tea ceremony and martial training, part 2 by r. heins sensei

June 1, 2016

“Martial arts training is the training of the magnetic power to absorb the other as he is.” --Aikido Kaiso Morihei Ueshiba

On the face of it, the tea ceremony seems to be all about rules. There are rules for how to walk, how to sit, how to pick up a dish, a bowl, a ladle, how to drink the tea, what to say before and after the tea is drunk—every aspect of the ceremony seems strictly delineated. It’s like a long kata, or a series of kata that change with the season and the furnishings.

Much can be said about the meaning and results and ultimate utility of kata practice as it pertains to the martial arts, but at the end of it, such practice always has an end point, a goal. The goal of studying tea ceremony is hard to parse; most tea people I know have great difficulty articulating it. I have always felt, instinctively, that my study of tea is crucial to my study of martial arts. But how and why are questions I have been chewing on for the five-plus years that I’ve been engaged in tea practice.

The tea ceremony is about the relationship between the guest and the host. Its purpose, I believe, is to celebrate the ineffable uniqueness of an encounter between two people at a perfect, irreproducible moment in time and space. The role of the host is to anticipate the needs and desires of the guest; the role of the guest is to perceive and enjoy all the different aspects of the host’s preparations and the ceremony itself. A skilled host will know what is needed before the guest is conscious of any deficiency; a skilled guest will appreciate niceties both accidental and designed. When both host and guest are experienced practitioners, the ceremony becomes a smooth, floating, rarefied exchange of sentiment and aesthetic pleasure. From this point of view the guest and host relationship is very much akin to that between uke and nage in Aikido practice.

The host, while directing the ceremony, does not impose her will on the guest; matters should proceed naturally and spontaneously. What I’ve realized from watching my own teacher (whom I’ve never seen actually perform the ceremony all the way through, but who has presided over innumerable tea gatherings and tea practices I’ve attended) is that at its heart, hosting a tea ceremony means accepting the guest exactly as she or he is, and guiding them effortlessly through each prescribed step of the ritual so that they cannot help but enjoy themselves. In a way, the host almost disappears—there’s no sense of agency. In O-Sensei’s words, the guest is “absorbed as he is.” When I see my teacher interacting with guests or visitors who are not his students, I feel certain that no matter what they did—even if they upended the tea over their heads and sat there grinning—as long as they were genuinely appreciating the experience, it would be fine with him, and he would do exactly the right thing. At the same time, I don’t think there is any possibility that a guest would do such a thing, as he is so skilled at directing their actions without seeming to. I think about this and I remember what students of Jigoro Kano used to say about wrestling with the founder of Judo: that it was like fighting smoke, like dancing with an empty gi. He simply disappeared and let them throw themselves. I think that this is what I’m looking for in my study of tea.

Knowing what you’re looking for isn’t the same as knowing how to find it, though. How can I truly accept others just as they are, without wanting to change them or force them to fit my paradigm? How do I adjust my view of the world so that I’m not merely making allowances for a person’s ignorance or clumsiness or aggression, but truly accepting the whole person, and thereby giving them room to change? How can I, in conducting a tea ceremony, get rid of any expectations or preconceptions I might have about the person I am serving tea to, and thereby meet their needs perfectly? How can I absorb another’s violence without responding violently in return?

The answer to these questions lies not in any mastery of external technique or knowledge of external details. It lies in myself—in cultivating in my own self the ability to let go, to divest myself of the need to control. Paradoxically, of course, that answer cannot be realized without striving to master technique and learn detail, without endless repetition and daily practice, without sweat and violence and preconceptions and mistakes. In the end, though, it’s not training to master others. It’s training to lose the need to do so.

thoughts on japan and shugyo, by m. croes

February 27, 2016

You would think that a 13-hour flight might have you sleeping through most of it—but not when you’re heading to Japan!

One of the greatest experiences in my life was the opportunity to travel and train in Japan. There, at Ichikukai Dojo, we trained intensely in Misogi, a purification practice through chanting and breathing. The training was hard, rigorous, and painful, though I can’t say much about the specifics of it (you have to experience it for yourself to really understand it).

Yet what I can say is that the training left me feeling a connection to a place and group of people that I’ve rarely felt. The thing I noticed most at Ichikukai was a lack of pretension—there was never anyone waiting to do something, whether it be clean, work, or train. No one was waiting to be told what to do; everyone would jump up after training or eating and get right to what had to be done. Students and teachers would do the cleaning alongside each other, which is different from a Western approach to training.

