aikido class that had just started in my town. Turned out the Aikido on the poster is from another branch of called Aishikan, under a larger school named Manseido. Even though the school(style) was different, I went anyway for the extra training opportunity -- so it would seem. Today I handed in my membership form and I became an official member of Aishinkan.

I have no doubt that this dojo is where I want to be. The teacher is unbelievable skilled. Each class he runs class like clockwork, and the students are all amazingly skilled also. Class moves so quickly I can hardly keep up. The ukemi(falls) are clean, mostly back rolls, but the students seem to be very flexible to many ways of falling.

I just wish I could tell you everything I've seen. My dream of meeting this sort of experience is coming true. I couldn't care less about second-degree at this point. I talked a bit with the Shoheijuku Kumamoto teacher and let him know I wasn't going to take the test. He totally didn't understand, but maybe that's because he doesn't know me very well at all. I don't care about rank. I care about learning.

So my schedule changed to training Mondays and Tuesdays with these folks, Wednesday and Saturday with the old dojo. I can add and subtract days as I like after I figure out what is best to do. I've spent many, many hours with the Shoheijuku people, and have certainly made some close friends there, so I will continue practicing there until I make up my mind what is the best way to move forward.

You know, I also want to tell you about what's been going on with my relationship with my boyfriend. The things we have come to realize together give me joy and great sorrow. If we could imagine that angels were real, I'm sure one would resemble my boyfriend. Maybe you can understand what I mean somehow. I don't mean he's cute and so nice, I mean that he is kind, decent, mature and wise, with patience and a wide-opened mind.

We were watching the cherry blossoms fall from the trees yesterday in Jagatani Park. The moments of life are fleeting like the fall of the blossoms. Maybe you can understand.

Anyway, I'm ready to wake up tomorrow and create some joy. Are you with me?

Well, I didn't get any minutes from anyone since the weekend, so we don't have to think about that just now. As for me, I'm up to 62 minutes early!