Snowing...

I have been pretty much under the snow recently...
The deadline for submitting two of my home assignments is mercilessly approaching - it is December 5. And I am ready only with one so far - with the religious art history one. I still have to compile the other one about the Kosher rules of Jewish traditions and collecting the raw material is the hardest part of the whole thing because of the lack of time. Anyway, this or that way, but I will make it.

It turned out that my exams at the end of the semester will be exactly on the weekend when Sheila will hold a seminar at Thomas' dojo in Sweden. And which I was going to attend. No problem. I am going to attend it for sure. I talked to some of my profs and they agreed that I take the exams earlier so that I can go to the seminar.

Probably Csabi comes with me - btw, he returned to BBT, it seems :-) He had quit training more than 10 years ago but now he wants to do it again - purely for the recreational side of it. He tried to return to the MA world via aikido and later on wia taichi, but after a certain point both these required getting involved in the spiritual side of the given art. And Csabi already has his own path - the Dharma. So he wants to practice something which helps him keeping his body fresh and healthy but without being forced into putting on another spiritual paths. We will see for how long he will be able to preserve this attitude. I mean, after a while you recognize that you get so deeply involved in it, head over heels, that it infiltrates your everyday life, your decisions, the way you treat others, the way you treat yourself and just the way you exist in your environment will be affected by this "Art". So I am curious :-)

Btw, my group still keeps going :-) hehe unbelievable :-) There are not so many guys in there but at least I can pay a lot more attention to each of them. Sometimes there are 6-7, sometimes 2-3, so it is quite a quiet group. There are two tall guys in the group one of whom is pretty strong, which I am glad for, because working on him is a challenge for me too. When I show them a technique I show it on each of them so that they feel how it feels, how it works, and it is good for me too, because I can polish my movements according to the different bodies.

So far they have been "introduced to" the gogyo, sabaki, kamae no kata and some omote and ura gyaku versions. I can say that they are doing pretty well (imvho).
Our only two concerns are: 1) the floor is extremely slippery as we train in a classroom where the floor is an old wooden one and no matter whether if you wear socks or shoes or jika tabi or if you are barefoot - you simply cannot move from a deep ichimonji without slipping away. I want to make sure they learn a low ichimonji as a start because they tend to forget about it during the techniques. But it is a challenge for me too on that floor, you need to hold your feet quite steady and it requires a lot of hipwork to not let your feet slip apart. Not to mention moving from it. So it is not easy.

The other prob is that we do not have tatami or such, so ukemi is a real pain in the ass for them - literally speaking.
A few weeks ago I saw a huge pile of tatami mats in one of the classrooms and managed to find out that it belogns to an aikido group who trains there every other day. I talked to their instructor to ask whether we could be allowed to use the tatami and if yes, what did he want in return. He told me to join his next training, and by that time he will find out the answer. OK. I showed up, joined them. Finally he proposed such a price (he said it was a friendly one) that I said "OK, let's return to it in January-February if I will have more people". I am simply not able to product this amount of money from the group and I do not want the guys to pay more - it would be too much for them.

So yesterday we started to study the ukemi. Boy they have been suffering like hell with their pointy hipbones and knees :-)
I try to show them some fun techniques which can lead them to catch what the proper movement during ukemi is like. One thing is sure - if they learn to roll properly here, they will be able to roll properly almost everywhere :-)

So now I am busy with writing my essays and trying to complete all of them within the deadline so I am not really able to go to Istvan's trainings this month. Probably December will be the same... :-( Shame :-(

Summary of a busy life

It's been since quite a while ago when I could l last time update my blog. My life took a pretty busy turn, yeah even busier than it's been before.

College

School takes a great amount of my free time - with making all the reading material and mp3's available online ('cos we record all lectures and seminars in the college and share it online among ourselves so that we can prepare for the exams by listening to the lectures again).
In addition, 7 (seven) assignments are due by the beginning of December which is pretty much a challenge considering that I spend 11-12 hours a day with work and commuting. So there is not too much time for collecting data from the net or even to read books. Luckilly all of them can be about some freely chosen topic. 3 assignments should be handed in for Religious Art History - probably I'll write one about the representation of the Bodhisattvas on Tibetan style paintings, one will be about introducing the Tibetan religious instruments, and dunno yet what the third one will be about. 3 assignments should be for Religious History - one about Jewish traditions, one about the Islam (we have not even discussed this subject yet), and the third one must be about either of these two. I think my topic regarding the Islam will be about the regulations of covering the muslim women, and I need to find two more topics for the other two. And the last assignment must be about the Religious History of India, so I chose introducing some of the Hindu Goddesses. I luckilly do not have to write assignment for the Pali Kanon course, as I volunteered to analyze one of the ancient sutras - the longest one, which describes the Buddha's passing away to the Parinirvana. I made it last week and at the end the prof said he cannot add anything to my analysis as it was so perfect :-) hehe - what a luck now, too, that I am quite familiar with the Buddhist teachings :-) hehe

All in all I pretty much enjoy this college, maybe because my everyday life is completely full of what they teach. I see some of my classmates striving a lot to try to understand and memorize what we learn and then I realize how lucky I am being someone who follows the traditional stream of Tibetan Buddhism. Things that are so natural for me, that are naturally part of my life are not so evident for others.


