As I write, it is mid-afternoon on a Sunday afternoon in Matsue. The sun has been out all day – a rarity in the winter here in the San’in, or “shadowed mountains”, region – but there is a gusting wind that worries at the corners of my building. I’m recovering from my cold, so I have spent most of the day drinking bancha or green tea, wrapped in a nest of cosy blankets, reading the magazines I brought back from Canada. It’s an effort to stay still and rest; whenever I do, my guilt factor kicks in, telling me I should be doing something useful: practicing Japanese, exercising, figuring out my budget, figuring out my life.

 

I’m three MONTHS behind on my journal now, though I have lots of notes jotted down, some on my computer, others on notepaper, sticky notes, envelopes and whatever else was handy. So let’s go back in time a ways and play catch-up…

 

…For three days after climbing Mount Daisen (October 1), I could barely walk, the muscles in my legs hurt so bad. Yumi was no better when I spoke to her. Standing up on Wednesday through five classes was difficult, to say the least. But the week was quiet, with no surprises. I’m amazed at how easy teaching has become now. As many of you will remember, I was wracked with self-doubt and low self-confidence in the winter and spring, and struggling constantly to prove myself and teach well. Now I laugh and joke with my students, and enjoy my lessons. I like all of my students, although I have my favourites. One of the most exciting things is to hear students I met almost a year ago noticeably improving their English and gaining more confidence! I don’t feel responsible, but I feel that I have helped.

On Sunday, October 7, Seiji and I went to a festival at the university (this was before the break-up, you understand, but only just). It was a lovely autumn day with just a little wind; we had a beautiful fall here, nicer than usual (I was told). Seiji and I got there in time to hear an acquaintance of his play the guitar at an outdoor open mic concert. She sang a lovely folksy song of her own. I saw a handful of my students and some other AEON students there, and we made some small talk. Then we wandered among the stalls, looking at used clothing (I bought a sweater), takoyaki (that’s octopus balls, to you) and all kinds of Japanese food stands and small shops, all run by student clubs. I was entranced by the aikido club, but none of them spoke English. We also bought some lovely cups and tea bowls from the pottery club. It was busy in the open square nearby; music was playing and some sort of contest was in full swing. We wandered for a while, then had our regular coffee date. After that, Seiji dropped me off; although it was a Sunday, he was opening Kaya because Monday was a public holiday.

Monday, October 8 (Thanksgiving in Canada) was a public holiday because it was Sports Day in Japan. Someone once described Sports Day to me as “the most pathetic holiday in Japan”. I beg to differ. In honour of Sports Day, the budokan opened its doors to foreigners, to give us a taste of Japanese martial arts.

In the morning – a gray, foggy morning with a hint of future rain – I called my sister’s home for Thanksgiving, but I was too late and most people had already left. After hanging up, I got ready and waited for Martin to drop by. He called around the appointed time; he had only been to my house once before, and he couldn’t remember the way. I walked down to find him wandering in the parking lot next door, looking somewhat sheepish. We set out on our bicycles in a fine mist of rain to our first stop of the day; the kyudo (Japanese archery) club about ten minutes from my place, near the university. We took off our shoes and introduced ourselves to the men there, most of them in their fifties or older. They were wearing practice clothes similar to my aikido gear – dogi, or short-sleeved white cotton tunics and pants, and sweeping black hakama. The club felt like a curling club. The room we entered had a polished wood floor and windows facing the archery range. To the left were three mounted targets made of bundled straw for practice, and behind us was a rack holding a selection of bows. The bows for kyudo are about six feet long and the arrows likewise are about three feet long, tipped with metal and balanced at the end with three feathers. Martin and I were joined by two JET teachers I had never met before with their Japanese wives, and Dan Stapleton. I met Dan back in March, at the World Chat Party, and I’ve seen him a few times since then. He’s a tall, narrow guy with very short black hair, and a kind of zany, fast-talking energy – imagine your wildest, funniest counsellor back at summer camp. He’s that kind of guy. He’s been here a for at least four years and he’s engaged to be married in 2008, so I think he’s here for the long haul. We were lined up in front of the Shinto shrine on the wall by the archery range and were led through the appropriate rituals to begin with, and then we watched a demonstration of kyudo. Three archers stood on the wooden floor in a ‘room’ open to the archery. This was a long, narrow green lawn. At the end were five targets sunk into a wall of earth, backed by metal and a reinforced concrete wall. At either side of the targets were small sheds protected by bullet-proof glass. Before entering the range, say, to collect arrows, a person signals his presence by clapping his hands so as to avoid accidental ventilation by an arrow.

Now kyudo, as much as I can understand it, is an art of patience. Like all budo, including aikido, Japanese archery is about the mind as much as it is about the body. The technical steps leading up to the actual release of an arrow are a kind of precise art, and are just as important as hitting the target.

So then we got to try it. On our right hands, we put a soft cotton covering, then over that we put a partial glove – with a thumb and the first two fingers – and wrapped our wrists with a leather cord to secure it. Between the thumb and first finger there was a hard notch, where the string of the bow would be pulled tight. Then we were given bows and shown the basic steps and practiced them together. After a short time, the instructor said we were ready to practice on the bundles of straw. Despite my coaching, the first arrow I fired sailed over the target, over the wood backboard, and thunked into the wall. With infinite patience, my teacher drew it out again – I was relieved to note the wall was pockmarked with holes – and returned it to me for another try.

