The following is one of a series off portraits that I write on the members of my dojo Yushinkan. We practice iaido and kendo, modern forms of ancient samurai teachings. All my portraits together can be found in my own website www/inti.eu/in
Once upon a time we were scared of ravens. It is easy to admire a falcon, straight and fierce and somehow away from what we, simple animals could be, or become. A raven, though… a raven is closer to home. A raven is an intelligent bird, not for nothing chosen to be the eyes of Odin. They talk to each other the few times they meet, and we can’t know what they say, but we can wonder, we always wonder. What do they think of our petty flaws and conquers?
Our own brother Raven is not a talker, but neither a loner. He talks few and sees much, as his kind does, yet many times has shared the sentence that nails what the rest of us have started to understand, or feel. Perhaps is a matter of experience, life experience, but who could know? Brother Raven is not one of our youngest, yet his smile -between amused and sarcastic- at the ongoing chatter of the younger people is as young as the smile of any other kid. Wise kid? perhaps. Is it possible to be born wise, or to stay young at old age? Perhaps one day one or another raven would tell me. For now I know that I would not ask our own brother Raven, since he will laugh me out, and I will laugh too, taken in his mirth at another silly question. And I will not know, since Brother Raven isn’t known to indulge simple answers.
Simple answers. Our iaido, this art of the sword that we practice, is meant to be simple. Brother Raven has long past the time in which our fencing feels complicated and beyond our capacity to remember. At the beginning, when we have repeated but few times the teachings of our best, movements and their sequence are hard to memorise and harder to repeat. Brother Raven does not always train with us, but nowadays he knows the movements and their sequence, those ample circles that our swords describe in the air. He has been known to practice our sequences in the ample forests of the east, where he flies every summer. And so we can see from his long wings, simplicity has begun to grow.
After all, it should not be a surprise. Brother Raven learned, long time ago, that the true power of the word lies in its simplicity. So it was a simple matter of time for his sword to become simpler. It is true that at your first meeting him, you will see his eyes, and perhaps the razor of his beak, and that will allow you to miss the span of his wings. So you will be surprise, and perhaps scared, when Brother Raven and his sword traces the simple circles of our art, in the air. In simplicity, Brother Raven knows, lies true power.
But if I would say this too him, he would probably laugh me out, again.