Daily Yamabushi

Don’t let impossible goals get in your way

When I was 15 I worked in a pizza shop, Hungry Kiwis Pizza. The shop has since gone out of business, but it was an amazing place full of lessons for an impressionable 15-year-old like me.

One thing I’ll always remember was the policy on cleaning. Or at least, what my boss told me.

We knew we would never be able to get things as clean as on the day they came.

That didn’t stop us from trying though.

When it’s obvious the perfect outcome is not attainable, don’t let it stop you from trying. While you may not be able to reach perfection, you are still able to at least get close.

Within the unpredictable, there is predictable. Use it.

Yamabushi training is an exercise in dealing with unpredictability. Not only can you not ask what’s going to happen next, often the Sendatsu (master) doesn’t fully know themselves.

Of course they have some sort of idea, but they truly don’t know until they go there. They might feel the urge to take a left instead of a right, an up instead of a down. Or perhaps the circumstances dictate that they do so.

With all this unpredictability, it’s easy to get flustered. It’s easy to let it get to you, and that often just makes things worse. It’s best to accept that, yes, the situation is uncertain, but within these uncertainties there are some certain things you can take comfort in.

‘I’ve been through the unpredictable before. I know that I’m going to be tested. But I also know that I have the ability to get through, as previous experience has shown time and again…

Which I guess shows that actually, Yamabushi training is equally an exercise in predictability. The only real difference is trust in yourself to make it through.

Which if experience is to go by…

My idea for a tour company in Sakata City

I spent this morning on a tour of Sakata for interpreter guides. I always knew this, but Sakata is a place with a deep culture and history that the city should really be proud of.

Sakata was a huge reason why Tokyo grew so huge in the Edo period, and because of that, they were also home to the richest family in Japan until the second world war, which links to the story of the real last Samurai, for example.

The problem is the way in which this is being presented to the world, or rather, isn’t.

Today’s participants were all extremely passionate and also on the whole able to speak both languages. The guides were also extremely knowledgeable. I have no doubt that if organized well, the city could utilize these skills, and create amazing experiences for people interested in what Sakata has to offer.

The problem, as I see it, is that there’s no one to lead such an endeavour. Sakata City would have the capacity to do it, if they had enough staff and resources. But there’s a few problems with this.

First, they would need a travel license, which in Japan is notoriously difficult (and expensive). I’m not sure how it would work for public servants, it would have to be a separate company or organization, rather than municipal government.

A separate company would solve this issue, but I also see a problem with the way staff are moved around periodically in the public service in Japan. The staff you work with one year, can be completely different the next. Therefore there’s little to no continuity on the projects that are often decided on an annual budget. This is not conducive to running a business.

There is an organization here, but they are not for profit. That could be good for certain people (ie the retired), but if you’re a not for profit, there isn’t as much incentive for creating a good service.

If you’re a volunteer guide, for example, you don’t really care if you screw up much. Or at least, there’s less repercussions for doing so.

If you were for profit, and if your company depended on it, you’d be much more incentivized to provide great service. Great service that can bring in good revenue, and provide jobs to those who specifically aren’t doing it voluntarily.

I envision something like what they are doing in Yamadera with Yamaderans. A set course with set content that doesn’t involve using transport besides your own two feet, or maybe a bike. All we’d need to do would be to create an itinerary with talking points, one with a strong story to it. Then we’d just need people to guide it, which we already have. Then of course we’d need a bit of marketing, but Sakata City could help with that.

Why don’t I do it? I hear you ask. Maybe in the future I could, but I’m busy elsewhere right now, unfortunately. It’s definitely something I would love to do, but it’s just not a priority right now, for better or worse.

The most important thing in brewing a good cup of pour over coffee is the grind size.

If the grind is too fine, if you let too much of the small stuff in, you’re left with a bitter aftertaste.

On the other hand, if we ignore the big picture stuff, if we don’t cherish or appreciate the big things, we miss a lot of the stuff that makes a life worth living.

As with everything, it’s all about balance. That’s how you make a good cup of coffee.

