A guy who came to Gasshuku for the first time, his ass was a wad of cookie dough.
After a week, he was carved out of wood.
So, Gasshuku. It works like this. For one week, 23 students - freshmen and a few seniors - from Keio University, the "Harvard of Japan," come to a place halfway across the globe to "practice" kendo with you. (I quote practice because what ends up happening is that thanks to their superior skills, a more appropriate phrase might be "teach you kendo.") This week will see you journeying to formal dinners, sketchy suburban arcades, the QRAC, and the very limits of your physical constitution / sleep deprivation tolerance / general endurance. You will miss classes and leave assignments incomplete, or complete them at strange hours in less-than-ideal states. And by the end, you will freaking love it.
In fact, it grows on you very quickly.
It all started last Wednesday night when we went to the airport to pick them up. I was kind of inclined to bitch about departing for Logan a full 2 hours before their flight was scheduled to arrive, but lo, right when we walked into the baggage claim area, there they were. Shows you what happens when I finally lose my positivity.
We didn't really have a fluent Japanese speaker. As such, the greeting came out, "Havado desu ..." (it's Harvard ...) to which their timeless reply was "Keio desu!" (it's Keio!) ... shortly thereafter, baggage was sent back in cabs, along with me alone, to ensure its safe and accurate arrival.
The first practice saw me dashing in, almost late, feeling apprehensive. For some reason I wasn't exactly confident about my kendo, and on top of that I hadn't gotten to know any of the Keio kids yet (unlike most of the Harvard team who were able to host them), so I felt nameless and out of place. It showed in my practice. My kiai (interesting etymological fact: comes from ki, spirit, and ai, unification, which seems an odd way to form a word referring to a yelling technique ... although I guess kiai is primarily psychological, so it works) was embarrassingly weak, and my form fell apart accordingly. Finally, I did a fumikomi (large step) completely wrong, landing hard on my right heel.
The ensuing pain forced me to sit out until near the end, when we did jigeiko. Even then, in each sparring match, I did miserably. At the end of practice, we were all given zekken, white cloth coverings for the middle flap on the waist armor, on which we were to write our names - in katakana.
Keio students to the rescue - that evening after the formal welcome dinner, I had one of my friend's hostees figure it out. They parsed my name to "na-do-ra-a" which comes out to ナドラ -
The next day's practice, well, it kind of had the shadow of Thursday's cast over it. We were in the Quad RAC, on their strangely smooth yet hard basketball courts. I expected that my heel would act up. For the first part of practice, I did decently, and for what it's worth I managed to be careful about my fumikomi. At last, jigeiko began.
My first round was against Iwamoto, captain of Keio's team ... as I stood in place, waiting for him to finish with the guy in front of me, something changed. Staring through my men gane, gripping my shinai, it hit me that I was named now: ナドラ - . With a name, I belonged, and since I belonged, it was time to act like it. That meant being strong in the only way I was able.
Iwamoto and I rose from sonkyo, and all at once I let loose with a menacing kiai of "μαχησομαι!" (a form of the ancient Greek verb "fight" that actually doesn't exist, but who's counting?) - and from there I was all over the place, chasing him down with more spirit than I had ever managed to work up in sparring. Of course, the hits I landed he gave me out of charity, and my form wasn't perfect, but it was a round to be proud of and under his helm I'm sure I saw a smile as we went into sonkyo at the end. My Gasshuku was saved; I had found what I had lacked on Thursday.
That night we all went to Uno's Chicago Grille. I sat with Miura-san and Suzuki-san, with whom I got pretty close through labored conversation. (Their English varied from barely-enough-to-get-by to very good.) When it came time to order, I helped them decide on a pizza to split and then decided on a cheap 8oz sirloin and french onion soup for myself.
As soon as I ordered, Joe, the club president, looked at me and was like, "Roland, whoa. I thought we were all ordering group pizzas." .... um yeah. Talk about your oh-shit moments ... I had just become the only person having food that wasn't pizza. Gauche. Awk-ward! I received a round of applause when my food came. Needless to say, I made sure to enjoy my order intensely. It was pretty much necessary.
When the pizzas came, Miura and Suzuki turned to each other and grinned, then said to me, "kyo-nyu." They went on to convey to me that everything is bigger in America, which seemed like a reasonable observation, and I replied that yeah, those pizzas were pretty massive.
Miura took out his electronic pocket dictionary and, muttering "kyo-nyu" again, entered it. The display came out to "breast, chest." ... eheh. So apparently they were commenting not on the food, but the waitress.
