Flowers Dancing at the Old Temple

On Saturday, the 29th of March I see the first cherry blossoms on my way to Iga.
One week later, on the 6th of April the cherry tree at Shosenji Temple in Osaka is in full bloom, its luscious pink branches hovering in the air, to which they give the proverbial magic touch of Japanese spring.
Today we have come together for an afternoon training session, a kyu and dan grading, and, finally, a hanami party under the abundant pink clouds of the big tree. Some good souls, may the spring god bless them, have been preparing food and setting up the grounds for the much anticipated hanami since one o’clock noon, filling the garden with promise and good spirit.
A large number of people have come together to train, and although the dojo is crowded, and special care needs to be taken not to tumble into and onto others while practising, the flow of energy seems undisturbed, as people who have never met are united under the parasol of Shihan’s words and demonstrations, by the mechanics and the spirit of aikido. To use everything they are given and give everything they have. Thus energy is kept unbound, and spirits mingle freely.
Shihan has told me to grade for my third kyu. During the practice session preceding the grading, he tells me I will be called up for the fifth kyu grading because I have never been graded before, so the system allows nothing else. I am happy about every glimpse I can get of Shihan’s eyes, so his news about the grading are a welcome opportunity for this and become yet another factor to contribute to my sunlit mood. My mind and body are travelling along the bright rays dancing through the big white dojo, along the fluent lines of my partner’s movements. She is a beaming little woman with a determined gentleness that is infectious. I admire her style and my body easily yields to cooperating with it and emulating it. “Your waza are very pretty!” she tells me, and I tell her I feel lucky I get to train with somebody as good as her.
My objective is not a certain colour of belt, and the thought of wearing a hakama like the more able people in the dojo seems more intimidating than attractive. I will not be able to be a carefree white belt anymore always entitled to helpful advice from senior aikidoka. I will have to be one of them, and make sure my aikido does not fall below a certain level of skill. But if I am bestowed with that responsibility I shall treasure it and do my best to fill the big black skirt.
After all, whatever I might be wearing, my objective in practising aikido remains the same. Even though at my present level of skill I have had only the tiniest glimpse of its actual implications, I sense in aikido a magnificent teaching that helps understand and master the flow of energy in any situation, that helps take in whatever hard blows are dealt, and gives the will and ability to hold on to and feel the impact of whatever attaches itself, however leechlike and unwanted; to accept it wholly for what it is, and return it to the world cleansed of its negativity, neutralising its aggressive energy, re-enforcing both one’s own and the aggressor’s right to existence, leaving the flow of energy undisturbed, and thus purifying it. On the horizon I glimpse peace of mind, and a power that consists of harmony.
The grading seems very short. All waza to the right are to be performed as omote, moving to the front, all waza to the left as ura, moving back, or rather around. I forget this at one point but catch on from the next technique. We are asked to do ikkyo, shiho-nage, and irimi-nage. As customary, we finish with seated techniques, or zagi, doing kokyu-nage, the breathing throw. The dojo seems to be breathing with us, a breath of fresh air in a world otherwise jam-packed with exhaust.
After we finish our grading requirements, we close with the same ceremony we have started off with, bowing again to the front, to Shihan, and to each other, then return to sit and watch the rest of the grading in seiza. This gradually takes all sensation out of the lower legs, so that by the time the dan gradings are finished, I am surprised that my numb legs do not buckle as I go through the usual mechanics of standing up and moving around again.
It is interesting watching the dan gradings. How many people can display a similarly high degree of aikido skill, yet their way of moving takes on shapes as different as the people themselves. I get to admire my friend Brown’s aikido from close by, as he is working with his partner directly in front of me. I feel reminded of a large, strong bamboo plant that moves back where a breeze attacks, and springs forth again where a void presents itself. But rather than a docile bamboo in the wind, this plant takes everything and everybody with it that dares to blow its way. I am surprised when he tells me later that he merely served as an uke and was not part of the actual grading.
We finish the session with another twenty minutes of training, and start crowding the changing rooms in order to move from the white world of the dojo into the pink world of the cherry blossoms. Outside under the flowers, a cornucopia of food and drink awaits us. A big, steaming pot of nabe – a brown broth containing chunky ingredients such as cooked daikon radish, eggs, chewy gelatinous triangles made of devil’s tongue starch, or konnyaku, deep-fried congealed fish-paste, and tofu. Trays laden with onigiri seaweed wrapped rice balls, fried meat and vegetables. Tubs full of water filled with treasures of silver and golden beer.
We pour onto chairs and staircases. Shihan appears in the middle of the crowd and welcomes us to this year’s Shosenji hanami party. The celebrations are sent safely on their way with a big “Kampai!”
People gather in groups and couples, hover across the trays like a swarm of locusts and run their tentacles through the treasure chests like an army of octopus-shaped pirates, all the while breathing the intoxicatingly cherry flowered air.
Our friend Itamar has come back from a long holiday at home in Israel with short hair. At first nobody recognises the mysterious young stranger, but when they hear him speak, their eyes double in size, and they say: “Otokomae yan!” (“Wow, you look good!”). As he has now assumed the position of part time priest for Japanese Christian style weddings, he feels that this style suits his solemn responsibilities better than his hippie curls. And on top of his re-styled well-received self, he has brought back with him a whole bag of caramelised pecan nuts which turn out to be a popular flavour in the second, sweet load of epicurean beauty presented under the pink flower canopy.
A smile spreads across my face as I spot Dave who I thought would be busy tonight. But he is here, and we eat and drink together and earn ourselves new buckets full of surprised comments mentioning how well we get on. While this should not be such a surprising component in a couple, it frequently surprises and amazes myself.
Thus, with a refreshed smile on my face, I start passing a note book around to honour something I had always thought to be an ancient Japanese tradition: the writing of poetry under the cherry blossoms. “Would you contribute a haiku?” I ask here and there and everywhere. After three first contributions from Dave,

