Aikido in Everything

We ended up going to a place in the south of Kyushu, a place called Ebino, for the weekend camping trip. There were 9 of us: 5 Japanese, 2 Canadians, and 2 Americans(including me). Interesting mix; one of the Canadians was just in visiting, and the other 2 I mentioned are finishing their 4th and 5th year as special hire-ons for the JET program. One is my good friend 'Bread', who practiced in Bozeman, MT, before he came here.

Bread's a good friend, maybe my best friend here besides my boyfriend. He's totally absorbed in the Aikido realm, and he's always thinking about it. And he does a lot of research about martial arts, so I really like to talk to him and hear all about what he's currently excited about in the martial arts world.

There's another guy, who we'll just call 'Awesome Guy'(that's what we call him behind his back anyway) who also came this weekend. Awesome Guy is awesome because he is a living-breathing Aikido DUDE. He just seems to have done his Aikido homework and he has it down. He's a well-balanced, quirky guy--like the Science Guy, who was like my generation's Mr.Wizard on TV. But something very great about him, I think, is that he is an awesome teacher--super patient too. He just keeps on encouraging and exemplifying Aikido awesomeness.

So this weekend, Bread and Awesome Guy and Bread's wife all had an Aikido bonding session, while I was on the other side of the camp stove talking with some of the other people there.

I wasn't expecting to practice Aikido skills that night(and no, I wasn't attacked by anyone). But then, Repeat Sensei, who was really drunk, came and sat next to me. He told me he was really disturbed by our practice together the other night. He was trying to show me how to do the wrist-turning, fingers-curling-over part of the shihonage(four-directional) throw. But I completely tuned him out. I knew exactly what he was refering to, because I remembered shutting off when we trained. He told me he thought about it a lot afterward, and felt bad that somehow he'd been a bad teacher and all he wanted to do was help me to understand Aikido better.

I was really impressed. It took a lot of feeling and understanding to come out and tell me that he was upset by my actions. And really, I hadn't overtly done anything. Just sort of stared off into space and not really followed his instructions.
So I told him what was going on with me, which was that it can be very hard for me to understand when he instructs me using words as a means. I mean, I can't follow the meanings in Japanese sometimes, and when I ask, it always seems to stop practice, which somehow seems anti-practice. I just think I need examples; I want to be shown by feeling the other person's technique working on me, or through feeling something myself. The words sometimes drive me nuts--I just want to train and learn, so I wonder why there needs to be language involved. And that particular night, Repeat Sensei was talking a lot, just talking and not showing. So I disconnected and retreated into myself. And it was not an appropriate response, in this case.

So I told Repeat Sensei these things and also that I felt sorry for disconnecting. And we seemed to share a real moment. It felt like we understood each other, and he shook my hand warmly.

But Repeat Sensei has a funny habit, which earned him his nickname a long time again. I went to the bathroom, and when I came back, he came to me and started to tell me that he felt very sad the other night when he thought he hadn't been a good teacher to me. He went on to repeat much of the earlier conversation, pre-'shared moment'. I felt weird. So I sort of shortened my earlier response, and then he shook my hand again. I went to the bathroom again. I came back, and he came to me again, this time with the 5-year Canadian JET there to translate his words, which meaning had already been conveyed 2 times. So I understood quite fully, and was getting tired of getting what seemed like no where. After we'd shared a drink, and he started again, I finally just said "I hate words." And when I said that it seemed to really offend him deeply, and he became sad. I think maybe we just differed greatly on that particular point, and I was back to my original problem of feeling misunderstood. He seemed to have finally emptied himself of any words. We sat there in silence next to each other until Koba-chan, sensing our state, kneeled between us and gently patted our knees. She reassured us that everything was just fine, and not to be thinking too much about anything.

I saw Repeat Sensei today, and fortunately or unfortunately, we still didn't have much to say to each other. I was really impressed by his sensitivity earlier, but I think it would've been best to hold my own opinion back, and just bear my own confusion during practice. After all, he's very senior to me and he does have a good practice. But I went outside of the realm of Aikido philosophy when I couldn't let it go. I know I was the one in error. I hope Repeat Sensei and I can come to terms over time and effort. In the meanwhile, I'm going to engage myself in practice with him whether I agree with his teaching methods or not.

So even though it was a short trip, I suppose a lot happened, or came out, or something. I think I'm becoming more and more socially aloof and uncomfortable in Japanese society, and it really does effect my whole life in many ways. And I a lot of it's for fear of being misunderstood. The experience Repeat Sensei really challenged my pride, and has gotten me to look at how much more I have to give of myself to other people. That is, if I don't want to spend my life alone. I guess the first step, towards that end, as always, is to get back on the mat and try again.