Practice on Saturday was much the same, pretty good overall, with jigeiko being the best part. Saturday night ... was the party. Oh man. Those kids outdrink us by a country mile. I got pretty well faded, and don't quite remember many of the details. What I do know is that when I got home, my roommates, being such endearing souls, decided to capitalize on the situation.
So it was that I woke up at 8 AM bound to my sheets by 50 feet of packaging tape. (Dan's new Facebook picture shows me lying in a cruciform position on a tree in the Yard, a vacant expression on my face.) I was still rather drunk, it had snowed about 18 inches, and practice was at 9. Somehow I put on my hakama and gi properly, grabbed my shinai and bogu bag, and stumbled out into the quiet snowy morning. It was about then that I got to thinking, "Goddamn. Precisely how hardcore am I?"
There's nothing more motivating than fighting with a bad hangover. Or, in my case, not even a hangover. As Shunsuke put it before practice, "I am having strong alcohol smell from you!" I went at the drills with alacrity that morning, feeling (as one might expect) fazed but more than that, driven. If I could be a winner in this state, I could do anything. The time came for jigeiko and lo! I was against Iwamoto-sama again.
For about a minute and a half, it was just as good if not better than Friday. Certainly, my kiai was stellar, all ear-splitting Greek and Latin intimidation. At one point I fell completely over only to spring up again and continue without delay. But with all that spirit, I kind of got swept up and forgot to keep my body in mind. Trying to keep up that much intensity for several minutes can definitely have negative consequences, and in this case, I started to get nausea. I honestly think it would have happened even without the alcohol factored into the equation. Iwamoto noticed my physical stamina begin to flag (read: I was stumbling all over the place) and soon ended the round.
I half-collapsed onto the sideline, took off my armor, and tried to relax. No good. I ran out to the bathroom for several minutes. The whole puking bit didn't make me feel a million times better, but I gathered up my will and went back in. After several minutes of watching, I felt restless. I belonged back in there. And I wasn't satisfied with myself that I had run out of steam against Iwamoto. He deserved a better showing from me.
I got back in and went up to the captain's end again. It must have been a little surprising to see Na-do-ra back after such a worrisome exit. At any rate, I was ready. I knew that to last, I had to regulate my expenditure of stamina and rely on kiai / spiritual strength to do well for myself.
The round began: I forgot my pain and exhaustion and fought with all I had. It was beautiful. My teammates who were sitting out on the sidelines - were cheering. The dynamics of the fighting were very different - a lot more work with the actual sword, fighting for center and parrying and feinting. Finally he (purposely) gave me an opening for a solid strike at men, and I nailed it. He ended the match, and practice was over. I was overjoyed, proud of myself.
Residually drunk still.
At brunch, Suzuki decided to revive a joke from the night before. I had worn my Mario t-shirt to the party, which was kind of a big hit - I seem to remember singing the Starman music really loud with Miura. So Suzuki brought me a little platter of mushrooms. I ate one and did the little sound effect. Hilarity ensued. A little later, I spied a piano in the common room where we were eating.
It was so on.
I sat down, waited until a few people were staring expectantly, then rolled out the Mario theme. It was beyond rusty, of course ... but their riotous laughter drowned out the mistakes. Right then, I had better comminucation with these Japanese kids than I could ever hope to make with spoken language. Hooray for music!
Monday night we played laser tag at this really uh, questionable arcade outside of Boston. That was interesting. Pretty fun I suppose, though the trip there and back was no picnic ...
On Tuesday we did shiai - formal duels - in practice. Because I did well in everything leading up to shiai, I wasn't terribly bummed that my duel lasted all of thirty seconds and saw me attacking blindly, rather than showing my usual tenacity. It's a simple lesson that was reinforced by that: a man's fighting style should reflect his principles and philosophy. So I'll keep that in mind. I also bloodied my foot from sliding it around on the sticky bball court floor.
That night was the final dinner and party. The dinner was memorable, and the party was quite enjoyable. I got a little drunker than I meant to, went home and got to sleep by midnight, woke up at 4 AM, and wrote a two-page paper due by 9 AM. This is an achievement of which I should probably not feel too proud ... but I can't really help it. At 8:30 in the morning, we saw them off, and it was really sad. I went to class and eventually to crew. Crew sucked and then I got the flu, the end.
Anyway, what a cultural experience. What a week. Amazing. For all the negative repercussions it had on my health and schoolwork, it was totally worth it. I'll get better and catch up on my studies, enriched by the amazing memories I took away.
