Okeiko-Glenn-2022-11-13

2022-11-13

Dario temae questions:

• Overhang on hishaku for marujoku?
• Usucha chashaku position for haiken?

Dario teaching questions:

• Having trouble minimizing the overhead - every time, it feels like a big undertaking
  • Follow up, how to balance your own learning with the time it takes to give okeiko?
• How to deal with brand new students? Where to mix in direct new student teaching?
• How to determine okeiko fee? And how much consideration to give to other teachers in the area?
• Interpersonal, lots of the students here come with lots of baggage, and I’m finding that trying to comfort them and assure them that these things won’t happen again is taking so much energy.
• How much of the mizuya setup do you do vs the students? (Wondering from a learning standpoint, not an effort standpoint)
  • Likewise, how much of toriawase? Practically, I don’t have too much dougu, and I don’t have a great way of displaying it all for choice

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Tankokai notes / discussion points for the meeting:

• Why is having a tankokai important for Colorado:
  • “We feel that being able to officially trace our lineage back to Kyoto would help us share Urasenke tea here in Colorado.”
  • “We are lucky to have a Japanese Consulate in Denver, and we would love to interact with the Consul General and help promote Japanese Culture here in Colorado. Having an official association backed by Urasenke would be a great way to start these conversations with the Consulate. Also, conversations with universities and local schools can be more meaningful if we can share that we are part of a long lineage from Japan.”
  • “We also feel that having an association would be a great way to promote longevity for Urasenke in the area. Having a structure for multiple teachers means that tea can continue even if the main teacher leaves or passes away. Also, having an established organization makes it easier for other Urasenke practitioners, either visitors or people moving to the area, find and participate in tea.”
  • “In particular, it would be valuable for the students to have the opportunities that an association provides: having the opportunity to host visiting teachers for intensives and collaborate with other nearby Tankokai (ie New Mexico), and being able to visit Kyoto for the memorial events as a group.”
  • “We also want to be able to share with Daisosho and Oiemoto what activities we are doing here in Colorado, which feels like a natural place for an association report.”
  • “We feel that having an online Urasenke presence here is important, and we would set up an official website and Facebook page to ensure that an Urasenke organization appears when people search for Colorado tea.”
  • [And as an addendum if they ask, “RMC shows up when you search in Google, but we would love for people to be able to find an Urasenke organization when they search.“]
  • (Raw notes):
    • Interactions with Consulate / Consul General
    • Official lineage / credentials to interface with universities and non-profits for demonstrations
    • Discoverability for external people to find Urasenke in the area (visitors or long-term practitioners)
    • Opportunities for us to visit Kyoto and pay our respects to the Sen family during Rikyuki etc as a group
    • Opportunities for visiting teachers for intensives, and collaboration with other tankokai (ie Santa Fe)
    • Longevity for Urasenke in the area — establish a structure early to enable multiple teachers and continued Urasenke presence even after one teacher leaves / passes away
    • Another communication channel for us back to Kyoto, so we can share what kinds of tea activities are happening here.
• How can we show that we are stable and committed:
  • “Kristina and I are both Midorikai graduates, and we are both committed to tea. We bought a house here in Colorado specifically so we could host okeiko. We already have a yojohan space which we are building out, and we plan to construct a hachijo in the basement for events and shichijishiki practice.”
  • “We are also young and plan to stay in Colorado for a long time. I have already started teaching, and since beginning in September, I already have three students coming for okeiko. We have our keikoba established, and we are continually improving to ensure we have the right dougu and the right space for students.”
• On RMC (Rocky Mountain Chado):
  • “The tea community here in Colorado is close-knit, and we wanted a way for us to all keep in touch. RMC is effectively a Facebook group; a way for us to communicate with each other and coordinate chaji etc. We still need something that is just Urasenke [for the reasons above].”
• On naming:
  • “Boulder is no longer the main Urasenke tea location in Colorado, and we feel that having a broader name will more accurately represent how people are practicing here in Colorado.”
  • “Also, we feel that for external people looking for tea in Colorado, this would provide an easier way for them to discover Urasenke tea.”
  • (Raw notes, locations with Urasenke members):