Not that I was counting...

Okay, so I added a counter to my blog last week because my profile view number hasn't updated for months. I wrote Blogger Support about it, and they said do anything about it right now, but are doing the best they can to work on the issue.

If there were 100 hits on my blog this week, I wonder what how many profile views I'd have had for the past x months?

It's nice to know people are stopping in. A blog comes alive when people read and follow it, just like music comes alive when people play it. That's why it's out there, and instead of written in some journal with a lock under the bed.

Currently, in Japan, it's 2 o'clock, school's out early, and I'm going to go read about curved space and fall asleep in the sun. I planned for a moment of joy like this my whole life. Wish me luck.

Inter-High School Laughing Stock?

I get bugged when I show up to work dressed differently from everyone else. It's like living a bad dream. In this case, I was asked to show up at a neighboring high school this morning for some sort of athletic meet or athletic meeting or something. But I assumed(it's that word again) we should wear our regular work clothes, which means a suit.
Upon arrival, I noticed that I was the only one not wearing some sort of athletic trainer. Of course, I didn't know to ask what we should wear. And again, they didn't know I'd never been to an inter-high school athletic meet or meeting or whatever. So I came home to get a sporty, trendy warm-up outfit so I could be just like everyone else, but I know that I do not own something of the sort. So I'll make due with my imitation trendy warm-up outfit. It's healthy for my inflated sense of pride when something like this occurs.

In other news, this weekend I'll head off with some of the Aikido folk to the mountains of Hitoyoshi, near the stewing brew of the quiet volcano, Mt. Aso. Looking forward to some hiking, camping, and general good times with those folk.

Well, it's off to school again.

Presto...

...linko!!

the old home place

Yay!!! With the help of kind encouragement from a blogger pal I learned that I, too, like almost everyone in the blogging world, can put links on my blog!
Woowee!

Happy Stationery--2 for the price of 1 Day!!!

(Request a letter on one of these fine stationeries--see March 8th blog 'New Features' for details.)

A Self Interview

(note to those who don't know me: I don't have a split personality--both sides are played by me ;-) )

Julie: Hi Julie, what's on your mind tonight?
Julie: Nothing much, looking into my experience again. Wondering what thoughts will come into my mind next. Cleaning out and clearing the mind, you know.

J: What do you mean by 'cleaning out and clearing the mind?'
J: I mean not thinking about other things while I'm doing something. In that way, there are no extra thoughts to divert my attention.

J: Go on...
J: When I practice doing that, less and less thoughts start coming up in the first place. And actually, that means less thoughts come up to distract me in general. All the energy I put into thinking about things, I've found, creates more thoughts on the subject, and clouds the mind with confusion. So clearing is the opposite of that.

J: So how does this 'clearing' happen, I mean how can it be done?
J: Through putting attention not to the thoughts themself, but to their root or source. In other words, why did that thought arise; what caused it to arise?
Clearing the mind happens by reasoning what previous thinking might have fueled the present thinking, rather than responding directly to the content of the thought(or even emotion, I suppose) itself. By itself, it continues to reappear, because its roots haven't been properly understood. If the root of a thought is understood, the train of thought stops and disappears.

J: What does it mean to 'understand' a thought?
J: That's a tricky question. It gets a little philosophical here. Let's assume that there is a certain amount of injury and conflict we have caused our own bodies and our own minds in our lifetime. Those are the trains of thought we can also eliminate in our own lifetime. But what about things that we had no choice in, such as being born with a defect, like being blind or deaf? Where do those individual traits come from? Why was I born a girl and not a boy(or anything else!)? My parents didn't choose either! And they didn't choose my birthday, or the time in human history in which I was born.
I reason that we are set up in our own personal bodies, with our own unique time-revealing challenges simply to clear them up. To let it all play out and become victors over our own struggle. And that way, in the case we have to deal with living in some form or another after we die(after all, I didn't know I was going to be alive this time around), we'll be that much closer to a mind and body (and spirit) without conflict. So understanding a thought means understanding your own situation clearly through self-examination. That's as best as I can describe it to you.

J: Oh, I see! That's why you do Aikido, right?! Because for you Aikido addresses your thinking and response...
J: Yes, that's a big reason why.

