Chalk and Cheese

Life in Sydney seems to revolve around the twin poles of Work and Dojo.  Work provides us with the means to live, travel and buy stuff for our other “Life”, the Farm.

Last weekend saw the back of our Nissan Navarra laden with 25kg bags of chicken poo, mulch, gypsum and other minerals, disappearing up the F3.  The Middle Paddock was screaming out for work.  Well, in all honesty the middle paddock would quite comfortably look after itself, but if we wanted a decent garlic crop next year then we’d have to prepare months in advance. 

We both love garlic but finding succulent, tasty garlic in Australaia is hard.  It’s a seasonal crop and really only available as an overpriced organic product from about November though to about May.  Garlic doesn’t store any longer: it throws up shoots and wants to grow.  Eat it, plant it or lose it.  That’s garlic for you.  And if you want to enjoy garlic outside these months then be prepared to eat cheap bland Chinese stuff or marginally better Mexican or Spanish offerings.   

If I take a few years worth of steps backwards I can put this into context.  On the face of it garlic isn't a complicated crop to grow.  Plant it in about March and it’ll pop its head up a few weeks later and be ready by December.  Growing garlic is easy.  Growing good garlic is labour intensive and a great deal more comlicated.  For the last five years we’ve found this out the hard way and been gradually moving from the laissez-faire extreme (put it in unprepared ground and leave it to take care of itself) towards an almost full-blown management strategy for next year.

• 2006/07 (and still living in the City).  We’d bought enough Australian garlic cloves from a good source to populate a few dozen polystyrene boxes.  Results.  Small, stunted leaves, burned edges and miniscule cloves.  The pleasure of eating our own pungent garlic was countered by the hard work in kitchen preparation.  

• 2007/08.  Moved out of Sydney into semi-retirement (or so we thought).  Planted the offspring of year 1 into the Far Paddock.  Little bit of soil cultivation in a corner of the Far Paddock but no real husbandry.  Results.  Bigger garlic but still not something I’d say was exceptional.  Certainly not something commercially promising yet.


• 2008/09  Sydney work beckoned me back for “three months” (!!!!) so very, very minimal preparation carried out for a March planting.  The whole crop from year 2 was planted into the middle paddock with rock hard ground.  The year was an utter, unmitigated disaster with heaps of smaller cloves than even Year 1.  Boy we were angry with my work.




2009 offering.  The rotary hoe was purchased too late.



• 2009/10   Took some time off work and prepared 2 x 40 metre beds.  Planted in soft soil and, in a fit of madness (in retrospect) decided to groundcover with clover.  Clover was to chosen to help provide natural Nitrogen for the garlic but eventually became so competitive the garlic was strangled.  I’d say we lost over half our crop, what with the competitive clover and torrential rain.  The survivors were only moderate in size. 





Before the clover sprouted....





....and after it took over




• 2010/11.  90% of Year 4 stock was planed in raised beds, dosed with a healthy amount of chicken poo and with no clover!  There’s a month and a bit to go before harvest but all indications show our garlic will be much better than the previous years.  We’ve soil and leaf samples laboratory analysed, know the deficiencies and have tried to counter these before the bulbs are committed.  We’ve also begun the process of preparing beds for next year based on this information.  Year 6 on our journey of experimentation will have about a quarter of an acre of garlic with enough left over to eat and give away to friends.

One day our garlic might even be marketable although that isn’t what’s driving us.  Until then the struggle continues as a demanding juggling act of Chalk and Cheese.   City and Country.   



Thieves

I learned yesterday UK’s Andy Watson, a much more advanced journeyman on the road towards martial arts improvement, failed his Iaido 6^th Dan exam last weekend.  In fact, all 23 European candidates, ranging from 5^th to 7^th Dan, failed their respective tests.  It led me to ponder why.  Were they all abysmal on the day?  Were the panel members in a collective bad mood?   Had the panel members “raised the bar”?

Andy has yet to publish the reasons he felt contributed to his personal failure but a few days prior to his test he wrote:

“I realise that three factors determine if I pass:

1. The opinion of the examiners: the level they determine is appropriate, what they perceive on the day, how they are feeling, what they think about me.
2. The decision from on high about whether anyone will be allowed to pass.
3. My long term preparation and the performance I display as well as my short term condition (i.e. how hungover I am).”

In the light of all candidates failing, number two seems a likely suspect even though it “doesn’t seem fair”.  Isn’t martial arts everything to do with actual ability and nothing to do with politics?  You’d think so, perhaps, and be quite wrong.  Even the giddy heights of Hanshi Hachidan (8^th Dan, master teachers) have to balance personal standards with commands from above.  If the judges are ordered to close their eyes it doesn't matter how bright you shine.  Ignoring the rights or wrongs of this, mentally coping with failure is a test in its own right.

Look at this from a parallel perspective.  In January of 2012 we’ve the Australian National Jodo and Iaido competitions coming up.  I’ve never won either of my grade categories: only come second-best a few times and managed the semi’s once or twice.  Should I feel bitter if my personal opinion about the person who beat me was they were crap and didn’t deserve the victory or if the judges were somehow biased?  It’s educational to watch the look of disappointment on some faces at these events: it’s usually followed by some form of personal (or conspiracy-theory) blame game.  Same with the outcomes of gradings. 

I’m increasingly beginning to think winning and losing bouts like this, or passing/failing gradings, is irrelevant.  Both victory/defeat or pass/fail are consummate thieves.  Thieves who rob you of focus and, in return, bloat or puncture your ego.  I'd like to learn to keep the detached focus.  The sort of detached focus so important in developing Fudoshin.     We're taught to apply this on the dojo floor but what about the rest of the time?    

Easy to say but  let’s see how I cope with that come January!!!  

Andy W. strutting his stuff.  Looks like this is part of the Ukenagashi kata

What makes a good Sensei?

I’m on the cusp of admitting to being a follower of Nagayama Sensei.  Yes, I know I’m pretty low down the food chain and have no right (and therefore should not have any aspiration) to claim to be a direct student.  And yes, I’m fully aware protozoa shouldn’t even be permitted think for themselves let alone choose who to clone themselves on.  But what if?  And then again, leaving the question hanging in the air, but what if?

Sensei demonstrating his nukitsuke 

Jumping back a few days.

From last Thursday until Sunday we were in Perth for the West Australia Kendo Renmei’s annual Spring Seminar.  WA is a big State as far as Australian Iaido and Jodo are concerned with a high concentration of 4^th, 5^th, a 6^th and one 7^th Dan.  Add to that the visiting of Oda and Nagayama Sensei and you have a recipe for a good seminar.

On the basis Nagayama Sensei was extremely good to Klara and I when we visited him at his dojo in Sendai in August just gone, I spent nearly all my Perth time on the Jodo floor picking up titbits here and there, refining moves and adjusting timings under his critical gaze.  He doesn’t suffer foolish questions with a grin or a brush-off, just action.  If you don’t understand why some action needs to be performed, a little painful reminder demonstrates.  Leave an (incorrect) opening and this is what happens, he demonstrates.  There is a reason why things happen in Jodo kata.  It’s a structured battle in a somewhat similar manner as a game of chess but with more serious outcomes.  Force a wrong move physically or psychologically and someone loses.

Forcing a wrong move is what Nagayama is instinctively good at.  What makes him a brilliant Sensei is his ability to inject instinct almost intravenously to his students.

If I were all of the following:

• Japanese
• Living in Sendai
• About 30 years of age

I’d ask him to formally train me as his deshi in all the arts he is superbly proficient in.

But I don’t come close to qualifying so have to make to with the titbits here and there.  It's a good second.