Make up their mind for them

Some people take their sweet time making up their minds. If you really need their mind made up fast, make it up for them.

Nicely, mind you.

One way of doing this is instead of saying:

‘what do you think we should do here’,

the next logical step would be to say:

‘What do you think about option A versus option B?’

Or, you could just get straight to the point, and say:

‘We’re going to do this, is that alright?’

Depending on the person, sometimes this is the best thing you can do to push the project forward. If they really dislike the option, they will speak up. Which only pushes the project forward.

Leverage Value That Wasn’t There Before

At the start of 2016, I arrived back in Japan from my Nana’s funeral. The day I got back to work at my side job, I was given a letter telling me I was being let go. Four months later, I got the worst phone call possible for anyone living overseas: my dad had died completely unexpectedly.

All in the space of 5 months.

If anything, these were all major wake-up calls for me.

In spite of this, I refused to let myself be a victim, and still do. Thanks to that, there were some pretty good lessons to be learned.

First, that I could be let go from a job straight after a funeral taught me that your boss doesn’t have an obligation to look out for your best interests. If you’re superfluous for a job, you’re superfluous for a job.

Dead relatives be damned.

At the very least, find a way to look after yourself that doesn’t rely entirely on the whim of someone else. Luckily for me it was a side gig. Although, now I do believe I would be able to stand on my own two feet if I were to lose my main job (knock on wood or whatever).

Second, Dad dying was a huge catalyst. If anything, it only entrenched the look after yourself part. Also, he was only two or so years from retiring from a job he really didn’t like. He’s proof that retirement isn’t guaranteed, so why work a job you don’t like?

From that point on, my attitude to work changed completely. I no longer think about working solely for the sake of earning money. If I did, I’d probably be in Tokyo or Osaka like the rest of them.

I’d probably also be working like a slave in a job where every day looked the same.

Gross.

Love it or hate it, though, money is a necessity in our daily lives.

The key therefore is to find a way to support your living that allows you to be yourself while also exploring your creativity. Bonus points if it’s stuff you’d do anyway, for example in retirement. Hence this blog, my YouTube, and a number of other projects I’m working on.

I’m nowhere near making enough from these endeavours. Yet, at least. I also do enjoy my day job, and I’m in no particular rush. Or at least that’s what I keep telling myself, which may be the resistance in disguise.

Either way, I think if you’re able to, you really ought to try an alternative to the retire at 65 hullabaloo.

These days I’d recommend making a substack or some other newsletter to exercise your creative bone. A daily blog is good too, or something else you do on a regular basis that provides value to the world that wasn’t there before. If you do it on the side, you really have nothing to lose, and everything to gain.

Who knows, you may even be able to retire from it. Then all you’d be left with is something you wanted to be doing anyway.

My idea of a good life!

Do what you must to maintain the habit, future you will thank you

I have an unspoken rule whereby if I can’t swim more than 2km, I don’t go swimming. It’s something I’ve picked up over the years, and for the most part I’ve managed to maintain it. The only times I haven’t is when the pool has been too full, and I’ve had to share a lane with two or more slower swimmers (meaning overtaking becomes too hard).

But the rule is ridiculous. Plus, 2km is completely arbitrary. All it means is that I have a convenient excuse to not swim, when I know perfectly well I could at least get some decent lengths in.

Sure you may not be able to get a full workout in, but doing even just a little bit helps maintain your momentum, and makes it easier for you the next time around. It’s also an excuse to do things you wouldn’t normally do, shorter exercises requiring more energy, or a different kind of conditioning exercise, for example.

Don’t make time you can’t get a full workout in an excuse to not do anything. It’s unnecessary, and detrimental. Plus, that tiny shift in mindset required for starting exercise helps in more ways than you think.

That little bit extra is worth so much more than a little bit extra.

Want to do well? Build leverage.

When you have leverage, you have what you need to help people. You have what you need to get ahead.

Leverage comes from persistence. It comes from discipline, and it comes from dedication.

Leverage gives you the ability to do well.

Build leverage.

It ain’t over till it’s over

New Zealand sports teams have a habit of getting complacent. We have been on the receiving end of some harrowing comebacks, where we simply weren’t ruthless enough to push the advantage home.

