How calm can you be?

My theory about them (meaning my iai sensei) trying to mess with my head starts to feel more and more plausible. After letting me practise for some time in a relatively unstressful atmosphere, I just got an email from them that said that I have to wear my montsuki to the shinsa. The montsuki itself isn't a big deal, it just means I have to be carrying some more stuff. The wider sleeves aren't that difficult to handle with. It's the tabi I have to wear with the montsuki.

Tabi are those nice white socks you see used with kimono, and as Rumi-sensei just replied to my (desperate) inquiry about whether I need to have the tabi too, "when you wear montsuki, you wear tabi." End of conversation. The problem with my tabi is that I accidentally bought tabi used with a "normal" kimono (as opposed to budô wear) - meaning they are made from silk. They're beautiful, they fit better than the budô tabi, but they're also way more slippery on the floor than normal cotton tabi (and usually you'd want to wet the soles of the cotton ones too to make your footing more certain). And I usually practise barefoot. So, IF I'd have known I need to grade in montsuki and these lovely pieces of white silk, I'd definitely wanted to practise in them before. But hey, I think I have at least some 40-50min to practise before the shinsa begins. I'll just drench my tabi, if need be...

And now that we're on the topic, I'll just throw in something about the montsuki too. Now, keep in mind that this is only my own interpretation about things, since I haven't had the time to ask about this from Rumi-sensei yet, but.

"Mon-tsuki" literally means something like "with the family crest (mon) attached to it". It is a kimono, usually but not always black, with the mon in 5 places: 2 in front, 1 on both sleeves, and 1 in the back. It is normally used only in very formal situations and it outranks, so to say, the usually more elaborately colourful normal kimono. Of course for example the one that was ordered for me from a budôguya (budô equipment store) is cheap and from the lower end of such clothes, but it still cost me some 21 000y (montsuki + undercoat).

There's been talk lately about who can wear a montsuki, who has the right to carry someone's mon. The mon, of course, are japanese, and if you're not japanese or marry to a japanese family you're very unlikely to have your own mon. What this means is that when westerners are seen in montsuki, everyone just assumes that they're either a) sensei's mon or b) random mon that just happened to be on the second-hand kimono you had to buy for the enbu. AND, the latter option isn't seen as something "unpolite", frankly, no one cares. I've heard that even the japanese do it, not always sporting their "own" mon, because buying kimonos, even more so with formal kimono, is very expensive. On the other hand, buying second-hand kimonos is cheaper than you'd believe. And certainly when I ordered my own montsuki for the January enbu our discussion was on the lines that "we'll put sensei's mon here since you don't have your own", and that was it. No lengthy discussions about getting a priviledge of using Takada family's mon, nothing, but that's just my experience.

I think the "responsibility" that comes with a montsuki is more a question of knowing where and how to wear it, than who wears it and with whose mon.

In iaidô the first and most obvious use is in the enbu. I was borrowed a montsuki for my first enbu, and had to order my own for the next one. No question about it, enbu = montsuki, and this is something that you might want to think about if you're planning to take part in enbu sooner or later. The other use at our dôjô seems to be the dan shinsa, as I was told about an hour ago. In Finland it isn't needed for gradings, but here, perhaps because by the time you grade your shodan you've already been in several enbu and own at least one montsuki, shinsa is a situation formal enough to wear one. And then, as it was confirmed to me, when wearing montsuki it should be worn properly, with all the adornmets etc. - meaning you don't wear montsuki at our dôjô without wearing tabi. The underkimono goes without saying, a normal hakama can be worn but it has to be clean. There's no rules about obi, but you must remember to tie your hakama high enough to hide it almost completely. This of course varies from dôjô to dôjô, but our dôjô is quite strict in this. Also, the overall look of having all your clothes properly on, with the positions of the collar etc really gets a new dimension, esp. for the female members... Just for the record, the woman's collar isn't supposed to touch the back of your neck but a bit apart (though certainly not as much as with the normal kimono), and to accomplish this you need a plastic thing you slip inside the collar to keep it in shape - and needless to mention Rumi-sensei was shocked when I had to admit that I didn't have any idea. Then I managed to buy it from a kimono shop, but wrong size and had to cut it smaller and... Anyways, now I have one.

So, it's not related to the skill of someone, as all dôjô members who have graded at least 6. kyû are supposed to perform in enbu. It's just a thing of ... appropriateness (if that's a word), maybe?

When used properly, the montsuki is one of the most useless pieces of clothing you could buy. When you need it, you really need it, but in other situations it would be way too overdressed. If I'm coming back in January for the enbu, I need to bring it with me, the whole thing. Even so, I can't really use it in normal practise, or anywhere else for that matter, it's like carrying a gala dress around (except that it's more heavy...).