This is day 2 of the new Year First week. The weather forecast said clear and sunny. When I walked to the car it was raining…sigh.
I am so thankful my car is fixed and for less than I planned. Otherwise it would have been walk for 1 hour or bike for 30 min…in the rain. The travel via walking/bike itself is not so bad, but the in the rain part adds a certain level of suckness to it.
I was a bit depressed as I started the day, feeling like the weather looked outside. Now that the holidays are over, it is back to reality. I blocked as much as possible out during the last two weeks of vacation. It would have been nice to go to work today, and in a sense I am going to work as I go to school to upgrade my skill set. I need to bring that perspective thing more into play. Anyway I turned in my project and I am ready to take on something new.
I headed off to Kyudo practice in Berkeley, it was a cool, as in chilly night. I was looking forward to class. I arrived there one of the first three. Once the instructor arrived we got things setup pretty fast. It was the largest turn-out for class I had seen in a while and the Instructor also said that. It was also the most friendly group I had encountered there. Everyone who I had not seen before introduced themselves and spoke. Since I do not show up that often I think they thought I was new and not having been going there for two years now. WOW, time moves on.
We had our 20 min of meditation to open the evening session. Nice, it was a good time to calm and center. It is a valuable thing to have that centering time. I also like having it there in the Shambala Center, the Chi is very good. Preparing for the task at hand, letting go of the bad traffic thoughts, the job hunt, the fight with the S.O., etc, etc. This is the time to be in this moment, not where one was. It is ok, to go totally internal about what going on.
After two rounds of group shooting, the instructor did a brief review of basics, it is always good thing to review basics. Same as doing horse stances every class, strong roots grow strong trees. I’m sure there is some type of Zen or Tao Te Ching saying for this but I can not think of it right now.
Nothing ground shaking on the practice tonight. I got to shoot with Oni-San’s extra Yumi ( he has several), he lent it to me to try. It was nice. I liked the “spring” that it had. Once I come back into some money I will invest in my own Yumi.
Once my life gets back on the planned track I would like to have my own Yumi since I plan on doing some serious study before we head to Japan. I want to have at least 2nd Kyu with the All Japan Kyudo Federation when I get there. That will give me a certain level of respect as a foreigner coming into the circle. It would be better to have a Shodan, I doubt if that is going to happen in my limited amount of time.
Class was simple for the evening. I did not do as much shooting as I did the last week. I was somewhat concerned about overdoing it, and going through the pain I had last week. Also since there were more people in class, I did not have as much free access to the targets. With that in my head after I did a few shots I watched. As I said before the Sensei in Japan said that watching was also a important part of training. I did about 50/50 of motion and stillness. Working on the 10 yr grip and my draw when active, and imaging when in stillness. A balanced Yin /Yang evening.
I envy the choices of martial arts study you have. Kyudo: what a wonderful expression of budo.
A former Japanese colleague I shared an office with for a couple of years had been dan ranked in kyudo, but hadn’t practiced during the whole nearly 5 years he lived in the US. He had a really special character.
Rick: I feel really fortunate to be able to have the access to the paths and teachers I have been able to study with. Things I would have never dreamed of doing when I was a kid just trying to survive the “City of Brotherly Love”.