Day in the Life of an Idiot

Every year, Como Zoo holds a Lantern Lighting/Japanese Cultural Celebration. Mason and I went last year and enjoyed it tremendously. So, this time we decided to go early and stay late--that might have been a bit of a mistake because we both got a bit tired and grouchy by the end. But, it's a nifty little festival full of traditional Japanese dancing, crafts, martial arts demos, as well as things of interest for otaku of all nationalities.



We ended up having to park several long park blocks away from the entrance (which, no surprise, is near the Japanese garden). This was the beginning of our snappishness, actually, because the sun was hot and Mason insisted on carrying several large books to read. At any rate, as we were headed to the park, I saw a small contingent of my people. What do I mean? They looked like fans and they were clearly trying to call some friends to figure out where the hell the festival was taking place. As I approached, I leaned in and said, "Near the Japanese Garden" and the young man on the phone instantly perked up and asked if his group could follow me and Mason. Of course I said yes and it took about five seconds to discover we'd not only run into otaku, but a guy who regularly cosplays Ichigo.

So, we chatted Bleach and cosplaying the whole way to the festival. I gave the young man my card in case he wanted to stay in touch. Mason, of course, blurted that I've written an obscene amount of ByaRen fic and that led to a somewhat awkward discussion of orientation (the young man is bi, and was proud to have been part of a yaoi photo shoot at Detour in which he kissed a cosplayer dressed Grimmjow... which means I could probably Google a picture...) Regardless, they were a fun bunch, but we separated at the gate.

The booths were much the same as last year, and the first place Mason and I made a bee-line for was to the people who, last year, had a metric ton of Japanese-language Shonen Jumps. This year that had only a handful, but we were able to find a really good one to send to my friend empty_mirrors, who is learning to read Japanese.

Otherwise, Mason and I ate a lot of Japanese food--though I managed to chose some fairly gross eel as one of my entries (this is what I get for not reading Japanese) and passed several hours watching martial arts demos of all kinds. Mason is particularly fond of the sword folks, but I was pleased to watch my former Aikido sensei show off ki magic (aka "the Force"/reiatsu.) Here he is, John-sensei, who infamously refused to let me give him face and drove me insane by teaching me how to drop Zabimaru in bokken class:



Sensei-John was in fine form this Obon, I have to say. He completely baffled this audience member, Mark, who he had performing the 'try to pick me up/ oops now I'm using my ki and you can't" gig. For myself, I was the most charmed by Mark who kept giving sensei looks like 'what the hell? How does he do it???'

Mason also tried out the archery:



And, we watched BOTH zanjutizu kenjutizu demos. This year, I'm happy to say, they had female members ACTUALLY DOING STUFF.



I also took a picture of this young lady (kneeling) because: hair. Also, note the color of her zanpakuto katana's sheath:



There was also a guy that they had sparring with this group who their sensei introduced as Cameron, and Mason and I nicknamed him 'Cameron-pachi' because for a while he was the undefeated champion (he's the aggressive blur in this action shot). I liked him because his ki-yah sounded a bit like 'fight! fight!' which made me think of my boy:



I also ran into my neighbor from across the street (who I long thought was named Eric, but who introduced himself as John), who is a member of a martial art that uses FARM IMPLIMENTS to defend against those guys above (samurai). Can I just say? AWESOME. I tried to get a picture of their head instructor wielding a hoe, but it may be blurry too:



Also because we had so much extra time this year, I discovered a mumbling old guy demonstrating bansai and ikebana arrangements inside the Conservatory:





Then, of course, came the final part, the actual lantern lighting. I took a picture, but it's really just kind of a dark shot with a few points of light. It's probably best to imagine the scene in your head: tall rectangle paper lanterns glowing a soft yellow, lowered slowly by a poll into a man-made lake at dusk. It's really very spectacular.

In today's installment of "why my martial arts kicks your martials arts's ass" we will return to the dropping of the sword in Aikido.

WE DIDN'T!!!!

Instead, I spent the last hour or so whacking my partner with my Korean bokken (which is probably called something else.) It was everything I wanted from my bokken class ONLY IT WAS IN KUK SOOL.

The only kind of fun thing for me was that because I had taken bokken for those four classes, I felt very, very comfortable swinging the sword in the downward thrust. I did have to try to remember NOT TO DROP IT, but, you know, that's fairly instinctual.

Thank you. That is all.

Actually, I have a lot of news to report, though I'm going to have to keep it short tonight. Because we were at super-seminar until 8:00, I have to put Mason to bed now, much, much later than normal. The only other really exciting bit I must share tonight, then, is this Romantic Times review for Tate's Precinct 13:

http://wyrdsmiths.blogspot.com/2012/06/romantic-times-review.html

In which the review repeatedly uses the word "series" as though Precinct 13 begins one. News to me. Hopefully, this will mean, however, that my editor, will in fact, make it the thrilling beginning of a new series.

