Tutti-Frutti

More or less regenerated after the weekend seminar, however crawling out of the bed next morning was a real challenge. Not to mention taking the stairs down at the university :-D I pondered a bit about the fact that I have been working there for 9 years already. Too long, it is about time to change. We will see. Anyway, this Summer University website design still keeps me very busy but at least I can see its end.

Starting the new academic year in Comparative Religious Philosophy course at "The Gate of Dharma Buddhist College" in September will certainly be a kind of refreshment for me. I've just started chewing myself over the mandatory and recommended readings - they all seem to be very light and easily digestable for me, but probably it is mainly because of my previous buddhist experiences. I never thought it would provide me with such a great advantage in the world of accredited higher education in Hungary. Anyway, both the written and oral entrance examinations are supposed to be sometime around the end of May - I have plenty of time to get prepared by then.

To take good care of not only my mind but also of my body, I visited the dentist. I usually have my teeth checked twice a year but last year I have been a slacker, the last one was a year ago. So now it was really about time for cleaning. We finished quickly, in fact it was a very pleasant one! I am lucky to have good teeth with no plaque, thanks to my good saliva (don't laugh, dentist told it!) but some minor things need to be fixed. They said it was nothing to worry about, so I got appointments for May when they return from their holiday and will do a whitening too (never did it yet, I can hardly imagine myself with a Hollywood-like smile).

Spring...
... yessss! It is here :)) Although with rain and heavy winds, but last weekend for example I was without coat all day, it was so warm... what a relief! At last sun started shining, the streets are noisy from birds chirping. My good old woodpecker friend is diligently knocking the same thick branch every single morning :-) I think he lives in/on that tree. Hearing him working is a very nice start of the day. Local demons were however a bit grumpy today, they blew very strong stormy winds. No problem, I like winds. What is more, the greater the storm is, the more I like it. I can have the best sleep in the wildest storm. :-) hehe.

Well, time to develop the bujinkan link page, too. Sorting out the fake dojos will be a challenge, but there are some people I can ask to help - if they can/want to.

SFR Seminar - the high-light of the week

Just got back from SFR seminar about 2-3 hours ago, broken in body, and more humble, seeing how much I don't know. It was indeed a great, two days long seminar given by Dean.

During these two days we went through very quicky the Shoden, Chuden, and Okuden levels of Jutaijutsu, and some Iaijutsu, just to have a feeling of what SFR is like and what we can expect this year.
I've seen again how important some thing are: firstly on physical level - the importance of foot- and hipwork, the importance of properly taking the balance of the opponent, and the importance of nagare.
Second, on mental level - and Dean talked a lot about this: taking the fight seriously, which does not mean to kill the opponent during training but still "to train as you fight, and then on the street you must fight as you trained". Also he explained how important it is to have nothing on our mind during a technique, just to trust the body and let it do whatever it has an opportunity for. The body will do just the right thing, we just have to let the movement flow (nagare) and we should not pre-plan how we would react - we won't have time to do that in a fight anyway. It was a very intensive seminar at least that's how I experienced from my side, but as I looked around I saw exhausted people everywhere. Probably it was the common look, as in the second half of today's session Dean told us to be warriors not only when the conditions are good, when everything is fine, but also when things are against you and when it is hard to endure both in body and mind, because you are sick or tired, et cetera. It helped a lot when coughing and fever caught me during training. (feeling much better now by the way, thanks for the good wishes ;) )

Dean by the way came with his senior student, Davor, he is also very good. Although I always felt that he was kind of a bit reserved, but this time I think something opened up, or maybe it was me more open towards him - but he helped me a lot too, when I encountered problems with some techniques. He had very good insights and he knew how exactly to explain to me what I did wrong - on a way that I was able to understand and to correct the mistake afterwards. I think it is also a criteria of a good instructor, this ability to communicate things towards the students on their level - on a way that they can understand.

Having the privilege of being the interpreter during the seminar kept me pretty busy, which I kind of like during seminars. I also noticed that although my attention was kind of shared between interpreting and watching the technique itself when Dean did the demo - still it was easier for me to do the technique, after translating. Porbably as I did not concentrate on the vision only - I was kind of relaxed from this point of view, and could better catch the point of the technique.

