This little light of mine...

A little while ago, I asked one of my Senpai about how to deal with a changing perspective about Kendo.  I told him that I didn't view Kendo with the same purity and innocence that I once did.  He laughed, and told me that it was normal, and welcomed me to the world of the Dans.  He then explained that even though the childish fun of how I used to view Kendo is gone, it can be replaced with something better- recognition of just how much work Kendo is, and the knowledge that it really is worth it in the end.  I've been thinking a lot about what he said, not just in Kendo, but in my everyday life as well.  Maybe things can still be good, even if I can't view life with the same trusting innocence that I used to.

I'm going to talk about some personal stuff now, partly because my Kendo is a reflection of my life, and partly because there are things I'm finally ready to talk about.  My father died two days before Thanksgiving last year.  It was expected; he had been in and out of hospitals all year.  It was caused by what I now believe to be a very slow diabetic suicide by soda, combined with a number of health complications that no one could have seen coming.  Maybe it was an invincibility complex or sheer stupidity rather than a wish to die, but all I know is he was diabetic and he was downing at least two liters of regular soda a day, plus the diet soda he drank at home to fool everyone into thinking that's what he always drank.  My family just recently learned this from one of his friends.  Things hadn't been right with my father for a long time, even before his first hospitalization in April.  Somewhere in 2011, he stopped being the world's best Dad and started treating me differently.  The most defining moment for me was when he looked me in the eye and asked "Who would want to marry YOU?  No one in their right mind would, if they really knew you."  I started looking elsewhere for fatherly support- the dojo, to be exact.  I'm 100% sure that I should not have been looking there for a replacement father, but regardless, I found support.  For that, I am endlessly grateful.  I know I would not have made it through last year without Kendo, and the support of a dojo.  I remember going to my Sensei and saying "Sensei, I think my father is going to die.  What should I do?"  I remember my Senpai telling me not to give up, encouraging me to keep writing even though my father made fun of me, and knowing when to just hold me close and let me cry on them.  I find myself conflicted here, because I feel bad that I wasn't disciplined enough to keep my crazy messed-up life separate from my dojo life.  On the other hand, I recognize that had I not asked for help when I needed it, I would have gone down a very different path.

My father was everything I strive not to be.  He was lazy, selfish, and threw his life away.  I had particularly powerful conversation with my Sensei, when I told him that I was afraid of becoming my father.  I told him all the weaknesses that I shared with him, and Sensei said "Those are human weaknesses.  Those are your flaws, not his.  You are not your father.  You control your own life."  Writing these words, I also remember Sensei a couple months ago telling me that it is time to let it go.  But it's so hard to.  Sometimes of an evening, the loss hits me again like it's fresh.  I see him slowly dying in my head over and over; his skinny shoulders, his desperate eyes.  I hear his voice- raised in anger, telling me I'm not good enough, or scratchy and fading.  I wonder why I even try to live.  I feel his darkness try to swallow me.  But the one light that has never wavered is Kendo.  If it's true that Kendo is a mirror that shows me my true reflection, then flawed as it is, that light that I see is mine.  I will train that light and brighten it into a backwards eclipse, blocking out the darkness that tries to linger.  I will die following that light, because even if I fail at attaining every dream I've had, at least I will have tried.  No matter how many mistakes I make, I will never give up on myself.  In the end, I'm all that I've got; me and this constant struggle, this art of improvement.

I'd like to close with a quote.

"I will love myself despite the ease with which I lean towards the opposite."  - Shane Koyczan

Until next time.

Opium, my mistake, and abandonment issues.

So picture this.  It's hot.  I'm dehydrated, because I didn't drink enough water before practice.  Sensei is making us do Sonkyo before and after every exercise.  But I am determined to keep a straight back, to walk with pride, to not show my weakness.  I'm not even through with the Kirikaeshi period when I'm having longing thoughts of a comfortable chair, a cold glass of water, and an episode of Grey's Anatomy.  I tell myself  "No, you're better than that.  You are a Kendoist.  You belong here.  You are worthy."  I push through.  I remind myself that the things I yearn for are empty pleasures, and meaningless in light of yet another practice where I did not try my hardest.

