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On the weekend of February 8th I took part in a Shugyo training retreat on Kurama Mountain here in Kyoto, Japan. Shugyo is a kind of ascetic training that became popular as a form of martial practice during the sixteenth century, although its history goes back further than that. It involves rigorous physical training combined with the removal of the distractions (and comforts) of everyday life. A small group of members from my dojo and another affiliated dojo travelled
to Kurama Temple to spend a night with
the monks there and to train. That aside, Kurama is also a place with a long history of shugyo training,
and is purportedly an area that was used by many warriors-in-training
beginning over 900 years ago. It was this aspect, combined with the religious
We headed for the mountains after Saturday's usual Aikido practice and
after hiking up the mountain we settled into the large tatami rooms inside
the temple where we would be staying. It was quite an experience getting
changed into our uniforms in a room that was so cold that you could see
your breath. We ate dinner in a dining hall in one of the lower levels of the temple
(which seemed to have a million lower levels underneath the small above-ground
building). The dinner was eaten in total silence, and was presided over
by one of the head monks in the temple. The food was all typical vegetarian
Buddhist Although the first evening did include a few hours of training, it was largely devoted to orienting ourselves in the temple and preparing ourselves for the day ahead (which was to start at five a.m., no less). We slept in two large tatami rooms on simple futon mats which we spread around a small kerosene heater.
Before proceeding with our sword practice we fanned out in a large circle
in the grove and prepared ourselves with breathing practice as Igo-sensei
Sword practice focused more on the release
of energy than on the sword itself, and something
about the surroundings made it easy to concentrate
everything into each sword stroke. Again, it
was pretty surreal hearing our shouts echoing
through the mountains as we followed the sensei's
exhortations to 'let out the ki'. From there we had to hurry back to the temple for the morning worship with the monks. To the left is a picture inside the worship area itself, with the fiercesome statue of the sun god looming in the darkness in the middle. This ceremony was truly an incredible event to have been able to take part in. The head monk, whose back was to us, was enveloped in a cloud of incense smoke that made it seem as if his body was burning as he chanted, and the sound of the drums resonating in the predawn stillness of the mountain puncuated the deep, metred chants of the monks.
That's not to say that it was all roses. We
had to sit in formal Japanese style (seiza)
on the hardwood floors for what seemed like
an eternity. While at first, in the magic of
the ceremony, I didn't notice that my feet were
slowly going to sleep. It was once the ceremony
ended that I noticed the pain in my lower extremities,
but to my alarm, nobody was moving. We had a
monk sitting directly behind us, so it really
seemed as if movement would be a very bad idea.
The priestess of the Temple came back in, and
to my dismay began giving a lecture on training.
As time wore on, I noticed that the guy sitting
in front of me looked like he was about to keel
over, and I myself As we emerged from the darkness of the temple we saw that dawn had finally come, and with it a magnificent view of the mountains around us. And so began the next day of training.
The day was spent mostly - to my alarm - doing Aikido practice and not, as I had thought, more sword practice. The reason that I found this troubling is because Aikido - for those of you who don't know - involves throwing people. The necessary corollory of this, of course, is that it also involves a lot of falling. Funny, I thought, I don't remember seeing any mats... Yes, most of the rest of the day was spent being thrown on a hardwood floor. Any parts that didn't involve that were spent sitting in formal Japanese style again on the same very hardwood floors. The combination was excrutiating, especially for someone as bony as me (having as little natural padding as can be had without starving oneself). When finally, late that afternoon, we left the temple to head down the mountain my mind became focused on one thing only: heading without delay to the onsen to steam the cold and bruises out of my body. |