Bigger on the Inside

By the time Carlos reached the dojo, the Saturday morning wind had already done some mischief. A few leaves had gathered against the garden gate, one paper notice had curled at the corner, and a spiderweb beside the garden shed had come loose from its frame.

Carlos crouched to look. The spider did not complain about the broken strand. It glided carefully from one silver line to the next, touching each segment to make it tight before adding a new thread. The spider wasn’t trying to fix the web all at once. It was slowly readied, one small action at a time.

Once inside the dojo, Carlos wanted to begin quickly so he grabbed the cloth-wrapped community glove since his was at home watching his mom wash the clothes, located his two arrows, and glided across the floor to get his bow and secure the string onto it.

In proper walking form his feet remembered their place, and his body remembered how to stand tall enough to not flop around. He controlled his excitement as he saw his bow waiting on its rack, taller than Carlos and standing patiently still with the stowed bows in the room.

Carlos wanted to take it down right away. He wanted to feel its curve in his hands. He wanted to move on to the part where something exciting happened. But Aiko-senpai was already kneeling beside the bow rack, slowly unfolding a cloth from a square so even that the corners were in perfect symmetry.

“Carlos,” she said, “what comes before beginning?”

“Before the beginning?” Carlos asked in a puzzled way.

Aiko-senpai smiled. She unfolded the cloth completely and with absolute presence placed it beside her glove. “Sometimes beginning has a beginning.”

She took the dojo glove from his hands. Aiko-senpai treated it as something to meet and gently join.

“If you hurry this,” she asked, “what will your hand remember?”

Carlos looked at his fingers. They were already wiggling with impatience. “It will remember hurrying,” he said.

Aiko-senpai nodded. She placed the glove back in his hands. It was firm in some places and soft in others, with creases that had been made by practice, not by decoration. Carlos tried to slide his hand inside quickly and caught one finger halfway because he was so excited.

He tugged. The glove resisted. His face grew warm as he thought the world had seen and chortled.

Embarrassed and feeling awkward, Carlos struggled to think of what he should do next. He thought hard as his eyes wandered. Outside the open door, the spider moved across its web again. It did not pull the broken strand hard. It anchored, waited, crossed, weaved, and anchored again. Carlos watched from the corner of his eye.

He tried the glove again. This time he opened his fingers first, then let each one find its place. His thumb settled. His wrist softened. The glove no longer felt like something he had to win. It felt like something he had to listen to.

Aiko-senpai passed him the folded cloth. “Before we ask the bow to join us,” she said, “we notice whether we are ready to hold it.”

Together they checked the bow. Not like inspectors searching for mistakes, but like neighbors greeting someone at the gate. Carlos noticed the curve, the string, the place where his hand would rest. As usual from great senpai like Aiko, she did not instruct him with everything step. She asked, “Where do you see that the bow asks for care?”

Carlos saw a smudge near the grip. He saw a speck of dust where moisture had dried. He saw, for the first time, that the bow was not just waiting for him. It had arrived with its own quiet needs. Relying on him as much as he will on it.

He wiped the smudge gently. The cloth moved slowly, and Carlos moved with it. His wanting-to-begin feeling did not disappear, but it became smaller, like a dog finally sitting beside the door instead of sniffing at it.

When practice began, Carlos stepped to the line. Ashibumi. His feet found the floor to anchor him to the moment. Dozukuri. His body became a house with open windows. Then came Yugamae.

He set the glove. He turned toward the target. He shaped his hands around bow and string. Nothing had flown yet but his attitude made clear the intention. The exciting part still waited far ahead. But Carlos discovered that waiting could be full of work.

His eyes softened toward the mato. He was not staring at it. He was including it. The bow, the glove, the string, the floor, the target, and his breath all seemed to take their places like pieces of a quiet circle.

His fingers fumbled a bit. The string slipped a little from the place he had wanted it to be, because it was not quite secure. Carlos almost went to let it go and snatch it to reset, but he remembered the spider. Strand by strand. Touch, wait, anchor.

He did not force his fingers. He prepared them.

Aiko-senpai’s voice came softly from beside him. “Readiness is also practice.”

Carlos breathed. The bow did not rise yet, but something in him did. Not upward like showing off. Upward like awareness waking.

This was Carlos’ remembrance of the day. Incomplete to some people, perfectly ready for the beginning to him.

At the end of practice, Carlos returned the bow to its rack with both hands. He folded the cleaning cloth slowly and stowed it in the proper place. He placed the glove where he could find it again. Outside, dew trembled on the portion of yet repaired web, and a sparrow flicked a grey seed shell onto a strand from the railing.

Carlos bowed to the high place as he exited the dojo with gratitude. Then he bowed to Aiko-senpai just outside in the garden. “I thought it might be ‘preparing’ … that was the part before practice,” he said.

Aiko-senpai smiled. “And now?”

Carlos reflected once more on the web, the glove, the tall quiet bow. “Now I think practice begins before I notice.”

On the walk home, Carlos did not hurry past the garden gate. He stopped long enough to see the spider cross its web again. One strand. One step. One careful beginning.