{"id":794,"date":"2015-11-16T15:38:28","date_gmt":"2015-11-16T20:38:28","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/madstone.net\/?p=794"},"modified":"2015-11-17T11:54:00","modified_gmt":"2015-11-17T16:54:00","slug":"my-fifth-toastmasters-speech-getting-physical","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/madstone.net\/?p=794","title":{"rendered":"My fifth Toastmasters speech: Getting physical"},"content":{"rendered":"

The assignment for this, my fifth Toastmasters speech and with the project name<\/em> “Your Body Speaks” was to express myself physically as I gave the speech, so I walked when I described walking, bowed when I described myself bowing, etc.<\/em><\/p>\n

\n

My uniform is a simple pair of trousers, the legs of which reach barely below my knees; a heavy cotton jacket; and a simple white belt.<\/p>\n

As I change into my uniform, I can start feeling the cares of my day \u2014 even the stress of the drive to the dojo \u2014 fade away. Like traffic sounds fading as I go deeper into a forest, I may not notice it right away, but the hurry and bustle is less, then less again. I\u2019m often the first person to arrive and I have the changing room to myself.<\/p>\n

Once I\u2019m dressed, I gather the bag of wooden weapons and leave the changing room, then walk down the flagstone path to the dojo itself. This is a simple wooden building on the edge of the woods, with a high roof, windows all the way around, and a porch across the front. The flagstones of the path are irregularly spaced, requiring me to slow down even more as I approach the porch.<\/p>\n

I step onto the porch and leave my sandals by the bench. I slide the door open and bow. I enter the dojo and place the weapons in their proper corner, then get the broom and clean the dojo. As I do each task carefully and in its proper order, the external stillness starts settling deeper and deeper into my mind, and my body further slows. I\u2019ve gradually learned that taking time to do something carefully and well holds value in and of itself.<\/p>\n

Sweeping done, I enter the dojo again, bowing more deeply as I do so. Bowing slows me down, makes me pay attention. Bowing breaks the rush that I go through most of my life in. Bowing reminds me of why I\u2019m here. It shows my respect for my teacher, and the teachers who went before him, and shows my respect for this space, for my fellow students, and even for myself.<\/p>\n

I begin my warm-up, and while I\u2019m stretching and rolling and swinging my arms, other students begin to arrive, each quietly bowing in and greeting me. Finally, our teacher shows up and we pause in our warm-ups to welcome him.<\/p>\n

Soon the class begins, and we always start by bowing again, very formally this time, once to the front of the dojo as a symbol of respect to the teachers who have created, preserved, and strengthened this art, and once to our teacher; he bows to us as well; the respect goes both ways.<\/p>\n

Then the class is in full swing, and we are practicing with sticks or wooden swords; throwing each other across the room (and being thrown!); learning new skills or practicing familiar motions.<\/p>\n

On the inside I\u2019m feeling a swirl of emotions. I\u2019m gleeful when I execute a front roll correctly and at high speed; I\u2019m frustrated at not being able to do a pin or a kata correctly which I thought I\u2019d perfected. I’m embarrassed when I forget something my teacher just taught me a few days ago.<\/p>\n

In the brief interludes of rest I sometimes think about the fact that I\u2019ve spent so much of my life avoiding<\/em> anything that might embarrass me, anything that I wouldn\u2019t be able to excel at doing, and I wonder how many good things I\u2019ve missed. At the dojo there\u2019s certainly no danger of my excelling! I\u2019m no natural athlete, and even those who are athletes may have to start studying when they\u2019re in their teens to be considered experts\u2026 but that matters less here than anywhere else I\u2019ve been. Experts don\u2019t spend any time strutting around on the mat; they spend their time teaching and learning and practicing. The teachers and my fellow students are incredibly helpful to me, because we can\u2019t have fun on the mat unless everyone is as capable as possible. It\u2019s an art with no competition and no conflict.<\/p>\n

Every time I make a mistake, forget a move, or mix up my Japanese vocabulary, I start to sink into my usual self-pity and self-accusation, but none of that comes from my teacher or my fellow students, and I\u2019ve gradually learned the difference between humility and humiliation, between being humble and being humbled. My pride, which has stopped me so many times, in fear of being hurt\u2026 I\u2019m finally learning how to set it aside and not be ruled by it. To learn, with no expectation of perfection, an art that seems to get bigger<\/em> the further into it I go.<\/p>\n

