Boulder Quest students have returned from Fall Festival! We were a somewhat smaller group this year - just Mary Aitoshi, Thomas Luce, Robert Burrow, and myself. Thomas and I discussed on the plane ride back how a person might not realize the value of Festival if they are in their first few years of training, but how he has come to recognize the critical role the experience plays in inspiration, motivation, and our sense of the global To-Shin community. I agree. Ask him about his Festival story when you get a chance... here's mine.

I had the archtypical Zen satori moment on the first technique of the trip. Celebrating An-Shu Hayes' kanreki 60th year, and starting my own 11th year of training in To-Shin Do, I was relaxed but excited to stand among my peers and seniors at the Friday afternoon black belt training. While describing our protector lineage, and how we might embody a protector's movement from day one in our training, Mr. Hayes reached out with a standard cross-punch in the air.

I reached out with my own right cross-punch, but as I did so, I somehow became aware of my center in a new way. I felt myself float forward freely and effortlessly, perfectly balanced over my hips, and all at once I was reminded of snowboarding, falling, swimming, and flying. I felt a deeper grace than I had experienced before, and I felt the joy of those unusual sports memories of perfected balance and grace -- those memories that motivate me to continue snowboarding in hopes of feeling that again for just a few seconds.

I also felt radically disoriented because of the excellent balance, unable to tell up from down, left from right, or how much power I was generating. The sense of effortless flight-like movement was so complete that I couldn't feel myself pushing or straining in even the slightest way, which meant I couldn't tell where I was in my usual way. I felt like a cross-punch was doing me, rather than me doing a cross-punch. I noticed a sense of fear somewhere in that loss of control, and I smiled as endured the fear because I knew that I was among friends and that I couldn't be harmed in this simple movement that I had repeated tens of thousands of times.

I then realized, still in that fraction of a second, that every activity, adventure, sport and freedom I pursue is an attempt to capture that feeling of perfected accomplishment... and yet every fear I harbor and every error I commit is a manifestation of that desire to find myself in the world by bumping up against the world and resisting it a little bit. The resistance is reassuring - the pushback lets me know where I am, and so, even though I desire effortless freedom and power at one level, it terrifies me.

And I knew right then and there that I could learn to let that go, and just be effortless freedom and power, some day.

My whole life and personality distilled down into realization and inspiration, in a so-called ordinary cross punch after 11 years of punching and so many more exotic techniques. Shikin Haramitsu Daikomyo! I laughed out loud because it was such a Zen fairy tale, but it was absolutely true, and I carried that insight with me through the rest of the Festival. I had my value for that trip right there in the first 30 seconds on the mat, and there was so much more over the minutes, hours, and days to come.

May your training be auspicious, and may you find what you are seeking!

Kevin Keitoshi