J: So it's all connected--your history, your interests, the color of your hair, to your thinking?
J: Well, that's what I'm coming to believe anyway...

J: I'm going to digest this all over a sesame cookie. It's been a pleasure talking with you tonight, Julie.
J: Thanks for having me, Julie. Mind if I join you?

(ha, ha, I crack myself up! But I will have two cookies, just for good measure. hee hee!)

beyond loneliness

Sigh... I had so many friends...

now I spend so much time

alone

or even surrounded by people

and I just disappear...



if you couldn't connect to the people around you

would you think of it as a curse

or a gift?


in my mind

it is a rare chance in life

to actually bear something...

...to find out what life is

without sharing every second of it

with someone else.


what are you without others?

Raining Dogs and Birds

Tonight was another first rehearsal back with the orchestra. As most of my musician friends can surely vouch for, first rehearsal nights can have the effect of making one want to sell their instrument. So I thought about it, and decided that, yes, I would like to sell my instrument. It's time for a new instrument.
Sigh... okay, so that may have to wait until I'm back in the U.S.

It was a bit of a rough return after a couple of weeks off. The (von) Weber Bassoon Concerto is deceptively easy with its pure, classical sound. I played some notes in that one that I think I borrowed from one of the other pieces, Mussorgsky's Pictures at an Exhibition. And some of the notes I played in that one seemed to have come from Mozart's Overture to the Marriage of Figaro, because they certainly didn't come from Mussorgsky.

Ack. So I've been feeling somewhat exhausted for a few days now--can't stop yawning. It isn't acually bothering me that this is a six-day work week at school. I mean I can't quite figure out what's bothering me. I was lucky tonight, that shortly after I was feeling quite down about my playing and feeling some general sadness and loneliness, the conductor of the orchestra put me on the spot. In the spotlight, I should say. Out of the blue, he asked me to stand up and introduce myself--3 people had apparently asked him who I was since last season, unbeknownst to me. I was surprised because he actually held up the rehearsal to continue asking me questions like how long I'd been around and what the name of my city at home was and so on. After that, I didn't feel lonely or sad for the rest of the evening. It's strange and humorous how ephemeral feelings can be, how powerful they can feel, and how a little attention goes a long way...

BTW, to all those who tend to inquire about my language skills, I am now quite comfortable introducing myself in Japanese. I only had to do it 1598 times to get to this point. Other things continue to come slowly. I understand about 41% of formal conversation when it's raining, and 58% of casual conversation when there are dogs or birds in the room.

Writing in this state of tiredness is sort of goofy!

drink, bathe and be merry!

I went to an enkai on Thursday night(what's an accurate translation of enkai?--everyone here just calls them 'drinking parties'). Four new teachers will join the high school's staff starting tomorrow, and the enkai was to welcome them in. If you weren't aware, the Japanese school year begins in April. This year, our first day happens to be a Sunday, which seems really strange to me, but whatever, you know? For the party, we went to a place near my house, a big new bath house call Tsukasa Onsen.

Tsukasa is a company that is best known for their colorful pachinko parlors. If you haven't had the chance to play pachinko, as my brother says, don't get your panties in a bunch. It resembles watching paint dry, only you must keep your right hand perfectly still while watching said paint.
The premise is as follows: you trade your hard-earned money in for a basket of worthless ball-bearings before you even start playing. Then, you sit down at a machine and start feeding your hard-earned..., uh, I mean ball-bearings into the opening at the bottom of the machine. You watch as the balls shoot up the pinball-like display and fall down into one of two or three holes. Mostly the balls fall into the large hole at the bottom, and nothing happens. If the balls fall in one of the other holes, you get more balls added to your balls in the opening. Actually though, the only thing you control in the game is how hard or soft you shoot the balls up. You do this by turning a doorknob-sized handle at the bottom of the machine. You turn the knob and just hold it there as still as possible--that's where the skill comes in.
That's the idea. My goldfish could do it if he was still alive, I think. Which reminds me, the machines have different themes, like 'Under the Sea,' or 'Cowboys.' That means there are different backgrounds to enjoy while turning the knob and watching the ball-bearings fall into the holes. Believe it or not, I have a good friend who bought a car with his pachinko winnings. Must've been a fluke...or was it???

So Tsukasa apparently had some extra ball-bearings left over to build a huge, touristy bath house. That's where the drinking party was. All in all, the parties are usually times when I grin and bear the formalities--namely lengthy opening speeches--but the food is usually spectacular, and the conversation is usually happy or drunken. One man was telling me, 'I want to speak English! January, January, ohh, uhh, I mean 'usually' I have no chance.' He's a funny guy. He worked at Arao #1 Middle School last year as a part time math teacher, and he was the first teacher I ever saw sleeping at his desk. Gosh, I wonder if I can find the picture I took last year...