So, Gasshuku. It works like this. For one week, 23 students - freshmen and a few seniors - from Keio University, the "Harvard of Japan," come to a place halfway across the globe to "practice" kendo with you. (I quote practice because what ends up happening is that thanks to their superior skills, a more appropriate phrase might be "teach you kendo.") This week will see you journeying to formal dinners, sketchy suburban arcades, the QRAC, and the very limits of your physical constitution / sleep deprivation tolerance / general endurance. You will miss classes and leave assignments incomplete, or complete them at strange hours in less-than-ideal states. And by the end, you will freaking love it.
In fact, it grows on you very quickly.
It all started last Wednesday night when we went to the airport to pick them up. I was kind of inclined to bitch about departing for Logan a full 2 hours before their flight was scheduled to arrive, but lo, right when we walked into the baggage claim area, there they were. Shows you what happens when I finally lose my positivity.
We didn't really have a fluent Japanese speaker. As such, the greeting came out, "Havado desu ..." (it's Harvard ...) to which their timeless reply was "Keio desu!" (it's Keio!) ... shortly thereafter, baggage was sent back in cabs, along with me alone, to ensure its safe and accurate arrival.
The first practice saw me dashing in, almost late, feeling apprehensive. For some reason I wasn't exactly confident about my kendo, and on top of that I hadn't gotten to know any of the Keio kids yet (unlike most of the Harvard team who were able to host them), so I felt nameless and out of place. It showed in my practice. My kiai (interesting etymological fact: comes from ki, spirit, and ai, unification, which seems an odd way to form a word referring to a yelling technique ... although I guess kiai is primarily psychological, so it works) was embarrassingly weak, and my form fell apart accordingly. Finally, I did a fumikomi (large step) completely wrong, landing hard on my right heel.
The ensuing pain forced me to sit out until near the end, when we did jigeiko. Even then, in each sparring match, I did miserably. At the end of practice, we were all given zekken, white cloth coverings for the middle flap on the waist armor, on which we were to write our names - in katakana.
Keio students to the rescue - that evening after the formal welcome dinner, I had one of my friend's hostees figure it out. They parsed my name to "na-do-ra-a" which comes out to ナドラ -
The next day's practice, well, it kind of had the shadow of Thursday's cast over it. We were in the Quad RAC, on their strangely smooth yet hard basketball courts. I expected that my heel would act up. For the first part of practice, I did decently, and for what it's worth I managed to be careful about my fumikomi. At last, jigeiko began.
My first round was against Iwamoto, captain of Keio's team ... as I stood in place, waiting for him to finish with the guy in front of me, something changed. Staring through my men gane, gripping my shinai, it hit me that I was named now: ナドラ - . With a name, I belonged, and since I belonged, it was time to act like it. That meant being strong in the only way I was able.
Iwamoto and I rose from sonkyo, and all at once I let loose with a menacing kiai of "μαχησομαι!" (a form of the ancient Greek verb "fight" that actually doesn't exist, but who's counting?) - and from there I was all over the place, chasing him down with more spirit than I had ever managed to work up in sparring. Of course, the hits I landed he gave me out of charity, and my form wasn't perfect, but it was a round to be proud of and under his helm I'm sure I saw a smile as we went into sonkyo at the end. My Gasshuku was saved; I had found what I had lacked on Thursday.
That night we all went to Uno's Chicago Grille. I sat with Miura-san and Suzuki-san, with whom I got pretty close through labored conversation. (Their English varied from barely-enough-to-get-by to very good.) When it came time to order, I helped them decide on a pizza to split and then decided on a cheap 8oz sirloin and french onion soup for myself.
As soon as I ordered, Joe, the club president, looked at me and was like, "Roland, whoa. I thought we were all ordering group pizzas." .... um yeah. Talk about your oh-shit moments ... I had just become the only person having food that wasn't pizza. Gauche. Awk-ward! I received a round of applause when my food came. Needless to say, I made sure to enjoy my order intensely. It was pretty much necessary.
When the pizzas came, Miura and Suzuki turned to each other and grinned, then said to me, "kyo-nyu." They went on to convey to me that everything is bigger in America, which seemed like a reasonable observation, and I replied that yeah, those pizzas were pretty massive.
Miura took out his electronic pocket dictionary and, muttering "kyo-nyu" again, entered it. The display came out to "breast, chest." ... eheh. So apparently they were commenting not on the food, but the waitress.
