Kendo Coolness, a Peanut-Butter Thanksgiving, and Yarn Yarns

I have fully committed to the art of kendo. With the onslaught of cold weather-- which I am told will get worse-- the kendo practice space, usually a school gym, is freezing. Proper kendo garb requires bare feet and a cotton robe and split skirt; while I hide polypropaline long underwear under the skirt, there is no saving my feet. One must love this practice to do it all-season (I've also heard it's just as bad in the opposite extreme of summer heat). Wikipedia lists the "Purpose of Kendo" as:

To mold the mind and body.
To cultivate a vigorous spirit,
And through correct and rigid training,
To strive for improvement in the art of Kendo.
To hold in esteem human courtesy and honor.
To associate with others with sincerity.
And to forever pursue the cultivation of oneself.
This will make one be able:
To love his/her country and society.
To contribute to the development of culture
And to promote peace and prosperity among all peoples.

(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kendo)

...and, y'know, I think I can suffer through the heat and the cold for the above, especially if some of the first-grade elementary kids I teach can. One of my kendo instructors once said that kendo can't be done alone; while I think he was referring more to the fact that you need a partner to practice the moves with, the moral support helps too.

As part of my commitment to kendo, I invested in a bogu, or kendo armor. Along with the fluid movements, I think the armor makes kendo really intimidating. I would not want to be on the wrong side of one of my kendo instructors when they're all geared up. It was really scary to approach them at first to try to whack them with my stick for practice; opponents hold their practice swords so that they point directly into their partner's eyes. While it's part of practice for an opponent to move their sword aside for their partner to practice a move, it's still intimidating to step toward that practice sword aimed directly at your eyes.

Here is a picture of me in kendo garb and another with two kids who regularly beat me, both first-year elementary kids that I teach. The dangerous munchkin on the right in white is a girl whose father is one of the kendo instructors; the fierce fighter on the left in dark clothing is a boy. (They were both overjoyed that I bought armor because now they can thwack my head on a regular basis, without warning, without causing any damage aside from that to my nerves).

...the armor consists of:

1. A wacky helmet (called a 'men') that appears to have wings (shoulder protection)... this is quite stiff when new and, frankly, I couldn't lift my arms at first, which was a bit troublesome. I felt kind of like an armored penguin until they loosened up a bit. The metal grill is colored red on the inside... which is a little creepy. Why red? ...to hide all of my opponent's blood that gets spattered inside? ...we are thwacking each other with pieces of bamboo tied together, it'd be really tough to draw blood even if you were trying.

2. Long padded gloves (called 'kote') which make holding my practice stick difficult but are good protection against attack.

3. A breastplate-y thing which vaguely reminds me of half of a turtle's shell made of laquered wood wrapped around the front of my body. (called a 'do,' pronounced 'dough')

4. Okay, this is my favorite... a very strange hemi-skirt of stiff fabric which covers the frontal area below the 'do' and has my name written (in Japanese katakana) over, as I believe I mentioned earlier, an area vital for reproduction.

In other news, my second Japanese Thanksgiving was rather intriguing. While two years ago my JYA program provided a turkey dinner (with sushi for our host families just in case they didn't go for the whole roasted-bird-on-a-platter thing), I was completely on my own this year and without access to any of the traditional tidbits. It was also a school day, but thankfully school lunch was rather inoffensive (which can ~not~ be said for the next day's lunch, which included what I believe was battered, deep-fried chicken liver hidden among the seaweed salad and almost made me throw up). I got the chance to try to explain Thanksgiving to my kids, though, which was fun. I even think the 3rd-year students understood; when asked what they were 'thankful' for (a new vocab word), most said normal things like family and friends.

I was scheduled for my first taiko practice Thanksgiving night, so I didn't have much time to make a fancy dinner and instead settled for hand-made tortillas with peanut butter. Hey, it was a step up from a plain 'ole PB&J. The next day the island ALTs were gathering for a "Thanksgiving" get-together/drinking party, so I brought the left-over tortillas and we had a Mexican-themed night. Next time I make tortillas myself I'll get chicken and make quesadillas; the assembled ALT forces put together grilled chicken quesadillas, which were delicious.

This past weekend I also finally re-connected with the woman who runs the yarn store-- her store is only open on an erratic schedule which seems to be subject to whim-- and spent a very pleasant afternoon talking with her and working on my fingerless gloves... which, by the way, are far more complicated that I could have imagined. I didn't realize that each finger is knit individually, and trying to juggle 8 stiches in the round for the pinkie was insane; slick bamboo needles sliding everywhere, nearly-lost stitches edging into non-existance, needles crossed and twisted and madly clicking in disarray. I felt like a newbie knitter again, perhaps in part due to the company I was with. It was amazing to chat with the store owner, who opened the store when she was 25 years old, about 37 years ago. She rides to the store on a motorbike nearly every day (like most of town, the store is closed on Sundays).

I love the feel of the store, which, in addition to hanging out to get instruction on the tricky knitting bits, is why I camped out there for 4 hours. The open-to-the-public portion of the store is really just a hole in the wall, maybe the size of 6 tatami mats. The customers are more like friends than customers; she offers advice as readily as free patterns. And she was perfectly happy to let me occupy the store's second chair and knit away as long as I wanted. I even got semi-put in charge when she ran to the bathroom... although I was a rather ineffecive assistant. Only one person came in while she was in the back, and the visitor was apparently such a long-time customer/friend that she just charged through the store into the bathroom area to have a conversation through the door.

In other day-to-day news... since the weather's getting colder, I've been spending more of the time I am at home underneath my kotatsu (the table with a heater built in underneath and which has a blanket inserted between the heater and the top so heat is trapped inside), which is a very toasty place to be. Staying under the kotatsu, however, is by necessity sendentary. I'm probably getting enough exercise with kendo and taiko, but coming up with things to do while under there is problematic. So I am composing a list of kotatsu-friendly activities:

--making lists ^^

--blogging/e-mail/other internet activities (the ethernet cable stretches far enough)

--jigsaw puzzles

--knitting

--reading "War and Peace," which was recommended by a 2nd-year ALT as a good Tsushima winter read. I'm about 150 pages in and already can't keep the characters straight. It does seem like a slowly-unfolding plot, though (the Russians have only just gotten orders to move into the war), so maybe I'll have some time to get aquainted with the characters before things get really entangled.

Let's end with some random news stories from today:

--the 0 ("zero") series of shinkansen ("bullet train") was officially retired today after 44 years of service. Thousands of people crowded onto train platforms to take pictures and videos and bid farewell to the trains. Many train and government officers officially thanked the trains for their hard work.

--a Hokkaido zoo ordered a male polar bear to be loaned to them to mate with their female polar bear, but the bear that was sent turned out to also be female. The zoo is now searching for an alternative, authenic male polar bear, possibly from the Osaka zoo.