After practicing for a while, the instructors called a halt and set up a large target at one end of the room. We took our turns firing at the target, and despite my unpromising start, I was one of the ones who struck closest to the bullseye. Though I’m prepared to accept that it was pure luck. Kyudo is hard.

We said our farewells and took lunch. Martin and I parted with plans to meet at the budokan after lunch to continue our explorations. But when we finally met in the huge gym at one o’clock, Martin and I were the only foreigners there! Very disappointing. A group of women and children were practicing naginata, and Martin and I met a man in his fifties who was setting out gear for kendo. Kendo is the art of Japanese fencing, although the swords used are made of wood. Practice swords, or bokken, are very simple, slightly curved pieces of wood. Swords for competition are made of four slats of  bamboo that make a rattling noise – all the better to declare a palpable hit. In kendo, the two opponents are heavily armoured. Over a jacket and hakama of indigo blue, they wear a metal breastplate with reinforced flaps of cloth hanging down to protect the thighs and groin, padded gauntlets, and an oval, grilled face mask with shoulder and throat guards. A kendo player in full garb looks intimidating and, with the face hidden, rather eerie. Kendo is one of the loudest and almost certainly the sweatiest of the martial arts. In a practice or competition, the rules of kendo are thus: you try to score points by striking the opponent in one of three places. These places are: the head , or ‘men’ (the centre of the forehead is best), the wrists (‘kote’) and the ribcage (‘dou’). Technique is supremely important. Your strike is accompanied by a shout and a threatening stomp. (When I was first wandering around last year, trying to find the budokan, I finally located it by the sounds of a kendo class in progress – hard to miss.). So with the guidance of our teacher, Martin and I each took up a bokken and practiced the three kinds of attacks. It took very little time until my arms were aching. Then we drilled attacks, taking turns striking our teacher (at his invitation, I do stress). But as I struck him repeatedly over the head, looking into his eyes through the bars of the mask, I felt a powerful sense of the absurd. Here I was in Japan, spending an hour whacking a middle-aged man over the head with a stick. I almost got the giggles. I found kendo very wearying and constrictive, although I’m glad to have had the experience.

During our short break, Seiji joined us. He had wanted to take part in kyudo, too, but worked late at Kaya the night before. 

Next, we joined the naginata practice. There was a group of a dozen people, most of them women or girls (plus one very mischievous-looking little boy, about seven or eight years old), and the atmosphere was lighter and less intense than in the kendo practice. A naginata is a long polearm with a curve at the end. In the days of battlefield fighting, this curved end would have been a two or three-foot blade. (I remember seeing this weapon used at least once in the movie ‘Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon’, in the epic battle between the two women towards the end of the movie.) Originally used in battles to unhorse and kill attacking samurai, this weapon became a women’s weapon associated with the wives and daughters of samurai, who were expected to protect their homes while their menfolk were away in times of war. Naginata is now a martial art similar to kendo, using the same kind of armour, but with two additional attack points: the shin, or ‘su-ne’ and the throat (‘tsuki’). Two of the older women led us in a drill, to get us used to the weapon, then demonstrated the attack points. All of us took turns attacking each point, shouting the name of it with each strike. I felt clumsy and awkward this first time; the naginata felt very long and wobbly in my hands. My target was a lovely young woman, now in university, who had been the three-time Shimane naginata champion in high school. She obligingly offered up each target to be hit for me. When we had all practiced for a time, eight of the players performed a kata for us, pairing up and moving through attack and defense patterns in a kind of dance. The younger students were still learning, and their partners coached them as they went. I think this is one of the things I like most about aikido and other budo; the camaraderie of learning together and helping each other improve. That’s also why I liked kendo less than the others – it feels more confrontational, more testosterone-driven.

I would have liked to learn more about naginata, but the class is on Wednesday nights, when I’m teaching. So after the demonstration, we said our farewells and posed for a picture. I was feeling a little weary by then, though it was only 3pm or so.

 

That evening I broke up with Seiji, as has been chronicled before, beginning a month and a half of general confusion, depression, making up, breaking up again, and arguing. Fun stuff.

 

This was also the week I began gaming in Japan. ‘Gaming’, for the uninformed, is playing fantasy role-playing games like Dungeons and Dragons, a hobby I picked up in high school and never really gave up. Cleve was behind it; he’s been here for five years, and knows well how long, gray and depressing the winter can get in Matsue. He used to play in high school, but hadn’t played in over ten years. He found William  (aka ‘Awkward Bill’, from his usual self-introduction: “Hi, I’m Bill. I’m awkward.”) to run the game, and set about recruiting players. So we found ourselves sitting at ARGO on a night when it was closed, making up characters to play in our game. Besides me, Cleve had found Bud, a taciturn guy from Jersey really into martial arts, Laura, a pretty, kind of quiet girl from England who had never played before, and Jennifer, who hadn’t played D&D but was very keen to try. I was sceptical about the group, but resolved to give it a month or two. So almost every Monday, we’ve been playing the game, and it’s getting pretty good. It’s nice to have a fun, social and admittedly totally geeky thing to look forward to every week. Although it has had it’s ups and downs, as I will tell you later…