Having known Dean back since a few years ago from now, we always talk a bit when he visits Budapest and if time allows - it was the same this weekend, too. He asked about the situation in Hungary, which is luckilly quite okay at the moment, I asked for advice regarding my trip to Japan in August, and he was very kind to help me with some essential information about how to plan financially, with food, etc. One sentence of his made me very happy and kind of proud: he told me to tell if they ask in Japan that I was his student (through Attila). I felt really happy that he openly undertakes me as being his student, and I will try my best to earn it.

I think Attila was very proud too, as he and two other guys were awarded Yondan, for their diligent work and efforts they continuously bring for better understanding BBT and for caring so much about their students. I was very, very happy for them, and aspecially for Attila (I am not biased at all, am I? :-) hehe ) He really deserved it. I am happy to be his student.

So this seminar was hard and quintessential, but in the same time a very exhausting one. We went at it hard. Although I am full of bruises and hardly can stand on my feet and they are stiff and hurt - I am still satisfied with everything :-) It was a great one, thank you Dean and Attila!

If you have karma for that, you get sick

Last night I have had the worst night in a long time. I already felt it yesterday at work that something was not quite okay with me, I felt weak and moody and by the time I got home I had fever, too. I did not sleep too much during the night, was caughing like hell, I thougt my back would split open. Woke up at 3 am, walked a bit up and down in the flat, tried to find my place and at last the sweet sleepiness run me down again and fell asleep. I decided no to go to work today. In the morning I saw the doc and he said it was some nasty putrid sore throat caused by some virus - there is an epidemic going on nowadays. Cool.
I've been taking a lot of stuff -like grapefruitseed-oil, propolis, multivitamines, dried sour cherry, etc- against catching anything, but it seems that I had this karma now, I sucked it in. But at least now I can take a lot of garlic :-) hehe I love it, in spite of its "antisocial" kind of nature :-D
Doc told me to stay at home for the rest of the week but I can't afford that, as my colleague is on holiday from Thursday, so I have to be back to work then. Until then I keep curing myself.

I should better get well soon, because there will be a seminar this whole weekend given by the Croatian Shihan (D.R.) and I definitely don't want to miss it. I would not like to be just sitting on the bench, so let's see where that garlic is ...

Oh, and if you drop me a "Get well soon" message that will help a lot too, I am sure! ;-)

Slow Weekend

This weekend is kind of slow. I've been translating all day today, so now it's really time to put things down and have a break. This brochure about the life of the most famous buddhist masters is not easy to translate. It's full of philosophical texts, like stages of realizations on the path and such, so sometimes I need to dig deep into the dictionaries. Quite a professional text from a philosophical point of view, so a professional lector will definitely be needed to finalize this work. I hope to get done with the whole thing by Sunday evening - that would be good.
I am longing for starting some long-time promised graphic work for Kutaki but I should better finish this one before starting something new. Just like in life. There are things that you must finish before starting with new ones - otherwise you just stir the sh*t and create a big mess for yourself.

I also worked a bit on the link site - it looks quite cool (at least in my opinion) with all the nearly 400 categorized links I collected so far. I am just waiting for the provider to activate the page and then I announce it on Kutaki. I hope the guys will find it useful.

While browsing among the pages I came through this site of my favorite Hungarian ensemble, called NOX. They play traditional Hungarian folk music in a modern style. Great lyrics, traditional Hun tunes with Hungarian instruments, and modern style Hungarian dance choreography. I love them. If you wanna check them out, go to the English pages and either visit the "Download" section for videclips, or go to "Albums" to have some foretaste of what they're up to.
NOX by the way is originally the name of a goddess, the Goddess of Night or Shadow. Can't recall it now, which one, I've just recently read it in a book.

Well, time to shut down this good old machine and get ready for tomorrow's final round of translation.