Finally, practice finishes and I return home.  I have a comfortable chair, freshly grilled sausage, and as much water as I can drink.  I start talking to my mother's boyfriend, and he is curious what Kendo looks like.  I pull up a training video on my computer... and instantly, I'm sucked in again.  I want nothing more than to again become the girl I see in the training videos so I can fix all of my mistakes.  I want to get back to the dojo.  Kendo is in me, like a constant ache.  Whenever I've held in my mind the possibility of quitting, I can't fathom it.  Kendo is more than just part of my life, it's my foundation for everything.  I very clearly remember back when I first started going to my dojo, one of the Judo Senseis gave a speech about the time he tried to give up Judo.  He said that once you taste the world of martial arts, it can become like Opium.  He finally realized that Judo was an essential part of who he is, so he returned.  Kendo is like that for me.  At this point, I know I could live without Kendo.  I'd more seriously pursue my writing and music, spend more time trying to figure out ways to get a hot girlfriend, and be a carefree teenager.  But I don't think that I'd ever be truly happy, because I would know that I had everything, and I walked away.  And for what reason?  I was too insecure to face my own weaknesses?

This is why it was so terrifying to me when Sensei threatened to kick me out of the dojo.  I can't say that Sensei was wrong to say what he said given the circumstances.  I was involved in an incident of bullying, in which I was the bully.  Typing those words just seems so wrong, because I've never thought of myself as a bully.  Regardless, for the span of a few minutes, I was indeed a bully.  I let a new person in men for the first time impale themselves repeatedly on my sword, instead of letting them strike.  This was a very dangerous thing to do, as had my shinai been splintered, my opponent could have been seriously injured.  The thing that makes this especially bad is that someone in my dojo did this to me, and it gave me panic attacks in Kendo.  I had to enlist the help of a Senpai to finally break me of this.  Somehow in all of this, I began using that same technique (holding my center so my opponent can't come in) as a defense mechanism.  I was too scared to strike, so I'd just stand there and try not to get hit.  That day with the new person, I was insecure and afraid.  There were three people in armor there that day, so when I had the match with the new person, everyone was standing and watching us.  I dealt with my insecurity in a horrible way- by falling back on that old bad habit.  I could have seriously hurt or traumatized the new person, and I almost cost myself everything.

Sensei was very angry with me, of course.  He wrote an anonymous article about me on his website, he lectured the whole class about bullying in Kendo several times, and he threatened to kick me out if it ever happened again.  I could tell he was serious, too, because he was the quiet, scary kind of furious.  At first, my reaction to his reaction was one of anger.  I wondered what he could have done to have changed the situation outcome, I wondered why he would even be thinking of leaving me now- after the year I had last year, I need his guidance in my life more than ever.   But through some introspection and a heart-to-heart with a close friend, I began to see things differently.  I'm the student that made the mistake, it is not my place to judge my teacher.  My actions are my responsibility.  I never meant to hurt anyone, and luckily I didn't, but I still did what I did.  This blog post is me taking full responsibility for everything that occurred.

Tonight, I failed yet again at reaching my goal.  I froze during a match with Sensei.  I stopped moving, and I lost my iji.  His lecture after class talked about how if someone isn't doing their best, he will pull them out of the practice and not let them come back.  Even though I was overheated from training, I felt a cold knot form in my stomach.  I was certain that he was going to tell me to leave and not come back, but he didn't.  When I was folding my uniform, he quietly came over and asked me if my foot was OK.  He had accidentally kicked it during training.  I assured him that I was uninjured- I had completely forgotten about it by that point, actually.  He then calmly went on to talk to me about nationals (I'm competing for the first time this year).  He asked my position on winning or losing.  I told him that if I showed good Kendo, then I would be fine with losing.  Sensei told me that this was the wrong attitude.  He said "You're not a hachidan.  It's not about showing your Kendo."  He explained that because I am so young and inexperienced, that shouldn't be my goal.  I should go into the tournament with the intention of winning.  I should fight like I have never fought before- I don't want to go out there and get my ass kicked.  He even brought up the time I was beaten by two children in tournament.  He said that if I lose, that's fine- it's how I lose that he cares about.  If I lose, he wants me to go down with a fight.

