When the student is ready, the teacher appears
2017 03 30
|
etc
no date
2024 +
2025
entries
home
There are some waza that my body just doesn't make it easy for me to do properly - like hiding the sword the way you need to hide it behind you when turning to do the last cut in shiho-giri, or the disembowelling cut during so-giri. The first is definitely partly due to my being very hippy, the other - I'd like to say my arms are a bit too short to get my hands down low enough, but I'm using a 2.45 shaku blade, so that's not it. We tried to figure it last night, but I think the only way to lengthen my arms to get them in the right place, is attaching me to the rack.
Sensei was not there last night, as he's travelling for his work, and it really throws me off when he's not around. It's not that things aren't good, they are - they're more casual, the person who's usually in charge when sensei's not there will ask us what we want to work on, he's also less hard on us - but don't tell my sensei.
My sensei is an incredible person - seemingly limitless patience (though apparently he hates it when people don't put their shoes to the side neatly when they come in his door - piles of shoes at the door are his peeve); he seems without ego; he pushes you hard, but never beyond what he knows you can do; he's become a figure of great importance to me - a mentor of sorts, a father figure of sorts, a father-confessor of sorts, and a friend. There is no way, and I know it, that I'd likely still be doing this if I'd started training with someone else. I don't truly attach to a great many people, but I know there'd be a huge gap in me, in my life, were he no longer around.
You train for yourself, but there's always that small part of you that knows it's training so that you can justify your sensei's investment of time and faith in you.
Someone once said to me, "when the student is ready, the teacher appears." Truer words were never uttered.