|
 When
I went to Japan, it was late august, the time of sweltering summer days when
the crickets make a lot of noise, and it is difficult to fall asleep at night.
When I went up to Saitama Prefecture in the North of Tokyo, it was mid-march.
I had learned some Japanese. The cold was still lingering, the sun shining
occasionally, and a strong wind was blowing through the naked treetops along
the train tracks.
”When I read about the wind in your letter,” the Kancho said, ”I could
actually hear it whistle outside. What you wrote was true. I was very moved by
that letter.”
In Japan, people start letters describing the weather. They have their way of
writing letters. And they have their way of saying things. Where we would wish
somebody “Good luck!” they say: “Do your best!” or more accurately: “Go
through with it!” So I wrote to the Kancho about the weather, and told myself
to ”Go through with it!” and went up to Hasuda in Saitama Prefecture to study
Karate-do, the way of karate, for three weeks.
The day I arrived, the Kancho handed me my schedule. It was bilingual,
detailed and organised very efficiently, with events outside training printed
in blue, and holidays printed in red to distinguish them from the black rest.
The blue writing read:
‘The potted dwarf tree (BONSAI)
sightseeing’, ‘home-stay’, ’Nikko sightseeing’, and ‘Dinner at the Kancho’s’,
twice.
The 17th, 21st
and 24th were red-letter days. The rest of my days all started with
‘Soji’ (cleaning) at 9.30 in the morning, followed by a ‘tokubetsu keiko’
(special training), meaning that I got to train alone with the Kancho,
sometimes with him and his son,
Shihandai Takashi. In the afternoons, there were another three to four classes
in
different dojos, depending on the day of the week. We were sitting in the
Kancho’s office. “Karate is not only training in the dojo,” he said. “Karate
is cleaning, studying, living with people, office work?O,” he caught sight of
a pile of certificates and licences in the tatami part of the room, “Maybe you
could help me with the certificates. Yesterday, 200 people graded. There were
only five instructors, and now I have to write
all these certificates. But first I will show you soji.”
So I received my first lesson in soji: sweep the gravel off the paths, pull
out the weeds from flower beds and cracks in the concrete, pick up the garbage
and throw it in the bin, take about 10-15 minutes for this every morning.
”Soji is very important!” said the Kancho.
 I made myself at home in the senshinryo (the Pure Heart Dormitory), a big
in-built flat that I would have all to myself for the next three weeks, quite
luxurious compared to the 12x12 ft university dorm room I was sharing with
another girl in Tokyo. I marvelled at my temporary home till evening, when I
was invited to the Kancho’s house for a highly delectable dinner accompanied
by one, two, three bottles of red wine, during which I listened attentively to
an increasingly talkative Kancho. He has seen more of the world than any other
Japanese person I met, and certainly a lot more than I have.
”Once, I had three visitors over from
Oman,” he said. “We didn’t have the senshinryo then, so they stayed with us,
and every morning the three of them would get up at 5 o’clock, kneel in the
tatami room over there and say their prayers, facing Mekka. Erai-ne!
(=That’s quite dedicated, isn’t it?).”
And
“The Shihans in India and
Pakistan used to be quite close, but these days
they don’t talk to each other at all.”
And
“In Oman, somebody taught me
how to say ‘You are very beautiful’ in Arabic, but then I never got to use
it because I never once met a woman while I was there.”
After this night, my nervous stomach
felt well prepared for the three week roller coaster ride through the black
letters in my schedule that was to follow, relieved that the Kancho was not
the way he looked on the photographs in our licences. Well, not always.
 To relate the next three weeks with the Kancho in summary would not do them
any justice, so if you want to find out more, buy the book I am going to write
about them. For now, just know this: The Kancho knows how to be serious, and
how to play, and when to do which. He is an extraordinary person, and an
extraordinary teacher who deserves all our respect and appreciation.
The last day of my stay came, and the cherry blossoms had started to bloom
everywhere. I wrote in my diary: “Now that I am about to leave the Pure Heart
Dormitory, I really feel like my heart has been cleaned. Cleaned of
frustration, self-doubt and effort-blocking fear of failure.” Looking sadly at
the clean, spacious rooms I was about to leave, I grabbed my suitcase and went
outside. There was a soft spring breeze attacking the tender new cherry
blossoms, and on my way across the parking lot, I heard it whisper an old
Japanese saying in my ear:
”Hello and good bye. That’s just what spring is.”
I said good bye, got into the car, and closed the door behind me, facing the
senshinryo sign and the honbu dojo in the spring breeze.
Bowing “OSSU!”
Anna Sanner, October 2003
|
