First Shot

I'd been in the dojo learning the kihontai (basics) of standing, walking, bowing, sitting, and kneeling for several months when Kosaka Sensei brought a bow, glove, and arrow and handed them to me. I wasn't quite sure what he wanted me to do, so I hesitated. He reached back over and took them away saying, "Well, maybe next week." But it wasn't next week; it was several weeks, maybe even a couple of months before he handed them to me again. I realized that day, that while I practiced the kihontai I was supposed to be 'stealing' what the others were doing 'through the corner of my eyes'. It could not have been direct learning, since they said little; nor by watching directly, because when I tired of my own practice and tried to watch directly Kosaka Sensei would see me and say, "It's time for tea, please get the tea ready." But since the day he handed them to me I have been stealing his teaching through the corner of my eye. What a wonderful perspective it is. When next he handed me the bow, glove, and arrow I doned the glove picked up the bow and arrow and shot my first arrow into the makiwara. Maybe over two years since I started the practice with Okubo Sensei, and So many years ago now. To this day I still shoot the makiwara almost everyday, and practice Kihontai;

I continue to steal the workings of the world from the corner of my eye. Some say I may even have eyes in the back of my head, not a bad skill to have either. I see the 'invisible' target back there at 28 meters so clearly now, and can taste the students shot behind me. "Listen with our eyes, and see with our ears" Kosaka Sensei tells us; what wonderful perspective this is too. What a wonderful way to see the world.