See the bright side

Spring however still does not want to come, d..n it, enough of this slobbery-muddy-snowy gray weather. I wanna see sunshine and feel some warmth. At least the streets are noisy from birds chirping in the mornings - music for my ears. The other day I saw a woodpecker on a tree - he was working diligently. I really like birds in my close environment, wherever they appeare nature revives.

These past days were quite balanced. I've skimmed through the books I received and also found an old book (issued in 1946) on one of the shelves about Magic. I thought it was full of shallow knowledge about all these philosophical stuff, but reading more into the book, it seems that the author was quite an expert on this field and had a deeper knowledge of eastern philosphies, too. So luckilly it was not just a New Age turmix.

Yesterday's training was sobering. I was late with about 5-10 minutes due to work, so by the time I enetered the dojo they have been doing stretching and some light strengthening. I joined them and after about 5-10 minutes A. ordered me and two other guys to do 3x20 pushups each, completely from out of the blue. I did not know why I had to do that, but I did not really care either. A. never wanted me to do anything without a good reason, so it was natural to do it then. I still don't know why I had to do the pushups and did not ask him later on either, I just took it as a part of the training.
The rest of the training (for me at least) went by with realizing how much I sucked in using kukan and kuzushi control. I was paired up with Dani, a 2 meters tall guy, with long arms. While working on Sangpo no Kata, A. wanted us to realize the importance of the correct kamae and kuzushi work. Now I felt it even more that almost all depends on these two. The way I usually used kamae and kuzushi, was not sufficient against this guy. He could easily reach me, as I did not take his balance correctly. It took quite a time to notice what I did wrong and I modified things accordingly. Luckilly the technique started to live. More or less.
When A. told me to train with Dani I was thinking "Oh, God, why are you doing it to me, the smallest person in the dojo? I will just be agonizing with such a big opponent." But by the end of the training I was happy that things happened this way, as I noticed a mistake that probably would not have come to light for a long time with "normal" sized opponents.
Dani was a bit frustrated at the first part of the training, as I he seemingly was not used to being hit or grabbed realistically. But a friendly stroke on the aching part did its job and he slacked out a bit. My secret method to make guys go melt... :-)) I had let him practice a bit more as he had distance and kamae problems due to the length of his feet. He managed to sort it out finally and was quite happy by the end of the training. He said at the end that he enjoyed training with me very much as I was supportive and he learnt a lot. It made me ponder: a few years ago everyone tried to avoid training with me, and recently everyone likes it. Strange. Anyhow it felt good of course and now I am floating 2 cm's above the ground .... I hope I won't come mucker :-) hehehe

Today no work YESS!!! Due to a Hungarian national holiday on the memory of a revolution in 1848. Many people died. But many more live today in freedom. Someone always has to pay the price, we should not forget about it.
I am going to celebrate it on a cultured way... I am taking mom out to theathre; we'll see "My Fair Lady" - the musical. I love that piece. It will be strange tho to go to theatre and having the privilege of sittig there as a viewer and not working on the stage :-)
Nice evening to come, time to put on my suit and do my hair...

Back from the frosty East

Soooo, I've just returned from Debrecen a day ago. It was quite a ride.

I left on Monday afternoon, after half a day in my office. I had to make sure things would go well while I'm away for the rest of the week. I caught the 4pm train from Eastern Railway Station and was off to Deberecen.
All along the nearly 3 hours long trip I saw huge inland inundation everywhere - we had too much snow this winter so probably we must prepare for huge floods, and they also warned for that in the news. And it will cause a failure of crop too, which won't do any good to the Hungarian agriculture sector this year. They said this spring we can expect the biggest flood in a long time. Cool.
Anyway, arrived to my grandparents in the evening, they were quite happy to see me. We had dinner, talked a bit and then I'd hit the bed quite early as I was almost dead from tiredness.

Next day bro came with his wife and drove us to a neighbour town to the hospital where my sister was with her newborn baby. Both she and the baby was okay. The nurses allowed us to see the baby only from behind a glass wall - noone was allowed to enter that part of the maternity ward. Well, knowing that, I tried to find out "where that thick cigarette smoke came from?!" Yes, from inside. The nurses at the new-born ward were smoking like a chimney. I left before saying something really rude...

