On good days and bad days

What follows will be purely subjective speculation about the deeper meaning of iaido. Be warned - probably no one but me will sign any of these statements, and even I might want to un-sign them after some time.

But, let's start our meaningless bullshit about what this is all about - at least for me.

The title sums it up. It's about going to the dojo, both when you really feel like it, and maybe even more when it's the last thing you might want to do. Like today.

By now it's no news that I failed my shodan yesterday - and for something I find hard to believe I would have done, but when 3 sensei say the same thing, well, what can you do but swallow your pride and try to admit that even though it wouldn't have felt like it you panicked and lost all control of things you've been going through the last months. Something no-one's been ever complaining about, a totally unexpected mistake (even sensei seemed surprised by it) - and trust me, there would have been enough material for mistakes in the things I've been warned about. So, of course the greatest hit was taken my pride, my beloved ego herself, and as I've said before, she needs a some discipline from time to time.

And it wasn't any big surprise that she didn't want to show her bruised face today in the practise. Well, too bad, there we went. And yes, I survived. Ok, sometimes with biting my lip to keep any resemblance of outward calm, sometimes for not crying and sometimes for not throwing my iaito to the wall and packing my stuff. (yes yes, very un-zen, I know. But hey, I managed to get throught the whole practise without doing either, and that's a personal victory with the way my stress levels are at the moment...) And it's very hard to be taught something you "know" how to do, and "can" do, while at the same time knowing that you obviously CAN'T do it as otherwise you wouldn't be having the conversation in the first place.

Can you tell that I'm not completely over this yet? ;)

But, to get to the original topic, this is one of the "teachings" of iaido, it's not ONLY about how to wave a japanese sword around in a really cool manner. It's one of those mental things I get from budo practise in general - taming of the ego. (Ego is a very buddhist-flavoured term, at least for me, but it works so just try to bear with it) It's the part of me that is always tired, doesn't want or wants something completely different, that hurts and wants to take a break "only for today, let's go next time ok?" Of course if I listen to it then we won't be going anytime soon, and won't progress anywhere with anything, even less iaido where I need constant practise to even keep my level, not to say to progress anywhere. And often all the scary scenarios that build up in my mind don't happen!

Just for the record, I wrote about all the doubts I had before going to the morning zazen for the first time. Well, going there certainly hasn't made anyone to think any less of me, they're still talking to me, even my non-zen friends are still around even though they might not want to do it themselves. Or they might be really good at pretending to act normal around me, but in that case they're doing it so well that I don't care. On the contrary, I like the morning zazen, and even though it means a very early morning for me the benefits overpower the possible tiredness.

In a way it's about challenging yourself. Yes, it might not seem a big deal to come to practise after you've emotionally broken down in front of the whole seminar, some 60 people, gotten all the sensei worried and being told to take the rest of the day off, but for someone who never wants to let others see such things, even the closest friends and family, trust me, it was pure hell. And no, this didn't happen yesterday but in Paris in 2005. Today was like a child's play compared to that time. It's about kicking your own butt forward, and then bending over so that your sensei can help with the kicking. And you'll often see that though it did hurt, it was also very needed.