Sakura ga ii
Mina-san daisuki
Kimochi ii wa!
Translation:

Cherry blossoms are great.
I love you all.
Man, I feel good.

Pooche, our little Chihuaha, who fell in love with the temple’s own Poodle lady Chocolat that night and was experiencing the pain of unrequited passion under the beautiful blossoms,

SO many smells and
SO many bitches in heat
I STILL can’t get laid.

and myself,

Under the blossoms
Beer and food and talk and smiles
Warm and warming hearts

Matsumoto-san takes my book and swiftly pens a smoothly crafted poem.

Mitasarete
Chiriyuku sakura
Yutaka kana

Translation:

Filled with
Falling cherry blossoms
Abundant

After that, I earn mostly hesitation noises at uttering the haiku request I had thought so perfectly natural. People demand thinking time, or politely withdraw. I manage to collect two sweet poems featuring my smiling face:

Aikido
Anna no egao
Sakura kana

Translation:

Is Aikido Anna’s smiling face not really a cherry blossom?

Anna-chan no egao ni soete
Shosenji zakura no utsuru
Nigorizake

Translation:

Along the lines of little Anna’s smile
Shosenji cherry blossoms
Cast their reflections onto the surface of cloudy sake

I get a contribution in Hebrew from Itamar, which, unfortunately I am unable to reproduce here in Latin transcription because embarrassingly I am unable to decipher the language of my ancestors. But he was kind enough to give me an on the spot translation:

Cherry blossoms above,
Pink, diluted with white,
The path is still very long.

And finally, I ask Shihan for a contribution. He thinks for a long time, his eyes directed at the blossoms above him, and then honours the pages of my book with the following contribution:

Kodera no niwa ni
Ranbu no sakura kana

Translation:

In the garden of the old temple,
Cherry blossoms are dancing.

As I read my haiku collection, I notice that the idea of a haiku seems to have a completely different shape in the Japanese mind than it does in the Western one. What we learn first of all about a haiku is that it is a poem that consists of 17 syllables taking the structure 5-7-5 in three lines. Apart from Matsumoto-san’s haiku, none of the haiku I had collected under the Shosenji blossoms corresponded with this structure. All of them, on the other hand, again with the exception of Matsumoto-san’s poem, ended with the syllables “kana”, which in my mind, schooled by the sound of contemporary Japanese, expresses uncertainty, but might have a different meaning in the ancient Japanese Japanese people seem to perceive as typical of haiku poems. It is an interesting new insight into the Japanese perception of a Japanese cultural phenomenon well known abroad, yet obviously pictured by Japanese and Western thinkers in rather divergent ways.
With golden streams of beer and crystal fountains of sake flowing through everybody’s veins, we engage in a bout of bingo, numbers being called out by Noriko, compelling everybody to punch through little squares of cardboard, until the winners are determined and little packages of prizes handed out.
A friendly speech by Yano Sensei finally concludes this year’s celebration of fast dying spring beauty, and people unite in a swift tidying up effort to leave clean this territory where the flowers dance every year, and spirits and bodies dance every Monday, Wednesday, Friday, and Saturday on their everlasting search for harmony and gentleness.