I\u2019m starting to discover that there\u2019s something to learn that\u2019s not only in my head, things to learn that you can\u2019t cram for, that take years to discover, and that that discovery is both inside and outside. It\u2019s how to be physically present so that I can roll out of a throw without being hurt, and how to be with other students with respect and attention. There\u2019s something in the process that is changing me in subtle ways. I can tell that a change is happening, but I can\u2019t tell where I\u2019m going yet.<\/p>\n

Finally, the class ends, and once again we bow to the front of the dojo, then to our teacher, and last to each other, quietly gather our wooden weapons and bow a last time as we leave the mat.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The assignment for this, my fifth Toastmasters speech and with the project name “Your Body Speaks” was to express myself physically as I gave the speech, so I walked when I described walking, bowed when I described myself bowing, etc. My uniform is a simple pair of trousers, the legs of which reach barely below … Continue reading “My fifth Toastmasters speech: Getting physical”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[62],"tags":[63],"class_list":["post-794","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-toastmasters","tag-speech"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pgY3e-cO","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":752,"url":"https:\/\/madstone.net\/?p=752","url_meta":{"origin":794,"position":0},"title":"My first Toastmasters speech: The Icebreaker","author":"Jorah","date":"August 2, 2015","format":false,"excerpt":"Note: when making a speech to a Toastmasters club, you have to open and close the speech in prescribed fashion. The \"icebreaker\" speech is the standard first speech in the Toastmasters program, designed to get you talking in front of an audience. I procrastinated writing this speech until 10:45 on\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Toastmasters"","block_context":{"text":"Toastmasters","link":"https:\/\/madstone.net\/?cat=62"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":771,"url":"https:\/\/madstone.net\/?p=771","url_meta":{"origin":794,"position":1},"title":"My second Toastmasters speech: Heroes","author":"Jorah","date":"August 16, 2015","format":false,"excerpt":"Below is my second Toastmasters speech, built on the requirement that I had to organize my speech properly; with a clear beginning, middle, and end. This is still in the form of the notes I spoke to during the speech. I'm planning to re-write it to fill in the blanks,\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Toastmasters"","block_context":{"text":"Toastmasters","link":"https:\/\/madstone.net\/?cat=62"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":769,"url":"https:\/\/madstone.net\/?p=769","url_meta":{"origin":794,"position":2},"title":"My third Toastmasters speech: A moonlit highway long ago","author":"Jorah","date":"August 30, 2015","format":false,"excerpt":"Below is my third Toastmasters speech, given as my entry in a humor contest on August 28. I was made ineligible for the contest because I went over the time limit of seven minutes, but I count it as a success because people did laugh, and I did manage to\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Toastmasters"","block_context":{"text":"Toastmasters","link":"https:\/\/madstone.net\/?cat=62"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":781,"url":"https:\/\/madstone.net\/?p=781","url_meta":{"origin":794,"position":3},"title":"The good things…","author":"Jorah","date":"September 4, 2015","format":"status","excerpt":"I complain. Okay, I complain a lot. But I\u2019m not in a bad mood all the time. Today I thought I\u2019d list a few things I\u2019m happy about this week. It\u2019s been a stressful week, so it\u2019s good to look at some good things, too. First: my arms actually aren't\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Philosophizing"","block_context":{"text":"Philosophizing","link":"https:\/\/madstone.net\/?cat=59"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":730,"url":"https:\/\/madstone.net\/?p=730","url_meta":{"origin":794,"position":4},"title":"A hard lesson to learn: trying to be a better me","author":"Jorah","date":"May 31, 2015","format":false,"excerpt":"I was reading a book on Aikido recently. The author of the book mentioned how nearly everyone he met in Aikido over the years had been a decent person. I have had an interest in Aikido for over thirty years, and finally got a chance to join a dojo last\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Social commentary"","block_context":{"text":"Social commentary","link":"https:\/\/madstone.net\/?cat=46"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":163,"url":"https:\/\/madstone.net\/?p=163","url_meta":{"origin":794,"position":5},"title":"I think I might hate the word "actual."","author":"Jorah","date":"July 17, 2005","format":false,"excerpt":"I have a co-worker who starts many, many sentences with one or the other of two phrases: \"To tell you the truth,\" or \"To be completely honest with you.\"Now... any repetition grates on me (long story) but inanities like these really get to me. I fully expect that my co-worker\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Post"","block_context":{"text":"Post","link":"https:\/\/madstone.net\/?cat=30"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/madstone.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/794","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/madstone.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/madstone.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/madstone.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/madstone.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=794"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/madstone.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/794\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":796,"href":"https:\/\/madstone.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/794\/revisions\/796"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/madstone.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=794"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/madstone.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=794"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/madstone.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=794"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}