Hit me, I'm falling asleep!

I almost asked for kyosaku today - to be hitten with the not-so-proverbial zen stick (at least the sound it makes in the zendô is a very real one). In the end I didn't, but maybe I should have... My zazen was the worst ever. Every time I managed to silence the voices inside my head (yes, I do have them, don't you? Try meditation and I promise that you'll find them) my eyes wanted to shut down and fall asleep, and each time I corrected my posture to wake myself up the guys talking in my head woke up too. I feel I fidgeted around so much that I seriously admire the zazen skills and calmness of the calligraphy lady (who everyone calls something like Kis-san, which could be Kishi-san. Or then not, hard to know with japanese names) who was sitting next to me - at some point I felt that SHE should be the one allowed to call the kyosaku on me.

When my alarm started ringing at 4.45 my first thought was to skip the whole thing and wake early (but later) to do homework. The next one was on the lines of "but you're already awake, and if you now try going back to sleep and sleep 2hrs you'll be just pissed off and you'll do no homework anyways". So, I got up and dragged myself to the temple. And it did pay off, kind of. I found out that one of the men who come for morning zazen but usually don't stay for drinks on wednesday studies Pali in Komazawa Daigaku (Komadai), the university of sôtô zen where I'm planning to enter in a few years. He graduated from Waseda, worked 20 years as a salariiman, and then entered the graduate school of Komadai, where he's now studying. Maybe he could show me the place sometime... *g* Another payoff was that we had been talking about Kabuki last wednesday, and I mentioned that I'd like to go and see it since it's one of the forms of japanese theater I haven't seen yet. So, japanese being what they are (meaning totally kind and helpful) Maru-san told me that his wife had proposed to take me see some kabuki, if I'd still be interested. I mean, what kind of question is that?! Of course I am! :) It's always nicer to go and see something for the first time with someone who actually knows something about it. So, I told him my mondays and wednesdays are all free, yoroshiku onegaishimasu. いつも、いろいろお世話に...

The prostrations and the morning meal seemed to go more smoothly now that I knew what to expect (and I'm already a pro in the field toilet scrubbing), but even so I ended up having to slurp my kayu (rice gruel) in a hurry because everyone else was already done. I think the morning meal takes about 20 min, because it's more or less the time my legs take to fall asleep while sitting in seiza. The kayu is very hot when served, and as I don't have the ability to drink boiling water like the japanese do (maybe my zazen isn't yet strong enough to have magical abilities like that), I have to start eating really slow, and then slurp it down quickly after the seconds have been offered and it has cooled down to an eatable level. And just as I start wondering whether my legs have died for good or can I still get them to function, the meal is over and up we stand. I officially offer thanks to my budo training which makes it possible to revive my legs from total numbness to full usability in a matter of seconds. Or at least makes it possible to stand, walk and climb stairs, even though it feels that I'm walking on small needles.

The downside of my budo training is that I was told that my shodan shinsa (examination for the first grade black belt) will be held on June 14. That gives me only 3 more times to practise, plus the day when the shinsa will be held. The thing that kind of makes me wonder is that I haven't almost any shoden from seiza in ... 3 months now. In every practise I'm told to work on my tôhô, with both sensei (and last time also Satô-san was assigned to teach me) watching me, correcting me and telling me how to do it. It leaves me no time to actually work on the things they are teaching me, since every 10 minutes there's something new that I should concentrate on, and I can keep only so many things in my head at a time. I get the feeling that it's the same as why getting hit and shouted at are a part of zen: they're just trying to break me down and see how well I can keep my act together. If all this doesn't either scare me away or give me a total breakdown making me a drooling nutcase (not drooling yet, though I've already heard some comments on my mental health...), and I still have enough courage to present myself at the shinsa, no matter what, I'll be taken as someone who is serious about iai and I'll get the shodan (if I can show some waza at the shinsa it's a bonus). *g*

What bothers me is that I have no place to practise at home - room is too small and people who don't belong in the various budô-saakuru (clubs) at the university aren't allowed to use their practise places. And practising outside in seiza isn't really an option, even less because it's raining half of the time. I'd just want to go through the shoden a few times with no one breathing down my neck for a few times, given that I haven't done it in such a long time. I know it's more important to work on my shizei in tôhô, because it really does look bad, and if I've not learned the shoden well enough in these 5 years of practise, well, in that case I don't really deserve the shodan anyways, but still. It would be nice to get some solo practise... Any ideas, anyone? :)