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The brief was simple:

Foreigner in a suit

A person of a foreign nationality (well, race) wearing a suit.

That much I could do.

That much I was born for.

But then they asked something I wasn’t prepared for:

‘Pretend it’s your first time’

Pretend it’s your first time?

Last time someone said that to me, things didn’t go so well.

Last year, while filming a promotional video for an e-bike tour, I had to pray in front of a shrine.

Two bows, two claps, one bow.

Simple enough.

Only, I did it like I always do. I did it like we were taught during yamabushi training.

And it was too good.

Foreigners aren’t supposed to know to put their hands facing forward, left hand slightly in front.

Foreigners are supposed to do it like it was their first time.

I’m a yamabushi. We live and breathe praying at shrines. My hands automatically go into a certain position whenever we pray.

You can’t take the yamabushi out of Kiwi Yamabushi…

This time around though,

This time around, I was an extra for an upcoming Japanese TV drama. I had to sit, wearing a suit, and watch a Maiko performance (featuring Kosuzu Nee-san) in Somaro, the Maiko Teahouse in Sakata, like it was my first time.

It wasn’t my first time.

It wasn’t my second time either. Nor my fifth. Nor my tenth.

Over the years, I have guided multiple groups of friends and non-friends alike to what I still feel is one of the coolest performances to see in north Japan.

No, this was definitely not my first time.

But I had a role to perform

‘Foreigner in a suit watching a Maiko performance like it was their first time’.

Easy enough. Just pretend that you aren’t on a first-name basis with the performers, nor the people that run the place.

Or in other words, Shoshin.

Shoshin.

初心.

The first heart.

Or, the more appropriate translation: The Beginner’s Mind.

Pretending it was your first time not for the purposes of filming, but for the purposes of opening yourself up to all opportunities to learn.

"in the beginner's mind there are many possibilities, but in the expert's mind there are few”

Shunryu Suzuki

Beginners start with no experience. They may come in with expectations, but these expectations are not founded in experience.

In other words, any approach is welcome.

All I had to do was to tap into that.

Which I tried.

I mean, the brief was ‘foreigner in a suit’. It’s not exactly hard. But it was a good reminder of Shoshin.

Either way, I look forward to the results (on December 17th from 5pm on Nittere 日テレ).

This article from the Kiwi Yamabushi newsletter got more than 1,000 reads, so I decided to put it here for everyone. Get articles just like this in your inbox by signing up here. Paid subscribers get priority access and access to the full archive of over 100 articles.