It just occurred to me: in Spokane, we practiced kendo in a gym across the street from the arena. In Harbin, we practice kendo in a dance hall underneath the arena. Am I moving up in the world, or down? ;)
It's hard to say, because back home, we had our own building dedicated for dojo use. Here, we rent the hall and have to share it with others, like these old women who come to dance on Sunday mornings, and we must avoid eye contact when they leave the hall. It's like Spirited Away: "You mustn't stare at the Radish Spirit." But on the other hand, the building the Spokane dojo in is being torn down. The stadium isn't going away anytime soon. Oh, and it's warm. No freezing floors for our bare feet!
That's too bad about the loss of the Spokane dojo! My aikido dojo was next to a Circle K, and the building is still there though it's been decades since it was a dojo. The sensei was killed in a bicycle accident, and some students carried on the dojo but had to pull back to the main site. The karate dojo is doing fine, they've always had big classes. Aikido: not so much.
Sensei does both Kendo and Doshinkan Karate. We also host the Taiko club upstairs, so we're all looking for a home. It's too bad; I said that when I become rich and famous, I'm going to buy the spot and build a pagoda with practice floors for each, and in the summer the Taiko Club (which would still be on the top floor) could open the walls so they could drum for the city. But now it's going to be high-rise apartments. Oh, well.
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Flip a coin, or some I-Ching coins. ;-)
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It's hard to say, because back home, we had our own building dedicated for dojo use. Here, we rent the hall and have to share it with others, like these old women who come to dance on Sunday mornings, and we must avoid eye contact when they leave the hall. It's like Spirited Away: "You mustn't stare at the Radish Spirit." But on the other hand, the building the Spokane dojo in is being torn down. The stadium isn't going away anytime soon. Oh, and it's warm. No freezing floors for our bare feet!
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Sensei does both Kendo and Doshinkan Karate. We also host the Taiko club upstairs, so we're all looking for a home. It's too bad; I said that when I become rich and famous, I'm going to buy the spot and build a pagoda with practice floors for each, and in the summer the Taiko Club (which would still be on the top floor) could open the walls so they could drum for the city. But now it's going to be high-rise apartments. Oh, well.
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