Class always started with the basics.
The fundamental sword postures.
Stand relaxed, take a natural breath when ready shift into the first posture.
Hold it for a while and when you are ready shift to the next posture and complete the set.
As the class moved through the postures I was stuck on one of them, just standing there and not moving on.
I was left alone for a few moments before the teacher came over to check on me, pausing to see if I would self-correct.
When I didn’t, he asked if everything was OK?
It was and I continued on and caught up with the set.
The rest of the class continued on as normal, but my mind was elsewhere.
Distracted.
Something happened in that moment when I stepped back into the sword posture. Everything seemed to align and the feeling of the sword in my hand just vanished.
I was just standing there.
I could have been standing anywhere.
We were practicing outside in the park under the rising moon, and I was just there looking at one of the trees on the other side of the field.
The rest of the class was going through a mental checklist of what was different?
I wasn’t using a different training sword.
Maybe I finally hit the magic number of times going into the posture?
Maybe this time I wasn’t thinking about doing the posture?
Maybe it was my new shoes?
Maybe because it was their birthday today and I was subconscious thinking about it?
Or maybe it was nothing at all.
This was one of those rare moments in budo, a moment that happens every few years, out of the blue where the simplicity of it catches you off guard, leaves you speechless, a moment you now spend the rest of your life trying to experience again in its beauty and simplicity.
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