Practice on Saturday was much the same, pretty good overall, with jigeiko being the best part. Saturday night ... was the party. Oh man. Those kids outdrink us by a country mile. I got pretty well faded, and don't quite remember many of the details. What I do know is that when I got home, my roommates, being such endearing souls, decided to capitalize on the situation.
So it was that I woke up at 8 AM bound to my sheets by 50 feet of packaging tape. (Dan's new Facebook picture shows me lying in a cruciform position on a tree in the Yard, a vacant expression on my face.) I was still rather drunk, it had snowed about 18 inches, and practice was at 9. Somehow I put on my hakama and gi properly, grabbed my shinai and bogu bag, and stumbled out into the quiet snowy morning. It was about then that I got to thinking, "Goddamn. Precisely how hardcore am I?"
There's nothing more motivating than fighting with a bad hangover. Or, in my case, not even a hangover. As Shunsuke put it before practice, "I am having strong alcohol smell from you!" I went at the drills with alacrity that morning, feeling (as one might expect) fazed but more than that, driven. If I could be a winner in this state, I could do anything. The time came for jigeiko and lo! I was against Iwamoto-sama again.
For about a minute and a half, it was just as good if not better than Friday. Certainly, my kiai was stellar, all ear-splitting Greek and Latin intimidation. At one point I fell completely over only to spring up again and continue without delay. But with all that spirit, I kind of got swept up and forgot to keep my body in mind. Trying to keep up that much intensity for several minutes can definitely have negative consequences, and in this case, I started to get nausea. I honestly think it would have happened even without the alcohol factored into the equation. Iwamoto noticed my physical stamina begin to flag (read: I was stumbling all over the place) and soon ended the round.
I half-collapsed onto the sideline, took off my armor, and tried to relax. No good. I ran out to the bathroom for several minutes. The whole puking bit didn't make me feel a million times better, but I gathered up my will and went back in. After several minutes of watching, I felt restless. I belonged back in there. And I wasn't satisfied with myself that I had run out of steam against Iwamoto. He deserved a better showing from me.
I got back in and went up to the captain's end again. It must have been a little surprising to see Na-do-ra back after such a worrisome exit. At any rate, I was ready. I knew that to last, I had to regulate my expenditure of stamina and rely on kiai / spiritual strength to do well for myself.
The round began: I forgot my pain and exhaustion and fought with all I had. It was beautiful. My teammates who were sitting out on the sidelines - were cheering. The dynamics of the fighting were very different - a lot more work with the actual sword, fighting for center and parrying and feinting. Finally he (purposely) gave me an opening for a solid strike at men, and I nailed it. He ended the match, and practice was over. I was overjoyed, proud of myself.
Residually drunk still.
At brunch, Suzuki decided to revive a joke from the night before. I had worn my Mario t-shirt to the party, which was kind of a big hit - I seem to remember singing the Starman music really loud with Miura. So Suzuki brought me a little platter of mushrooms. I ate one and did the little sound effect. Hilarity ensued. A little later, I spied a piano in the common room where we were eating.
It was so on.
I sat down, waited until a few people were staring expectantly, then rolled out the Mario theme. It was beyond rusty, of course ... but their riotous laughter drowned out the mistakes. Right then, I had better comminucation with these Japanese kids than I could ever hope to make with spoken language. Hooray for music!
Monday night we played laser tag at this really uh, questionable arcade outside of Boston. That was interesting. Pretty fun I suppose, though the trip there and back was no picnic ...
On Tuesday we did shiai - formal duels - in practice. Because I did well in everything leading up to shiai, I wasn't terribly bummed that my duel lasted all of thirty seconds and saw me attacking blindly, rather than showing my usual tenacity. It's a simple lesson that was reinforced by that: a man's fighting style should reflect his principles and philosophy. So I'll keep that in mind. I also bloodied my foot from sliding it around on the sticky bball court floor.
That night was the final dinner and party. The dinner was memorable, and the party was quite enjoyable. I got a little drunker than I meant to, went home and got to sleep by midnight, woke up at 4 AM, and wrote a two-page paper due by 9 AM. This is an achievement of which I should probably not feel too proud ... but I can't really help it. At 8:30 in the morning, we saw them off, and it was really sad. I went to class and eventually to crew. Crew sucked and then I got the flu, the end.
Anyway, what a cultural experience. What a week. Amazing. For all the negative repercussions it had on my health and schoolwork, it was totally worth it. I'll get better and catch up on my studies, enriched by the amazing memories I took away.