At the same time, however, NZ has also been on the other side of the equation. Managing to pull a victory back from the brink (in yachting and cricket).

This is all to say, even if it seems like the game is already over, never concede until the fat lady sings her lungs out.

When a seemingly finishing blow is dealt, it’s easy to concede even just a little. This is the time you need to buckle down and step up to the plate. This is the time you need to look at the game from a long term perspective and show the belief you have in yourself to make it through.

Sure, you may lose. But if you don’t give it your best shot, the chances you will grow exponentially.

Yoga and Swimming really do it for me

For me, a combination of swimming and yoga works really well. I’ve been swimming since I was a kid, including at least ten years as a waterpolo player, so I know my way around the pool pretty well. I also know how amazing swimming is for staying fit and healthy.

The problem is though, if you’re like me and either forget to, or don’t have the time for stretching beforehand, swimming doesn’t stretch all of the muscles that you need to stretch to stay healthy. At least the way I do it.

I have extremely flexible arms, chest, and back. But when it comes to my hips, not so much. I’ve been trying over the past few years to increase my hip mobility, and I’m only just starting to get proper results, meaning I can sit on the floor for extended periods without too much trouble.

However, the real test will be this year’s Akinomine, a weeklong Yamabushi ritual where we sit on the floor for extended periods of time multiple times a day for basically the duration. Physically, it’s the hardest part of Yamabushi training for me.

So, I’m hoping with a combination of yoga and swimming I can keep a healthy body. Of course diet comes into play, but that’s more a matter of staying away from the bad stuff. Either way, I love swimming and yoga, and will continue it for the interim at least.

That and climbing mountains, of course.

Use them for the good days

The purpose of the bad days is to get to the good days.

Don’t feel too bad about the bad days. Know that they serve their purpose. The bad days aren’t all bad, there’s something to be gained from experiencing the bed.

You put in the effort to get through the bad days. All this means is that the good days will be really good.

And when you have that good Day, remember it’s not just that day. It’s a culmination of all the bad days that came together to give you this good day.

Don’t worry too much about the bad days. Just keep at it, the good days will come.

Detractors can be a good sign

Detractors mean you’re being noticed. That alone means you’re on the right path, but you may not be there yet.

There’s always some way in which you can improve. If you think otherwise, there’s not much point in continuing.

With detractors. You get to choose whether they’re right or not. You get to choose whether you should do something about it. This means you have to be good enough to be able to know when they’re right, and to take it on the chin too.

Detractors are nothing to worry about. They’re but one step along the path.

Get into the habit of having a strong finish

When I was in primary school we had a running race. I remember it very clearly because I nearly won, despite not being one of the faster runners. One of the senior students told me that when I got to a certain tree around the course, that I should sprint.

So I did.

And it worked. At least for me it did.

Then later when we were training for waterpolo, we used to try and have a strong finish when we would train.

When you’re doing a long-distance thing, swimming, cycling, running or otherwise, a good habit to get into is to have a strong finish. Pick some time in your event, maybe halfway through, or perhaps the last quarter.

Then speed up. Pick up the pace until the finish.

This tricks your brain into storing much-needed energy for the last push, often the time you need it the most. It also helps get you through the race, and at good pace too. This way you can more confidently finish with nothing left in the tank too.

All experiences have a lesson to learn

Some experiences we wish we never had. Some experiences we would never wish upon another human being. But all experiences add up to give us this thing called life. They all conspire to make us who we are.

We can’t change what happened in the past. But we can change our story about it. And we can take positives from any experience.

The key is to know to look for them. We may not know it in the moment, nor for a long time after the event, but these experiences do always have a lesson. We just have to be open to have the chance to know what they are.

As if there were weak ones

Ko Chokai te māunga.

The mountain I affiliate to is Chokai.

Māori Mihi (introductions) start off with the mountain you affiliate to. Doing so quite literally grounds you. It shows your connection to the land. It connects you to the people to whom you are introducing yourself.