There's so many more things I want to write about, but it's late, I'm tired, and I have a copious amount of homework to face in the morning.  Tomorrow will be spent doing what I like to call "math kakaregeiko."  It's what happens when finals are approaching and I am completely unprepared.  I'll post again soon.

Iji

After every Kendo practice, I compile a list of things that I need to work on.  For example, this is my list from Friday's practice.

• Tenouchi- I've been struggling with my sword grip for a long time now.  
• Do finger strengthening exercises for the bottom two fingers of my left hand.
• Practice suburi at home, first with the bokuto, then with the shinai, then with the kote on.
• Kirikaeshi- I don't have shodan level kirikaeshi.  This is bad, because kirikaeshi is the foundation of everything.  It's the basics of the basics.  
• I need to breathe/ kiai correctly, with the first kiai/and men strike being connected without a breath.  
• I need to make sure every cut is an actual cut.
• I need to continue my physical therapy exercises at home, so that I can get my "reset speed" for each strike up to the level it should be.  A big part of my problem with kirikaeshi is weakness in the muscles that reset my shoulders after each strike.
• I need to remember to relax into my strike, not tense up.  Tensing up my shoulders restricts my range of motion, and makes me not hit my target.  
• When being a Motodachi, I need to do these things.
• Always give chase to the striker.
• Always be thinking about my next move.
• Make sure we are at the correct distance.
• Detail/ etiquette.  
• Bow with straight back, tucked chin, correct hand positions, and a sincere heart.
• Sonkyo with straight back.
• Move as quickly as possible to each new spot during rotations, even running when I have to.
• Never look tired.  When I start to get tired, I should amp up my effort/ kiai.  Remember to have iji (pride, dignity).
• Think about every move, even as small as the way I sit down/ stand up or draw my sword.

But even more important than the physical aspects of Kendo is the attitude with which I approach the dojo.  I've been told by multiple people that the second I walk through those doors, I should leave my life outside behind.  I am often guilty of not accomplishing this.  However, even if I manage to leave the everyday problems of my life behind, my weaknesses are going to come out in my Kendo.  This is what we strive for- to bring out and beat our own weaknesses through training with each other.    

Being forced to face my own shortcomings is endlessly terrifying to me.  I have come to understand that this spawns from my egotistical desire to never be wrong, and to never admit it even when I know I am.  Sensei often tells us to "kill our ego" during training, and to always be humble.  What it has taken me this long to understand is that pride and humility are not necessarily antonyms, just as ego and self-worth are not synonyms.  I began to realize this when Sensei mentioned something called "iji" after practice.  He first translated "iji" as "pride," which confused me, because I'd only ever heard pride referred to as a negative thing in the dojo.  He then went on to explain that iji is what keeps us going even when every muscle in our body aches, even as our body begs us to stop.  Iji is the voice in the back of our minds saying "No, I am better than that.  I can't let everyone watch my weaknesses beat me.  What kind of role model would that make me?"  Iji is essential to Kendo, and it's everything I have destroyed within myself for as long as I can remember.

Humility is not the same as letting people walk all over me, because I don't think that I deserve better.  Killing my ego is not the same as hating myself; in fact, self-hatred is counterproductive to what I am trying to achieve.  In Miyamoto Musashi's book Dokkoudou, he wrote twenty-one articles of self discipline.  One of them was "Do not hate or think ill of yourself or of others."  In Kendo, we have four clearly defined weakness: fear, doubt, surprise, and confusion.  One book that I read mentioned a lack of self-confidence as a cause for all four.  I fully believe that this is the barrier I couldn't push past; the barrier that my Sensei told me I need to find over a year ago.  

I know I haven't always been the best role model for the beginning students.  Quite the opposite, actually- I have acted in ways that are simply inexcusable (I'll blog about this in detail soon).  They've seen me lose my iji.  They've seen me not leave my problems at the door, break down crying in the dojo, and act in a highly immature manner.  But they're also going to get to watch me come back from that.  They're going to see me kill my weaknesses, continue pursuing the way of Kendo with strong determination, and become a strong, kind, open-minded Sensei someday.  That is a far more powerful thing than if they'd never seen me make any mistakes at all, or worse yet, if I had quit. 

I'll try to post again soon.