Sitting seiza for tea

One of the most difficult things about studying tea is sitting seiza.   As I am getting older, it is getting more difficult for me to sit for long periods of time.  I do tell my students that like any other physical activity (and sitting seiza is a physical activity) you must get in shape.

Sensei once told my husband when he first began to study tea, to sit in the bathtub at home.   He did, but it was so painful for him that he thought that sensei recommended it because it was almost a relief to sit on tatami after sitting on the cold porcelain!  What she forgot to tell him was to fill the bath with hot water so that it would relax the muscles and tendons and help buoy up his weight.

Seriously, sitting seiza does not come naturally to us.  I tell my students that they need to get into shape.  Sitting once a week will only get you so far.  It helps to sit a little bit every day and work up to longer and longer periods of sitting.  I have my laptop computer on the coffee table and sit seiza while working on computer for as long as I can before I rest, or I sit seiza while watching TV to keep in shape.  Breathing, and keeping your mind focused on your temae will also help.

Sometimes, sitting on the meditation seat helps, especially with the ankles. New students usually need a sitting aid such as this stool. One thing to be very sure of is if your feet and ankles are numb, please be very careful and not get up until you get the feeling back into your feet.  We have time, and a good first guest will be able to tell a story, or discuss some aspect of the tea room, or utensils to help distract the other guests while the host recovers feeling in his legs. You can purchase one of these seats from SweetPersimmon.com.  It comes in its own little carry bag that gives you a little extra padding, too.

Another thing that I have discovered that helps is acupuncture.  In fact, if you are in Portland, I recommend Working Class Acupuncture, because they charge a sliding scale $15-35 per visit.  Very affordable.  It is community acupuncture. They treat you in lounge chairs in one big room. You can stay for as long as you like.  You can find other community acupuncture clinics all over the U.S.

Besides the pain of sitting seiza, acupuncture will help with a lot of other things, too.

Imperfect beauty

Trying to understand the wabi aesthetic of the tea ceremony is very difficult because it is difficult to quantify.  One of the principles of wabi is "fukanzen no bi"  or imperfect beauty. 

Most people thnnk that there is a universal kind of beauty, but each person has a different sense of beauty -- depending on our culture, education, country and upbringing.  Beauty is in the eye of the beholder.  For example, the line from the ocean to Mt. Fuji is beautiful, but a cloud obscuring part of the line is more interesting and beautiful to some people.

The usual concept of beauty is close to perfect. Bronzes and celedon ceramics from China were of perfectly symmetrical beauty where each side matched.  The tea masters in Japan thought that it was boring.  They looked to Korean rice bowls -- asymmetrical, earth toned, rough textured and thought them beautiful.   These bowls, with their imperfections were more human. That led Rikyu to create raku.   Raku bowls, because they are not turned on the wheel, are made to fit in the hand and it doesn't conduct heat well so the hot tea in it will not burn your hand. Raku means enjoyment, ease, pleasure or happiness.

Oribe and shino ware are very popular with tea students and potters.  But these are not my personal favorites because there is so much bad oribe and shino copies out there.  Oribe knew just how far to push the boundaries, while copies of his work often go beyond.  Students think that just because it is distorted, or rough it must be wabi and therefore beautiful. Purposeful distortions of the form, sloppy craftsmanship, or just plain ugly pieces abound.  Wabi is not slobby.

Tea students must be able to differentiate between forgiving imperfection, and celebrating imperfection. Celebrating imperfection leads to weird stuff for its own sake rather than looking at the individual strength of the piece and forgiving its imperfections because of its strengths.

Tea and Music

I had an excellent comment from a reader of the blog regarding the similarities of Chado and music.  It was brought more into focus for me this week when I had Gregg from Seattle visit Issoan Tea room.   Gregg is the chajin who gave the April Fool's chakai.  Gregg's partner is an accomplished  viola gamba musician and we had a long and interesting discussion comparing chado and music.

It started with the scroll, "ichigo ichie" that was hanging in the tea room as I made tea for them.  He said like chanoyu, every time you play a piece of music, it is different and that no two performances are exactly alike.  He also commented that sometimes while playing everything comes together in a natural flow without conscious effort, but to get there takes years of practice and playing with other people.

I was wondering if the analogy held up between tea and music.  Much of it does. The constant practice, the training, preparation, timing and working together with others, the striving to follow procedure, and allowance for creative expression within a rigid structure.

What about you?  Do you think the analogy between tea and music holds up?  In what ways?

Kuwa Ko-joku for Boy's day

The kuwa ko-joku (literally small mulberry wood stand) inspired Senso, the Urasenke 4th Generation tea master to build this tana from a traditional stand to hold arrows.  The top and middle shelves had many holes to hold the arrows. 

In this tana, the top shelf edges were beveled into the yahazu or arrow notch shape.  Senso gae this kuwa ko-joku to his brother Koshin, the 4th generation Omotesenke master and it became widely used by Omotesenke followers.   It wasn't until Gengensai (11th generation Urasenke) used it that Urasenke followers began to use it.

Because of its association with archery, this tana is especially appropriate for Boys' Day (Tango no sekku, fifth day of the fifth month).  You can see the kabuto or helmet futaoki is displayed on the middle shelf with the mizusashi.  Because of the tall, narrow shape of this tana, a tsutsu (cylinder) shape mizusashi is preferable.  The space below is for a kensui, but it must be wide and flat as you can see, to fit on the bottom shelf.  Unusually, the hishaku or water ladle, is balanced upside down between the front and back posts rather than on the top shelf.  Because this is a four legged tana, the mizusashi must be pulled all the way out to refill it at the end of the temae. 

Just put the flowers in

Chabana is often difficult and for me, it is rather intimidating because there really are not a lot of rules, guidelines and procedures.  You just have to do it and look at the results, over and and over again. How the flowers are arranged tells a lot about the host.  By his choice of flowers, vase and arrangement, we see into his heart.

Often, we have few choices for flowers in the winter, but now, there is an abundance of flowers to choose. You only need a few.  Sometimes you get lucky and the arrangement comes together.  For example, I was quite pleased with the arrangement this month for the Portland Japanese Garden tea demonstration. 

I went out in the early morning in my neighborhood to look for flowers for the chakai.   One of my neighbors has a very large azalea plant and I asked if I could clip a few.  After gaining permission, I saw this cascade of a branch and brought it into the tea room to arrange.

I don't know if you can see in this photo, but the blossoms have a slightly pink tinge to the edges of the petals.  The branch cascaded down below the level of the opening and the stem was rather short and the bamboo vase was perfect for it.  I carefully put it in the vase to look at it.  Not a single thing was done after that.  No fussing, no rearranging, no clipping. The flowers and leaves were still wet from the morning rain, and the arrangement, though a little wild, had a rather innocent look to it. 

The lesson here for me is to start arranging chabana before you even cut the flowers.  Look and look for the flowers, and imagine what kind of vase they will sit in.  Choose the flowers first and then choose the vase.