As I was well-prepared and had my training gear in my backsack, I went to training after we returned to Debrecen. The guys did not know that I was coming -except for the instructor- so it was a real surprise for them. The instructor (same guy I was training with during the SFR seminar this January) was very nice, introduced me to those who did not know me yet and the training started up. He used me to demonstrate more ass-kicking techniques which required good ukemi and adaptation skilss from the uke, so I felt really honoured to be chosen. He even asked me to show some things to the guys at the end of the training. I was a bit reluctant, I rather wanted to remain the "gray mouse" but he said some of the guys were whinning too much about not being able to do this or that, and said that I could be a good example for that effectiveness does not depend on the size or strength (in BBT at least :-D ). So I showed them a gaeshi for Nichi Gekki and some escapes from grabs. We were all green and blue by the end of the training but the guys were very enthusiastic. It's always like that when I visit them - I love training with these guys :-). Old times rock :-) Bro came again to pick me up at the end of the training and we drove home.

The rest of my stay in Debrecen went by with visiting dad in a nearby village, and also giving a hand to grandma in the kitchen and helping grandpa fixing the roof and also installing a new parabola antenna.

I returned to Budapest on Thursday, and just after my train drew into Eastern Railway Station, I went to mom to collect my weapons and I was off for training.
Training that evening went more or less well, considering how dead-tired I was, but I definitely had to put myself together by the end of the training to not collapse from tiredness. The thought of skipping the second part of the training tempted me, but my curiosity was stronger. I wanted to see how I do on the tatami when I am completely exhausted. Well, it was not that bad, but it was definitely far from what I would call a "good job".
The end of the training hit me with an unexpected but actually very nice surprise - I got a flower and some bonbons from the guys on the occassion of International Women's Day. I never thought they would remember that. The fact that I can be taken off my feet with a flower and that I did not get one from anybody else did its job. I was really touched. So the torturous training had a good ending on Thursday.

Returning home I gladly noticed that the books I ordered from one of the publisher companies arrived meanwhile, so now I can at least get some insight into some interesting mysticism-related stuff. It's been quite hard to find some reliable source of information in Hungarian, so I hope to get some idea about these things now.

I think I'll also try to kind of recharge myself for next week's hassle. Back to coding again. Oh, noooo!

Crazy weekend

This weekend did not allow too much sleep again.

The hen-party at my colleague went by very calmly, we had a great Indian-style dinner and talked a lot about our current things. She's pretty cool, kind of a fresh-personality with a healthy approach to things. Although we planned to get drunk, it somehow just did not happen, talked too much and drunk too little :-D I wonder if I will ever be able to drink enough to get drunk? I've tried so many times but never managed to get to that point yet. I still keep hoping :) Anyway, just to give you some idea of what we had for dinner, click on the picsto enlarge them:

To crown the evening, we watched The Last Samurai, one of our common favourites, in English. I slept at her place but in the morning I woke up with a strange feeling: some flue was tickling my nose. Opening my eyes I saw that her black cat was standing on the bed right at my head and rubbed her side against my face. In spite of the early hour, it made me smile :)

After the light breakfast I was off to the Buddhist community to make all the 300 doughnuts they ordered.

There was a crowd there already as the Lama gave public teaching on that day, so while the audience was listening to him I was working in the kitchen pugging hard the raw pastry for the doughnut. Btw it is a good exercise to strengthen your hands, forearms, your shoulders and ab, so guys, come on, kitchen is waiting for you! :-) Anyway, I tried to catch some of the teachings Lama Chopel gave, but I completely gave up when it got to frying the doughnuts. At the end there were 380 pieces, and it took me 5 hours to make it all. I could not stand using my creativity and create something funny from the leftover of the raw pastry. Can you recognize what it is? :-))) And yeah, I fried it too and had it with one bite :-D And yes, you can enlarge it with only one click!! huh! :)

After finishing with the doughnuts I joined a Mahakala ceremony (one of the Dharma Protectors) and then headed over to mom's place.
She was supposed to move to another flat on Sunday and she had no other help but me. So next morning I started moving out everything from the flat into the van, finished with that in about 2 hours and drove to the new place. There was quite a problematic situation there, thanks to mom's "great" organizing ability, so the whole moving to the new place had to be cancelled. Driving back again to the previous flat and carrying everything up again to the 7th floor. I guess I don't have to mention that the best thing was carrying the washing machine with no help. I think I don't need to eat more spinach just to get as big and strong forearms as Popeye had - carrying furniture and washing machines will do the job, too.