Anyway, after the party, several teachers and I went to the public bath. The baths are pretty much always separated men/women. A friend once said he went to a bath that wasn't separated and there were plenty of men but the only women in there were kind of ancient and shriveled. I have to admit, it was sort of interesting be walking around naked side-by-side with the ultra-formal accounting lady or the tea lady or do a cold plunge with half the staff in the bubbling bath across from me. These happenings do not normally coincide in my mind. At least I have a difficult time imagining them happening with my old coworkers in the U.S.!
(BTW, if you do go to one of these baths, there is only one main point to remember. The idea is to be clean BEFORE you enter the bath, so use the showers first! Knowing that, all will be well with your fellow bathing friends. Also, wash yourself off lightly with the water in the pool close to the exit before you leave to get all those 'other people germy-germs' off before you leave.)

Well, it's late. Is it I who fades, or the world? I think it is I, therefore I am. Okay, definitely bed time.

Snorkeling, the south coast and Naha

On Saturday, I had an Okinawan-style omelet (carrot inside) for breakfast. Kara and John left to go scuba diving, and Dave and I spent the day together.First, we went snorkeling. Our guide, Mr. Nema, was a really energetic, deeply-tanned Japanese man. He explained all the basics, and then he took me and Dave out in a boat to one of the bluer parts off the coast.
While we took all there was to see, Mr. Nema dove down and picked up various things for us to hold and feel. First was a fat pink starfish. Next, a puffer fish. It puffed up in his hands when he caught it, and when he brought it to the surface, it shot all this water out of its mouth and gills. He gave it to us to hold, and it hurt like there were needles sticking in my hand! I mean it actually left marks!! He brought up a sea cucumber, which felt nothing like a regular cucumber. Perhaps it felt like a cucumber that had been sitting in water for way too long--it was rubbery- and slimy-feeling. It also spit water out its ends. Finally, Mr. Nema caught sight of some sort of striped snake or something, and he went down and pulled it out from hiding so we could get a picture. When he surfaced, he explained that we shouldn’t try that sort of thing at home because the snake’s bite is deadly.
Mr. Nema gave us some pieces of sausage, and we fed fish from our hands. There were so many different colors of fish, and some fish had rainbow colors and iridescence.
I loved the snorkeling experience and I think Dave enjoyed it a lot too. If you ever go to Okinawa and want to go snorkeling, I recommend Mr. Nema at the Busena Terrace Beach Resort.

Dave was all about the Peace Memorial Museum on the south coast later that afternoon. We walked through the indoor museum and then out to the cliffs at the very south tip of Okinawa. By 1945, over 100,000 Okinawan civilians had lost their lives as a result of the war between Japan and the U.S. Among other horror stories, a class of high school girls(60 girls?) were driven to the edge of the coast in the midst of the battle of Okinawa. They hid in caves, but the fighting was so terrible that they lost all hope, sang their school song together, and commit mass suicide by jumping off the cliffs to their death. There were lots of other sad stories of that time in Okinawa. Dave and I walked around the memorial grounds, talking about war and peace, and the politics of then and now. The graves reminded me of the ones I saw in Normandy, expansive and quiet. I thought about how war in one place is the same as war any place. We talked some more, and finally left for lunch.

I ate something called umibudou, ‘sea grapes,’ and Dave had pork, again. Okinawa is known for its pork-inspired cuisine. Dave had had 10 straight meals containing pork by the time we left. We also learned that pork is a low-fat, low cholesterol food, as demonstrated by the hat Dave is modeling here.As a non-pork eater, I tried some of the other culinary delights. Okinawa is also known for its pineapple and sugarcane farms, which we skipped in order to hike to a beautiful, tropical waterfall, but when Dave and I arrived in Naha, the biggest city on Okinawa, I found some fresh chopped sugar cane to chew on.

The shopping in Naha was great, especially in the walking arcades in the middle of town. We went to the Tsuboya pottery sector, and saw lots of shisa, Okinawan lion statue pairs. The male lion, with his mouth open, is said to collect good luck, while the female, with her mouth closed, is said to hold the good luck in. In one of the shops, I found a paper model of the shisa, so I’ll make my own rather than buy traditional ones.