    • Boulder, Lafayette, Aurora (Denver metro), Fort Collins.
• Temae etc notes
  • On Robiraki
    • For Robiraki, we often use things that end in “be”. This honors Furuta Oribe, who passed away in November.
    • For this, we often use Oribe dougu, Inbe dougu (Inbe is a city in the province formerly called Bizen, now Wakayama-ken, so Inbe refers to Bizen). We also use dougu with hints of green, as it reminds us of nature while the outside gets cold and withered.
    • Inoko Mochi is served at Robiraki.
      • Originally, there was a Chinese custom to eat mochi with grains to prevent illness, which was consumed on the month of the boar / day of the boar / hour of the boar, on the lunar calendar.
      • Inoko-sai (at Go-o Jinja) thus is celebrated in November.
      • Additionally, it is said that boar are guardians against fire. So, for the illness protection idea as well as protection for fire while you open a new fire, inoko mochi are eaten when the ro is opened.
      • https://www.nagase-foods.com/global/treha/news_blog/food_blogs_stories/20211111/
    • Rikyu said that the ro should be opened when the yuzu turn yellow. We often open the ro at the beginning of November for teaching curriculum purposes.
    • Common to use tsubaki + teriha for hana, as this is the standard for winter.
  • Ro note: his preference is to avoid using red during furo season, as red equates to warmth (whereas black is somewhat more cooling). Using red during ro is nice though for warmth. This includes both red natsume and red raku. (Black is still fine year-round).
  • Ro note: Hishaku tip of handle should also be at uchizumi/sotozumi tangent line.
    • He wonders if it would make sense to have the handle at sotozumi when facing uchizumi, and vice versa, to make more space.
  • Sou Kazari stuff
    • If the lid is not nuributa, you cannot put the fukusa on the lid. (It is NOT a requirement to leave fukusa when doing sou-kazari, but it is preferred).
      • You may tie the fukusa to the leg of the tana, and there are ways to do it that look like a cicada / bird / etc, but that shit is impossible.
    • For marujoku, there is no alternate place beyond the lid to place the fukusa. So if you are doing irekodate etc with marujoku, it is better to use a nuributa.
    • There is no haiken in sou kazari, but you do refill the mizusashi.
      • BIG! Ask questions instead of haiken!
        • Ask about chashaku when wiping chashaku
        • Ask about natsume when you move it back to honjimai
    • To indicate to guests that there is no haiken, and that you are doing sou-kazari, you wipe the bowl. (Subtle)
    • Sou-kazari is done when you plan to do more tea later, and you want to leave things out for ease of use.
    • Steps to do sou-kazari:
      • Empty the bowl, wipe it, shibori chakin (not tatami-kae) and refold, then continue as usual until closing the mizusashi lid.
      • Place the hishaku directly on the tana, then take the futaoki and turn (ro). Place the futaoki where it goes.
      • With two hands, simultaneously place both chawan and chaki.
      • Exit with the kensui, then return with mizutsugi and refill. Then, sou-sabaki and leave fukusa.
    • Dario note: It feels like irekodate isn’t necessarily special because you leave things on the tana. It seems more that the thought process was, “How do we ensure we only need to enter and exit once?” Step one is sou-kazari, as that eliminates some of the exits. Step two is entering with the kensui at the same time as the chawan. Step three is eliminating the mizutsugi.
      • Therefore, leaving the fukusa does NOT have any relation to if you are adding water or not.
  • General, better to avoid patterned mizusashi for hakobi koicha.
    • And, it follows that because mizusashi aren’t replaced during chaji, hakobi usucha should follow similar rules.
  • Whenever you have lids with horizontal tsumami (ie our imogashira sometsuke, also even nuributa), always try to keep the tsumami line parallel to the ground when placing it down.
    • “This way, on a nuributa, the reflection from the lid will cause it to look like a complete circle”
• Mizuya stuff, his setup at home:
  • For chawan: Raku → Ido → Plain karatsu (ie kujira)
  • For chashaku: White nakabushi → White nakabushi with coloring → Susudake (in loose formality order)
  • For chaki: One chaire, maybe two if you need a bunrin / etc. Two usuchaki, one more standard and one more unusual (patterned, hira, etc)
• Running a keikoba:
  • He does kama and generally does water, otherwise does all the rest of setup.
    • One by one, he introduces small things for students to do (filling mizusashi etc).
    • He never allows students to walk with objects. For mizusashi, they stay in the mizuya area, and they bring bottles of water etc to the mizuya to fill.
    • (None of this holds true for advanced students etc)
  • For brand new students, he works with them separately (during the in-between times, ie while other students are doing junbi, or briefly before/after) until they are ready to do temae with the whole group.