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Connecting with the past
The Vietnamese culture has an understanding that as individual human beings without any connection to others we feel something akin to the "hungry ghost"; an entity that, no matter what it's consuming, can never be satisfied. That is the reason in traditional homes an ancestral altar is made and family photos of the deceased are placed there in memory.
On all important life transition decisions, incense and prayer is offered to the family altar. It is this connection that provides the person with a sense of support from those that have been close at one time, a person who has shared love with them before. I think one reason in our karate path we train so diligently to imitate our sensei so critically is to establish such a connection that we are honing in our ability to connect with someone in a more efficient manner (no beating around the bush, so to speak).
Therefore when I first met Grandmaster I had a period of about six months to make a strong enough connection that I could "pass" him, or his spirit, onto my students in my generation of teaching. All previous training paid off for me in this case. Giving my full devotion to my first sensei under whatever the circumstance, allowed me to walk in and meet Grandmaster on a much stronger foundation. As I have mentioned in keiko, if a Matsubayashi practitioner whom I have never met bows into the dojo, I feel instinctually I can gaze upon them and sense whether they have executed fukyugata ichi 1000, to 5000 times — it simply radiates off their skin. I was asked last night how could that be possible? I replied "you try doing a kata for 16 years every week without breaks...and see how familiar you feel about it".
I saw on TV in Japan, a sushi chef .with a big pot of sticky rice. He was making nigiri... with one "dig" he would grab into the pot of rice, roll it in his hand placing the fish on top. The Japanese media, having a good time, started counting how many grains of rice were in his balls of rice...and each time it was either 99 grains or 100 grains. How could he perform such a feat? Repetition and focus. It's the same with kata.
I can remember walking to the Honbu every day, most often seven hours a day, and zazen on Sundays with Grandmaster. It got to the point that every inch of my physical body rebelled against wanting to get up and go to the dojo. I could not fathom why, I thought perhaps it was the mundanity of it, that it was the ONLY thing I was doing in Okinawa with no other life, or that the pressures of being a foreigner made it tough (that was a time when American base men had behaved so poorly old ladies would clear a distance around me on the sidewalks), or maybe the weather, so humid my gi was soaking wet after only ten minutes of zazen, who can say? But the only thing I could do was wake up, immediately turn off my brain (which was screaming...no no no!) and start to walk. I would look down watching my legs...placing themselves rhythmically, seeing my feet exchanging places propelling me forward. The only comforting thought occasionally was "you are not doing this for you...this opportunity is not for you...it's for the students you will have...next year, the next five years, the next fifty years...it's so although they didn't meet him...they will through you...it's for them".
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Upon leaving I had to go to Grandmaster's apartment/house and go inside, find his altar and pay my good-byes, then once again go to the Honbu and pay my good-byes to his altar there too. MY POINT? By the time I went through all this I was like "OK OK I Give up!!! You are still here...OK Grandmaster? I get the point." After made to do these practices, I was confused on leaving Okinawa...was he alive or dead? It felt like he was still alive to me...
So coming back to the States, I had a student that had made his quick first million and donated a stupendous new dojo floor. The floor builder, a mutual friend of us all, and very non-karate related...though very devoted to building a good floor, would call me in to help him whenever I was sneaking by to go to my little home past the dojo. Finally I told him "hey you know Grandmaster's watching you right?" (the photo of Grandmaster was just about the only thing left in dojo. We had to clear it all out to build the floor, and I was not about to take that out. All other photos were removed however). He just chuckled as if to say to himself "well you can certainly call that devotion", but with a kind skepticism reserved. Nearing the end of completion, he turned to me randomly and said "well... do you think he is pleased?" I was the one to be totally shocked....never expecting him to "come around" so to speak, and I said "oh yes....oh yes...very".
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Today I tell my adult deishi, "you know... even as we are working out... somewhere... another Matsubayashi dojo is doing the same, your brothers and sisters and sweating just as much as you, and that you have family in Okinawa, who speak the same language as you... kata". And when my kid deishi bow out, I will mutter to them... "look at Grandmaster when you bow out... OK?" Reason being, in all his heart he wanted one thing for us: to excel as human beings.
Many have bowed into the dojo over the years of me teaching...searching here, searching there, mostly passing by...to say hi, to say..keep my spirit here..OK? Some go to every dojo in town, picking up tricks and fancies, but they seem to me to be that "hungry ghost". There is water in any spot you choose, but you can not dig a little and get disparaged, run a few steps, dig again, patterning a structure that never "gives back". You have to stick to your spot and dig, dig, dig, and I promise you will hit water....
Lara Wendy Preston
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