Day 8 – Second training with Soke

The pile of laundry is still growing on us, we are nearly through our fresh tee-sha-tsu’s. If it weren’t for the exhaustion, we would simply wake up early, go to the laundry and then to basics training with Noguchi. But we didn’t, apparently. What we did instead was planning to go to the laundry instead of Noguchi’s, but we ended up, writing a post. These things also take up a lot of time. Especially in the nights.

If we would want to buy some kakejiku’s (hanging scrolls) and still make it to Soke’s class, we would have to leave early enough so that the shops would still be open in Noda. We got there on time and searched for the shop. We had both asked different people where the shop was and then combined our intel together: how about that for ninjutsu, ha!

We finally located the shop,….it was closed however. Luckily we had somewhat foreseen this when we were in Asakusa and had bought us some A3 drawingpaper. So the shop was closed, fine, how about some food instead? We looked around for some other place and eventually found a nice restaurant where we could eat a nice soup with meat. Only problem here: we are veggy’s! So we ended up in Coco’s again. There we met up with some of the other buyu’s from all around the globe. We ordered pizza again and in the meanwhile we witnessed the signs of an ongrowing epidemic of the stomach flu; as many of the buyu’s crawld by in agony with their hands on their stomach and flailing their tongues and eyes. The toilet was a mess, even considering european standards.

Off to Soke’s class! Excitement sets in as the crowd gathers and they were many! (There are always a lot of people coming to soke’s class, so I guess we are one of the fewer people who actually try and train with some shihan too. We skipped some classes yeah,…too early for us meak body’s. The flesh is weak at seven in the morning sodesne? (especially when you write posts in the night, while you should be asleep).

Finally Soke come’s in and starts class. He spoke about a lot of things and concepts like that we have to learn how to lose and learn how to fight in a tight environment (like a battlefield, or just remember the ‘oh sooory’ shuriken in ninja’s head!) I could tell you what Soke said, but that doesn’t mean I can convey his meaning: that is what kuden is all about; oral transmission. You have to look at it from the right perspective: “out of first hand” so that the context is right for you. So remember when I speak about things that soke said; it’s always my own interpretation of it.

Soke’s trainings are more mental than physical. One of the factors is ofcourse that there are a lot of people training in the dojo. But in itself it’s just what he was stressing: you should not be affected by this. For myself it’s like the prime example of Buffu Ikan; the martial wind: When I’m training with a lot of people, it’s like there’s a typhoon going on and I am in the midst of it, in the eye of the storm. Yes, it’s a nice sensation, but don’t get carried away, sometimes you will bumb in to eachother at some time or another. So remember: when there’s no room to roll: then rock! (like on a ship)

After training we went straight home and fell asleep.