Tea is a contact sport

Make no mistake. The way of tea is a contact sport.

I am sore.

Everyday I am hurting, and together the 9 of us commiserate and trade tips for dealing with pain. The sempai have named the weird little bumps they’re getting on the tops of their feet “seiza dango” (kneeling dumplings, basically.) Eww. I don’t really have bumps yet, and luckily I’m blessed with a fairly large kneeling capacity. Instead my quads absolutely squeal with overworked muscle pain when I get up and down (this is fairly new— maybe since this week or last week.) I’m waiting til my legs get totally buff from the endless reps of floor-to-standing squats (squats? I don’t know, I’ve never been much of an exerciser) then I maybe it’ll just be easy and I’ll have amazing legs. If I’m not crippled from all the times in between standing. Meanwhile, the front of my shoulders have been getting really sore for weeks now. It’s hard to explain the place, but basically almost everyday I get to the afternoon and realize it’s excruciating to shrug my shoulders. I thought this would be from tenseness and being too shoulders-up, but actually I kinda think it might be from having my shoulders constantly down, in proper kimono fashion.

The teachers give us tips and suggestions for dealing with physical issues. Many teachers have suggested sento (bathing), and Murata even says there are places we can go for insurance-covered massage with only a 500 yen ($5) copay!!!!! (SIGN ME UP! We’re trying to get the rest of the details on this.) Our “daisempai” (graduated ahead of the current sempai) Mika says he puts his feet up first thing everyday when he gets back to his room. Even Oiemoto told us (specifically the Midorikai students, but he ought to say it to everyone) that we must be “daiji ni” (be careful with and take care) with our legs.

I always thought tea teachers must have superhuman feet and knees, but the longer I’ve been studying and here too, I realize that they are just good at dealing with pain. That’s their superhumanness, not feet of steal. They groan and change position and find reasons to get up and go somewhere just like us, only much less often. In the long afternoons of study, when it’s someone else’s turn to be host and guest, I often have time to think, and sometimes I think about that. About choosing a profession that guarantees physical pain. Tea’s not the only one. Professional sports. I heard once that the people who make red lacquer basically have poison sumac for the rest of their lives. This is different obviously than the people who have little or no choice but to take a painful job. And maybe, thinking back to my dissertation-writing-backaches, maybe most professions, most things we do for a lot of hours, are likely to bring some pain. I wonder if I would decide against becoming a tea teacher for that reason. It’s not really a career option just now, so I don’t have to think about it much. It’s more of a self-reflection question on the role of pain in everyday life.

I guess maybe you’re wondering— why are you doing this thing that hurts? Why do they insist on doing some thing that hurts—and more important than just whether it hurts for the time being or not, people also say that tons of seiza damages your body long term. They say people need knee surgeries and things. I don’t know about the details, I just know that people seem to still think it’s worth it. Sometimes you see little old ladies and men in Japan whose legs are bowed way out and their feet back in, like an O between their legs. Some people say that this is from sitting seiza from childhood. I don’t know if that’s true. I don’t know what to think about the issue of pain or health. It’s not unbearable. It doesn’t overwhelmingly bother me even, which I find sort of interesting to reflect on. The pain is an interesting problem to consider.

Edit: last night my friend Aki from Ehime who is a DJ and a monk at a Shingon temple on the 88 temple pilgrimage told me there are monk supply catalogues (!!!)  and they sell some contraptions that go around your legs and can't be seen under your robes, and then once you're seated, makes a little secret chair under your clothes and no one can tell you're not on you knees.  Only in Japan.  But also, I totally need to see this monk supply catalogue.