The Mighty Shall Fall

Last night at kendo practice, I was finally allowed to do more than shuffle my feet around (in proper kendo style, of course, which is harder than it looks and has left me with more than one blister; with your right foot forward and left foot back, to the left slightly, and heel raised, the right foot slides forward -- while maintaining contact with the ground-- and left foot follows after. Only the legs bend; the core and upper body move forward without swaying, bending, and preferably not without the traditional bobbing motion of normal walking. This is perhaps not so hard to do on linoleum or wood floors with socks, but try it in bare feet--required in kendo-- with humidity that makes feet stick to the floor. Not so easy. And, when the forward motion is mastered, there is also moving backwards, to the left, and to the right, all with slight variations on the above). I was, in short, estatic to be declared competent in walking, kendo-style, and allowed to do more with my borrowed wooden practice stick.

Having become fairly adept at walking, which I think is a great part of kendo's grace-- that not-moving-the-upper-body bit is part of the fluidity of how one moves while doing kendo-- I was eager to move onto "Project Coolness: Phase 2. Add stick." However, phase 2 just bumped me back so far away from ultimate-kendo-coolness that I almost thought the students instructing me were pulling a practical joke. I was told to face my first opponent, the not-so-formidable dusty kendo dummy in a corner of the gym. Here he/she/it is, for posterity:

... yeah. If your students told you to "go whack the dummy in the corner on the head"... wouldn't you think it was a practical joke? The poor thing doesn't even have a practice stick. (Although before I actually whacked it, they did adjust a stick in its hands for measuring the proper distance I should stand from it). Also-- I'll try to get more pictures later-- the dummy doesn't even have a nickname. In kendo, one's name is usually printed... shall we say, over a particularly vital part of the body for reproductive purposes... on the pleated skirt-like protective covering in the picture. Upon asking my elementary kendo kids why the name is printed in that particular location, I only got giggles. I haven't worked up the courage to ask one of the coaches yet.

So, standing the proper distance away and armed with with my interacting-with-an-opponent practice stick-- made of strips of dried bamboo tied together so there is a great thwacking noise upon contact with anything and less applied force than the practicing-movements-on-one's-own solid wood stick-- I approached mine enemy. He/she/it was, on closer examination, a little more formidable, which is perhaps attributable to his/her/its height (taller than me) and the group of middle-schoolers who had gathered around to watch the foreigner hit the dummy with a stick.

Honestly... that's moving into the negative side of the coolness scale. I somehow managed to stop laughing at the situation, wipe the tears away for long enough to look a kid in the eye to make sure he was serious about this, raise the stick far over my head, elbows bent (in proper kendo fashion), and thwack the thing on its head. I managed to hit the worn, fuzzy spot (that the kids assured me they and everyone who had ever learned at their school had hit many times), and the kids were sufficiently impressed that many of them dispersed and returned to their own practice routines, which allowed me to thwack the dummy a bit more in relative privacy. We're starting to bond.

It's occurred to me that coolness isn't the greatest reason for doing kendo, and I want to be clear that it's not my only reason, by far, for participating in this particular sport. Having tried my hand at a few other Japanese cultural activities like tea ceremony and zazen, I enjoyed the feeling of peace and -- correctness? -- inherent in both. There is one way to do things right. Nice and concrete. Once you have the moves down, they can be done with great concentration on everything, beyond what the hands or feet are doing (because the hands and feet have done the motion so many times, they know what to do)... it's very peaceful, and I want to regain that feeling in a communal setting. I get the feeling the dummy and I will be spending much more time together as I master the head-slash movement. And while hitting the dummy may not be cool-- well, yeah, it kind of borders on the ridiculous, if I really want to think it about it that much-- it does fulfill those more important goals of participating in a cultural activity, interacting with members of the school and community outside of class, and working towards mastery of movements and that feeling of peace.

And, you know, he/she/it is starting to grow on me.