Suddenly Spider & Reflections on Kata and Evening Activities

Having a spider appear crawling on your cheek, when you go to brush your teeth is rather disconcerting, to say the least.

An account of true events and a rather long entry:

It was about 10-12mm long, black, with yellow stripes on its legs. I don't know what type it is; don't know how to identify spiders. How do I know this? Well, after brushing it off my cheek, it got into my damp hair (I'd just showered), so I had to shake it out.

Being Buddhist, I try not to kill anything if I can help it; although I have no immediate plans to turn vegetarian. We have a special, labelled "bug box" in the laundry for these sorts of occasions.

As you might surmise, I am distressingly calm about the incident. I didn't even notice that my heartbeat sped up any. To be honest, I don't mind insects and arachnids. I also have rather a fondness for snakes. I draw the line at cockroaches though. Once, I spent 10 minutes staring one down one night as I pondered what to with about it. For all that I dislike them though, they are rather interesting.

This interlude ended an evening of quite enjoyable activities.

Yesterday's training session was a lesson in kata. We learnt and practiced katas 1-3. I found the experience intense and mentally quite draining. It was slightly marred by my partner, who doesn't come to many training sessions and who kept looking around while executing the sets. I kept waiting for the moves before mine, so I can do what I was supposed to do as shidachi. He often forgot and kept looking around distractedly, maybe to see what other people were doing? Just not confident enough I suppose. I remember when I first started kendo, I was quite shy (which anyone who knows me will probably find a bit unbelievable, not being the shyest person around), but these days, I'm working on trying to make my mistakes with confidence, if that makes any sense at all. Not that my execution was that good. I remember everything in my head, but I forget steps when doing them in sequence. It's probably a bit weird to be doing kata with a shinai instead of a bokken too.

I want to read more about kendo in general and kata in particular. It would be good to gain a deeper understanding of it all. Considering that I originally took up kendo to gain self-discipline, more in-depth study can do no harm. Don't know that discipline is something I have control over as of yet though.

After training, we dined at a Japanese restaurant, before repairing to a cafe that rents out boardgames. We played an amusing and illuminating game of Pictionary (what Pictionary game is not amusing?). We lolled about for a bit before deciding to go to K (actually, it was more like 'follow the leader'), after which we loitered for a while in and outside of Galaxy World before heading home.

I actually came across a few people I know in the city last night. One whom I stopped to chat with (our society's new President), the other who tapped me on the shoulder (an old volunteer friend). It used to be that I could never go to our local shopping centre without seeing someone I knew. Now, it's almost like that whenever I go out to the city for any extended amount of time.

A person's world just keeps expanding. It's a wonder that one mind can hold it all.