Training

Many things happened in the past one month.
The first Hungarian Buyukai was held on October 21-22 in Debrecen, which is my hometown. I was invited as a co-instructor with the host of the Buyukai in Debrecen, with my ex-instructor and with the guy I currently train at in Budapest, and with a fifth guy from Salgotarjan (another city in Hungary).
Normally I think I would have been hesitant to accept such an invitation from any Hungarian dojos but since it was my old-old dojo (which practically I funded with my very first instructor about 16 years ago) andmy alltime friends from there, of course I could not say "no". Would you say "no" if your friends in Budo would ask you "please share your views with us".
It was especially interesting to "teach" together with my ex-instructor (with whom btw I am still in a very good relationship, I can say). Also, I am planning to approach him and ask ifwe could meet sometimes and he would teach me or practice with me.

Anyway, this weekend we went through some basics as well as studying some KSDR katas. I started both days with some extra ukemi practice, delicacies which I've brought from Japan, and I was glad to see that I could make it a challenge even for my co-teaching Buyus :)
Then we hopped over to some basics, Gogyo no Kata and Goho no Kata on the first day. I showed a "plain" version of each and then the others threw in their own perception.
On the second day we took some techniques from the KSDR ryu's shoden, chuden and okuden levels and started some kind of physical "brainstorming" over those :)
I personally enjoyed this seminar very much and have learnt a lot from the other four guys. I think it was a big challenge for the five "instructors" because all the five of us represented a completely different approach, point of view and style (given that all of us belong to a different shihan with different styles of movement - ok, at the moment I'm on kind of a halfway to belong to someone).
So it was a challenege for us to accept the other's method, other approaches and to try to find the common points instead of seeing the differences.
All in all, the seminar was a great success, at least it seems so by hearing about the feedbacks. I hope it will be repeated next year. If you want to see the photos, CLICK HERE.


Another news regarding the training is that now a group started up in the College where I study at.
There were a few guys who were interested in training so I've set up a group. We made a demo in the College with Istvan's group to see if there are others as well and now it seems that a small group started trainig.
I hold the trainings on Mondays and Wednesdays right after work - in most of the Budapest dojos there is no training on these days, so those for whom the Tuesdays Thursdays are not good can come to me if they want to train.
I have put the group on a probation period until about January. If the "survive" and endure, I will keep the group and we will start officially as a dojo - until then they can decide what they want :)
Beside holding trainings I still go to Istvan once a week to learn. I think it is not healthy for me to only pass on what I currently now - I have to continuously extend and polish my knowledge as much as possible.
Also, if I want to grow into the level where I am supposed to be, I need to learn how to pass on what I know. So I take it as an opportunity to approach my own training from another direction as well.


Work

And YESSS!!! I am off from the Computer Center! :) Although I feel a bit down because of this - I've been working there for almost 10 years and I've grown to my boss pretty much. Despite his emotional personality he has been the best boss I have ever had, and he always helped me when I needed help in my private life.
It will be worse without him but it will definitely be less hectic too.
Recently I have had such a stressfull life at work because of working for two units in 4-4 hours, that I could never complete my tasks at either places and had to do a lot of overtime from home.
Now I am hoping to work in a less stressfull environment, so hopefully it is for the better.
I've sent around a "farewell" email in the uni saying that I am not leaving the uni just relocating to another unit, but it's been nice to work with everyone, badabadaba....
I was very surprised when I started receiving dosens of emails wishing me best of luck and saying how much they feel sorry over my leaving. Even a lot of students visited me in my office saying goodbye and thanking me everything (they said so - I did not think I've done anything extraordinary..., anyway). So at the end I was the most surprised. Especially when the Biggest Boss (the former Minister of Finance of Hungary) sent me an email with compliments and best wishes, etc... WOW! I was amazed! I did not think they even knew my name, at least they did not express it on any way (especially not with financial methods :)) hehe ), and now... wow!

So hopefully now my life will start taking a less hectic path...
Or maybe I am wrong again... :) hehe