Of course I missed the Lunar New Year's celebration, as we finished around 6 pm. Due to the unsuccessful moving and also that I told her to organize it much better next time, mom felt quite down - so to finish that hard day at least with something pleasant, I took her out for dinner - well it was about time as that was the first bite of food we had that day.

Meanwhile got a phonecall from my sister that her child was born, so today I hop on the train and go to Debrecen to visit her and help in the first few days.
I also have my training gear here with me as I am planning join my old dojo for tomorrow's training there. Kind of surprise for them and some nostalgy for me :)

Ahh, this weekend has been so hectic!

I just would like to know two things:

• I still don't know where is the root of the energy that I can turn into helping all the people around me? Sometimes even I am curious how I can go on and on and on without getting exhausted and collapsing.
• Who will help *me* when I need some help? Hmm... probably me. I can't really count on anyone. But it's a good opportunity to work on being my own refuge - a refuge for myself. It's not easy tho, and sometimes it would be good to have a little support.
  

All sorts of things...

It's strange to notice but since the test was over, things chilled down around me. Training seems to go pretty well again, and I can also work fairly easily with any uke - it seems at least. I am trying to see from another point of view what my instructor does - to catch the feeling of the movement, rather than worrying too much about what technique he does. I noticed that when I focus too hard on the technique itself, I screw up kamae or distance or both and of course I can't control the situation. But if I let all the concentration and focusing go and just "enjoy and play" with the feeling of the movement, I seem to apply just the right kamae, and I seem to be able to improvise and work out a certain technique much more easily. Pretty much similar to Shiné meditation. Just let everything go, let things happen, and don't struggle. Which does not mean that you let the situation control you - rather that you adapt to it, and this way there is no confrontation, there are no opposite energies and intentions. Things don't bother you anymore.

As a preparation for the trip in August, the other day I went to Mountex to get a new backpack, a belt-bag and some trecking sandals for the summer. They have quite a cool stuff, good quality, but the price is not friendly at all. Anyway... checking out other trecker shops in the city, I have to accept that I'll have to pay the price of quality stuff. Even the brogue I bought from them served very well for some 4 years - a 7-week-long Himalayas-tour with 1.5 weeks of random climbing included.
I have also heard that they have a Boulder Club just next to the shop, and as I always wanted to try out this kind of climbing, too, I went there to check how the place looks like. There were fairly many people inside. I liked it so I will go back and try it out when I'll have some free time - probably next week. I try to bring the girls from training with me - they are always interested in such "feminine" activities :-)

But until then I try to survive... I've been terribly busy coding a new SUN site and I am quite tired of it already but I must replace the old one with at least the basic pages of this new one by the end of this week - which makes the whole thing quite a challenge. Too bad, my brain has almost burnt out already and the upcoming Friday night's "hen-party" won't do any good to it. My colleague was complaining about that I have never visited her yet, so we agreed to go wild together this Friday at her place. I think I will bring some really hard wine. We are going to cook some exotic food together and will have a crazy feast of all sorts of veggies :-).

And just to make the whole thing even more interesting, I'll have to be at the other end of the city next morning as the Buddhist community asked me to make 300!!! doughnuts for the Sunday's Lunar New Year celebration. I wonder if it will fit the hangover I'll have from Friday night's alcohol-treatment. :-) I have the feeling that I'll have a hard day ...

So now I try to catch up on some sleep in advance and see if I can stay alive until Monday... Poor me... I hope you feel pity for me! :-)