In the West, we feel we’ve worked hard, so now we shouldn’t have to do what’s thought of as menial tasks. But I got the feeling (especially after talking with Sensei and Ashwini after our trip) that at Ichikukai, no tasks are small ones, and no task is menial; all tasks are treated equal and with care. This is something that struck me. So much of when we start something for the first time is waiting to be told what to do—like cleaning in the dojo. We often wait to be told to clean something rather than just thinking about what could be cleaned and doing it. I’ve seen this in myself. Whether it’s due to the fear of making a mistake, feeling intimidated, laziness, or even exhaustion from training, we all go through this at some point, in some place. How to get through fear, stubbornness, laziness is something I think about since coming back.

While I was training at Ichukukai Dojo, I never felt anything but love and compassion. This is not to say that the training wasn’t difficult and rough, but I think about my feeling during that intense training: There was a sense of joy, love, and compassion in everything from cleaning to training to cooking—it didn’t matter. There was no sense of “I don’t have to do this” or “this is beneath me”. This is something that I feel is necessary for real training for me: humility, letting go of all the bullshit and just getting to it. How to keep that in one’s self on and off the mat. It’s easy to motivate with negative emotions but more difficult (for me anyway) to think of compassion as a motivating force. How to get up and clean or to take one more class when you have nothing left. It’s easy to use anger or strength (especially when you’re bigger than your opponent) but to really engage your center and give yourself with no strength, I guess that’s the question I took from Japan and Ichukukai: How can I be open and give everything without using strength or negative emotions. And how can I enjoy all things even when I don’t necessarily want to do them.

a bull in a china shop - by martine baruch

November 5, 2015

That’s what my behavior was when I first began cleaning sensei’s office - but rightfully so! Anyone who enters his office can agree that there is some serious energy contained in that small room - an energy that both comforted and intimidated me. As I began to pick up and dust the many items, I came to a horrifying realization: everything was precious and delicate and fragile and important. I found myself shaking when I had to pick up an inscripted zippo lighter and after I dusted off a couple of seashells I placed them back down as if they were fine china. Two hours later I had finally finished cleaning the office. For the next few weeks I cleaned the office in frustrated discomfort which I narrowed down to two reasons: A) It was taking me too long to clean the office and B) I had mentally exhausted myself an hour into each session. By the fourth week, my feelings of deep frustration finally got to me and as I was gently placing one of sensei’s fountain pens back on his desk I spoke two reckless but important words to myself, “screw this.” With a quicker and less thoughtful movement I placed the pen down on the desk… but the pen didn’t break in half. Neither did the table. Noting the change in myself I moved through the office picking and placing objects with greater ease. I had dicovered that these objects, though important to me in a very truthful sense, were just objects. And they all had specific individual strength. A strength that could only be broken if I came at them with true recklessness or malice.

This discovery quickly transferred to my aikido. When I began my aikido practice, I was scared of hurting my partner. I was scared of giving them my full spirit. But then again I was also reckless in movement. My waza was careless. Through my office experience I learned that I can only hurt someone if I ignore the way they move. An arm only breaks when it can no longer bend. I could still give my full spirit, but I need to listen to what they’re giving me.

In acting, in my career, I am constantly told that true actors get their performance off the other person. The truthful response comes from how I relate to my partner; not some idea that I have about my partner. If I go into the scene with the idea that my partner is fragile or I am always too mean to them, I will miss the truth about how they actually feel about me or the situation and I will break the connection between us. The reality and truth will break.

My sister moved in with me a few months back. She is 19 years old and when she first moved in she was in a rough mental state. I knew her mind was fragile and weak, but I also knew that if I had to be hard on her and push her she could take it. I trusted our relationship and I trusted her own strength. I was hard on her. I reprimanded her when she was being selfish and when she needed a swift kick in the ass, I was there to give it to her. And I was right- she was strong enough to take it.

The real technique in cleaning and aikido and acting and relationships and cooking and fishing and everything else in life is very simple: Look, listen, feel, find the truth in what’s in front of you… and then act.

Being a bull in a china shop is a very real feeling, but it only comes from ignoring your situation in favor of whatever anxiety lives within you.