On our last day we went back to Naha to spend more time in the arcades, and shopping on the main drag, Kokusai Street.

Our final stop was Shuri Castle. The castle had been built under the influence of Chinese and Japanese architecture, thus it didn’t look like the castles you can see on the main islands of Japan. It was bright red, and had colorful dragons and fire painted on the front side. It had been burned down in the war, and was restored in 1992. I suspect most of the island had been burned down in the war and restored in 1992.

Reflecting on all of this, and the things I haven’t written about that happened, I’d say the trip had just about the right amount of everything--driving around and seeing the island, new foods, nice beach time, and an overview of the history of the place, and I did make two new friends when I was blowing glass at our hotel. Huh? Yeah, anyway, it really was quite a refreshing time.

Now it’s back to school. I’m starting to feel a little bit more included in the group at the start of my second year here. We received the new textbooks, and they are much easier to use than last year’s, therefore lesson planning is going well. Also, we got space for English club announcements on the bulletin boards. So, it’s back to za du-ra-i-n-gu bo-do.

P.S. The cherry blossoms are now in full bloom and the petals are just starting to fall. You all know what that means--drinking parties under the trees!!

Okinawa, upon further inspection

On Friday the 31st, we got up early and headed for Ocean Expo Park. The park is on the west coast of the island, just north of the major resort areas. If you look on a map with Okinawa on it, you can see where a peninsula juts out on the west central coast. That’s where we went.

Ocean Expo Park is a collection of indoor and outdoor exhibits centering around the culture and environment of Okinawa. The big draw is the aquarium; that’s where we went first.

We watched a show of dolphins playing and jumping and doing various other tricks on command. I thought it was interesting to observe the trainers and the dolphins interacting(note that the show was in Japanese). Seeing the dolphins perform was like playing Carmina Burana--I’d always wondered what it would be like to experience that event, and how it would effect me. Turns out the dolphins just led me to wonder more about life and awareness. Cool.

After the show, I walked to a stand and bought a large green coconut. I watched as the vendor hacked a small hole in it and stuck a straw inside. The contents surprised me; didn’t taste like coconut ‘milk,’ more like coconut water. Honestly, I don’t know if there’s an actual difference between the two, but it tasted really different from coconut milk. Plus, it was really heavy and full, which is not what I’d imagined. I suppose I just don’t have a lot of experience with this tropical island paradise stuff.

I couldn’t find my friends soon after the coconut stand, so I walked around by myself for a while. I saw the sea turtles and the manatees, and then I went to the indoor aquarium.

It was a fantastic aquarium, starting with Okinawa’s shallow ocean life, and a ‘please-touch pool,’ moving on to larger and larger tanks. I was particularly impressed by the blue, yellow, and white giant lobster and by a sign, which directed attention to the damselfishes. I read it as ‘damn-selfishes’ and pondered where they came up with such a name for such a nice-looking fish. :)
The space finally opened up to a humongous tank(27m long x 35m wide x 10m deep) containing rays, yellow-fin tunas, other large sealife, and the imposing whale shark. We got to watch divers hop in to feed them: no bloody body parts flying--how disappointing. ; )

The deep sea collection, the last exhibit, was the one I enjoyed the most. There are really bizarre-looking creatures that live where (almost) no one can see them. I didn’t know that those fish with the periscope eyes were actually real fish, but I saw one, so now I’m a believer. I also liked the cute little fish that stood straight up on the ocean floor, with their heads spiraled like fiddleheads. They were perfectly still, like they were trying to blend in with the environment, but they were so obviously fish that it was funny.

I got lunch after that, something called ‘ran soba,’ an Okinawan twist on soba noodles. Then I walked through the ‘Tropical Paradise Arboretum.’ The crowds that packed the aquarium were suddenly nowhere to be found, and I was able to enjoy the walk immensely.
There was Okinawan folk music being played through some hidden speakers somewhere as I continued walking on into the Traditional Okinawan Village. There were small stone walkways with short stone walls on either side, and under the canopy of palms I could see roofs thatched with straw--houses and graneries.

Back at the car, I reconnected with the others, and we spent the rest of the day at the beach. Kara and I collected some shells, and Dave and John built a sand turtle. The water was niiiiice.

Just before bed, I went to the hotel store and bought an expensive bottle of alcohol as a favor to a friend. The real snake sitting frozen in the bottom of the bottle of Awamori, the local fire-water, stared at me for some time before it was neatly boxed and wrapped and worked with until appeared as cute as the general chazarai that surrounded it on the shelves.