Not only are these connections to the land important for others to get their bearings about you, they’re important for you to always know your place. To always know you belong. To remind you of where you come from, and to remind you where you always have a home.

In other words, if you are lost, all you have to do is to find a new person to introduce yourself to.

When you are lost, remember your Mihi.

And remember, you have a really strong mountain.

As if there were weak ones.

Tough experiences build tough people. And then some.

When you have gone through tough experiences, when you have seen a few things, the world looks different. The way you interact with the world is different, and the way you treat people is different.

We all know the world is tough. There’s no one on this planet not facing some sort of struggle whether internal or otherwise.

But if you have gone through a tough experience, as much as you’d like others to know how it felt, they never will. And why should they? Your experience is your experience. It will never be the same, even for yourself.

If you’re going to share your tough experience, which definitely helps with coming to terms with things, at the very least finish off with the silver lining. At the very least finish off with some takeaways that we can learn from, or at least try to.

While people may not be able to understand exactly the emotions you felt, they can still learn from what you learned.

That is but one way your tough experiences can be put to good use.

Follow the natural progression to live well.

In Yamabushi thought there is an infatuating obsession with being in the moment.

I believe this is fully justified. Without living in the now, we aren’t truly living. We are living in our idealised version of the past, or an imagined version of the future. Neither is conducive to experiencing the current moment, the only thing that exists besides here and self.

However, coming from traditional western thought, where setting long and short term goals is the norm, these thoughts are at odds. I do believe that we should focus almost entirely in the now. At the same time, I do see the benefit in having long term goals.

The way to reconcile these thoughts is essentially the long term linking of extremely short-term goals.

Master Hoshino says that he got to where he got to simply by doing what felt right in the moment. Only, he also did that hundreds and hundreds of times over. There was no aim to become a master Yamabushi with thousands of followers. There was no aim to write a book (a very un-Yamabushi thing). It was all just a natural progression he followed for years and years.

What this long-term linking of short-term goals highlights is the need for good habits. The need for consistency and constantly putting one foot in front of the other. It requires discipline, as well as the ability to get back on the bandwagon if you fall off.

It also requires faith in the unknown, and faith in our own ability to get through. We’ve made it this far, though, right?

This is how we live our best lives. A combination of living in the now, but with an eye on the near future.

And above all, acceptance.

Acceptance of the now. Acceptance of the past. Acceptance of the future.

One foot in front of the other.

You owe it to you. You owe it to us.

Your life is a precious gift.

That the stars aligned to put you on this planet in this moment in time is nothing short of a miracle. Every waking moment you have is thanks to coincidence after coincidence after coincidence after coincidence.

In perpetuity.

Everything that has ever existed in your life, you owe to some higher power, whatever form that may be. And how can you repay them?

Give life your all.

Give your all to your ideas. As those ideas too, come from a higher power.

You owe it to the world to see them through. Even if they fail, you owe it to the world to give it your best shot.

This is the obligation we all have.

If a good idea comes up in your mind, you owe it to the world to see it through.

Treat every interaction with the respect it deserves

On the Tim Ferriss podcast Mark Manson was talking about his experience writing Will Smith’s book. Mark Manson was taken aback when Will shared his thoughts on interacting with fans.

Will’s view was that, for him it’s only a small effort, but for the people he’s meeting, it can be life-changing stuff.

This is a disproportionate relationship.

Think about instances in your life where your relationships or the actions you take have a disproportionate effect.

A teacher and a student. A parent and child. A boss and employee. A member of staff and a customer.

An atomic habit. A hobby. Regular exercise. A healthy diet.

Treat every instance with the respect it deserves. This is Ichigo Ichie in a nutshell. Not only should you treat each moment with respect, if you do so you might find disproportionately good effects.

Give the stars the greatest chance to align

Your plane leaves an hour late. Not much you can do but sit and wait. Will you make the bus in time? And the plane after that?

Sometimes we need the stars to align to be able to do anything. Sometimes we need the stars to align to get where we need to go on time.

I ran. I pushed my way through the throngs of unsuspecting travelers walking without a care in the world. The ones who care so little they block the path.