Last night was my last bokken class through community ed. Sean said to me afterwards that he could almost HEAR my head exploding (though perhaps, more accurately, it imploded,) when sensei attempted to "sell" us on continuing bokken by explaining that pretty much this was it for all of eternity. It never got any cooler, it was all about dropping the sword and "letting go" and then you die -- he seriously said that last part. No. SERIOUSLY. And then you die.

After sensei said that, he continued with a little joke, "Of course, I don't know what happens when you die..." To which I couldn't resist saying, "When you die, you go to the Soul Society and you get a really awesome zanpakto." To which, Tom, the one guy in the class who wasn't Sean, said without missing a beat, "Yeah, Senbonzakura."

Dude. All this time I had a fellow Bleach fan in the class!? If we weren't in the middle of a lesson, I totally would have argued that Zabimaru was by far the better zanpakto...

Sean and I had a talk about my reaction to this whole class on the way home. I'm sure that Aikido is an amazing martial art. In fact, if it came down to a showdown between Sa Bum Nim (my Kuk Sool head instructor) versus sensei Jon, I wouldn't put money on either of them because I have no idea who would win. However, I wouldn't put it past an Aikido 3 dan to be able to kick anyone's a$$ into next week. That's not the problem. I get that Aikido is potentially wicked awesome.

Letting go is not, however, a philosophy I can easily embrace.

Again, I get the significance of the idea. I even think that if I were thinking about martial arts as a meditative, self-improvement path Aikido is probably the best for that. But that's not why I do martial arts. I do martial arts because, for an hour, I can pretend I'm Jackie Chan (or Renji Abarai). The point is, Kuk Sool with all it's yelling, kicking, jumping around and getting whacked by pool noodles is much more conducive to my desire to PLAY.

Aikido is serious.

I don't do serious. Not for fun. And if I'm going to invest time and money, it had better be fun.

I realize I never wrote about my bokken class. My friend Sean (not to be confused with my partner Shawn) and I decided to take a four week class in the art of the Japanese wooden sword through Community Education. The class is being taught at the Center for Mind-Body Oneness by Aikido Sensei Jon.

I had an awesome time because I discovered that Aikido is, in point of fact, the Force.

We spent a good portion of class time becoming "one" with our swords/zanpakto. We didn't do a whole lot else with the swords that day, but I *did* realized several important things about myself and why my personalty doesn't mesh well with Aikido.

I'm too polite for my sensei. Now, you'd think that my default "sir" would translate well from the Korean Kuk Sool Wan to the Japanese Aikido, but that didn't seem to be the case. In fact, Sensei Jon made a point of telling me I only needed to call him sensei in the dojo, and that otherwise he was just Jon. Perhaps I messed with his sense of humility to constantly defer, but, I tell you, once on the mat it's REALLY hard for me not to pepper every sentence or two with sir when speaking to or being spoken to by an instructor. I'm going to try to abide by his wishes next Wednesday, but I may just have to apologize and explain that it's been drilled into me after a year and several months of KSW. But, damn it, dude, you're the sensei. You're also the founder of your dojo, a third degree black belt in Aikido and a pretty seriously ranking guy in the Ki Soceity, suck it up and take the respect I'm offering.

I'm too loud and enthusiastic for Aikido. Guess what? Quite contempation is not my strong suit if you can imagine that. I think sensei was pretty baffled by my ocassional outbursts of, "This is AWESOME!" To be fair, I probably would have been a little less out loud but, as it happened, Sean and I were the only students. It was easy to forget to have on my "inside personalty," as it were. This experience, however, has caused me to have some deep understanding of my favorite Bleach character. There's a scene in the Anime where he's admonished for being too enthusiastic a student. Some of this is clearly about class (for him, given what follows in the scene), but I think, too, self-control is so highly valued that even happy/positive outbursts are considered shameful. I would SUCK as a samurai. I'm too [bleep]ing into it.

Also, I probably should lie more. When sensei asked why I signed up for the class, I admitted that I was a samurai in my imagination and I thought it might be fun to try being one on the outside. I also confessed to being an Anime fan, which caused sensei to think I might be able to count to eight. I can't. I know a lot of the numbers thanks to the fact that the Soul Society's Court Guards have 13 squads/divisions. I tend, however, to visually recognize the numbers better than the hear the words. Regardless, I think that even though being an Anime fan who wants to be a samurai is not only a perfectly valid reason for taking an Aikido class but also secretly the reason a lot of people sign up, I suspect more people keep that sort of information to themselves.

So, even if I end up being the weridest student ever, I'm learning a lot. Not all of it is about the sword, however.