The Invisible World Around the Dojo

The dojo was its own perfect ecosystem.

That ecosystem was my own little world and I was happy.

The axis was the dojo itself, the Japanese restaurant, coffee house, movie theater, pizza shop, and park were all spokes emanating from that axis.

Extensions of the teaching and feelings from the dojo.

My teacher lived somewhere in the immediate area, the exact place unknown to us.

Many tried to figure out where he lived and failed, but it had to be close by as he was always around.

If you were in town at a store, he would just show up.

Stop in and grab a coffee he would be there.

Dive through the village and he would be walking around.

Didn’t matter the time of day.

These informal run-ins would always turn into a chat and hangout session about budo and different ways of movement.

Over time they became more and more priceless.

Many of us would go running in the park off-class hours to build up our endurance and he would somehow know we were there.

My theory on where he lived was in the tallest apartment building in town, once specific one where you could see the main street, the dojo, and the other key places from the top floors.

There was this one time when I was limbering up for a run and looking over he is already running up the trail waving me down.

Running was a transmission of movement as he would share stories about the old days of training, about the master, or something about the sword, and the only way you could her it was to keep up.

You could ask questions, but if you were smart you used the time to listen.

It was on this run that I wondered about the absurdity of what all of us were doing.

All the time, effort, and energy spent both inside and outside the dojo, that price paid, the time sunk in any other endeavor would have had us at elite status years ago.

I asked him why we do this thing of ours.

Budo.

I had to catch myself from not crashing into him as he stopped.

We do it just because.