You know, the worst kind.

Well, that doesn’t matter anymore. The effort I made paid off. I got to the bus and even had two minutes to catch my breath.

You never know what happens until it happens. Until then, give it your best shot. Get as far as you can until you can’t anymore. Give your best effort to do so too.

The stars align when you give them the best chance of aligning.

Which do you choose?

In spite of? Or because of?

• Your background
• Your family
• Your friends
• Your age
• Your race
• Your gender
• Your sexuality
• Your nationality
• Your parents
• Your siblings
• Your childhood
• Your upbringing
• Your hopes and desires
• Your predispositions
• Your future
• Your past
• Your present
  

You choose.

The more you dance, the easier to accept.

Sure things have been tough in the past, but it doesn’t mean they have to be tough in the future.

Tough experiences in life are extremely testing. But if anything, they prove we have what it takes to get through. Our experiences build and build, and give us valuable insights (that’s why they’re called experiences) that help us as we forge on into the future.

These are experiences we cannot ever forget, but we don’t have to actively remember the bad parts. What we should remember is that we made it through, and that we can make it through again.

Accept these experiences. Dance with them. Move with them. Respond to them. Relax, and let them take their course.

The more you dance, the easier to accept.

Change your perspective to get things done

When you’re looking after someone, you just get on with it. You just do what needs to be done. No fuss. No complaints.

This is because you’ve already accepted the situation. You’ve already accepted your part in it.

If only there were a way to apply this concept to other areas of our own lives. If only there were a way to simply do something for yourself because it’s a matter of course.

It’s just something that needs to be done, and you’re the person to do it.

If we treat ourselves like we treat others, it makes it a hell of a lot easier to get the things done that we need to do.

P*** makes perfect

Want to learn how to speak a second language? Try actually using it.

As boring as it sounds, often what’s necessary for people seemingly stuck in their language learning journey is simply practice.

Practice, practice, practice.

People often ask me how I picked up Japanese.

Guess what I tell them.

Of course there are different ways to go about this. I was blessed with an immersive environment that challenged me at every turn. I also had a lot of support, and was able to get assistance by simply asking for it.

But at times I still felt embarrassed, I still felt like an imposter, and I still felt like a poser.

Get over it.

Seriously. The only way you can have any form of success in speaking a second language.

Often the people who learn the fastest, ie the most efficiently, are those able to ignore what everyone else thinks about them. People who are able to filter out the emotions and simply focus on the task at hand.

Which is, you guessed it,

Practice. Actually using the language. Not shadowing, not practicing the words, not drilling grammar patterns. Trying to have a conversation with another person in that language.

Do this enough, and you’ll see that you weren’t actually stuck, you were fooling yourself into thinking you had done enough.

Find someone in particular to mimic

One trick I have for learning a foreign language is to mimic someone you know able to speak that language fluently. They don’t have to be a native speaker, but they do have to be able to communicate well in a way that you would like to be able to as well.

It helps if you can get a lot of input from this person. It’s even possible to record them, and to practice shadowing by repeating what they say. This can be simultaneous or thereabouts, or it can be done at the sentence level or similar. It helps to focus on their tone of voice, is their pitch rising or falling, and where, as well as their word choice and things like word stress (especially for English speakers, although nuclear stress is the important one in this case).

This can help you sound more like a native speaker (which for English speakers shouldn’t be your first aim, aim for communicative ability first), and it can make you sound more fluent more easily as well.

Give it a go and tell me how you get on.

When you’re ready

When you know you’re going to have to accept things, it gets easier to practice acceptance. Granted, some things you’ll never learn to accept, and nor should you. But being willing to at least try does take you a considerable way in learning to live with certain situations.

Just knowing this can also sometimes be enough. You may not want to accept something now, but that time will indeed come. Just allow it to do so when it does.

Get them out in the world

People hesitate to ask questions because they don’t want to look a fool. This is the same reason why you should put your ideas out in the world. You may look a fool for a second, but you never know how your ideas could truly benefit others.

If you have an idea, you have an obligation to put it out there. To put your best foot forward, and give it the respect it deserves.