Overthinking the apocalypse

Some things I have drilled into me from tea ceremony conflict with kendō etiquette and it's always an effort to make sure I'm doing the right one.<!—more—)

1. In general kendō is more gender-neutral than the very strict and foregrounded binary of chanoyu. In chanoyu men bow with their hands by the side, women in front; men sit in seiza with 2 fists of distance between their knees, women with knees together; men rest from seiza with legs crossed, women by leaning on the side. So post-transition I automatically want to do everything the “girl” way, but inside the dōjo girls also do things the “boy” way. I think in general kendō girls have this aura of tomboyishness to them.

2. In tea ceremony suriashi you slide your foot “at the distance of a single sheet of paper”, i.e. just enough so that it makes no noise. In kendō making noise is common.

3. In chanoyu when bowing on the floor you keep your thumb parallel to your fingers. In kendō the thumb extends, forming a triangle. This would be impolite in chanoyu.

4. In Western dōjo at least, kendō people do mokusō for like, 30 seconds to 1 minute, and they're dying of impatience and ankle pain by the end of it. In tea ceremony we sit on seiza 30 minutes or more, in total concentration the entire time. So every time they call mokusō-yame after a minute I'm like, aw but now is when I was starting to get into it, my feet aren't even purple with blocked circulation yet…

5. In kendō whenever you bow you always maintain eye contact—this is part of zanshin training, it's a very important principle that you never lower your guard; not before the fight, not after the fight, not if you think you scored a point, not if you're sure they're dead, whatever the situation you keep an eye on them, literally and metaphorically. The only exception is when bowing to the shintō shrine (so theoretically a god could sneak a battō cut on you… hmm…...). I've noticed my current dōjo, in a German university, does not do the kamiza bow. In tea ceremony to bow to another human while holding eye contact would be considered impolite.

6. In tea ceremony you dodge the hidden ninja lying under the tatami, so they don't stab the “spring of life” pressure point (the palm of your left foot, said to make you bleed to death). In kendō you constantly stomp full force on the face of your fallen enemies, and the spring of life is always raised away from the floor.

(The last two points are mnemonics to internalise never stepping on the tatami borders, to avoid fraying the sewing over time; and always maintaining explosiveness in the kendō leap-stomp, respectively.)