Swan

About a year ago, Brother Swan told me that in doing kata Soetezuki, I should discover its intern rhythm, its own music. 

But what music would that be? At different moments of my life I have been fascinated by jazz, or latin bands, even heavy metal. Too easy to discard those options. A japanese kata… should that not have it’s own, foreign to me, music? After some thinking, the statement faded in the background of the many things that we hear at the dojo, those that might mean something, surely beyond me. I stayed looking at Brother Swan, now and then remembering the statement. Is there some music there? Which one? If anything at all I could hear no more than the crying of the air being pierced by a sword, the shuffle of feet displacing their owners along the floor. Was there something else there to be found? How could it possibly be that music, any music, describes and shape the actions of an instant, carefully designed to kill somebody else? Could there be any melody here? Yet the thought would not fade completely. 

The extended arm, prolonged by a sword, is the consequence of an opening, muscles and will taking space and time, shaping and yet cutting reality. Is this a conductor’s wand calling to attention a orchestra, a quartet, a solo about to start? It isn’t and it is, is not up to others to follow, but to join, to yet move onward or to retreat, to attempt a cut or to concede defeat before being cut. Brother Swan waits, time frozen at the tip of his sword even when nothing is static, when we all know that the flow is there. Frozen, we follow what is developing there, in the instant where Brother Swan is deciding the next movement. Flow! I said, nothing in staccato and yet increasing the tension. 

My beloved plays the piano. Now and then, with envy, I look at her partitures. Not that I understand much, or anything. But I do see the time, perfectly metered by the signs on paper. Did I say perfectly? Timing is given by the composer, yet the interpreter will take her own decisions, will slow down or accelerate her fingers on the keys to tell what she actually wants to tell. Bach set a discourse and timed it too, and yet my beloved, when telling what Bach wanted to tell me, has her unique voice shaping what I hear. Classic music has nothing from that jazzy free wheeling, the absolute freedom of Coltrane chasing a love supreme that we might, or might not, chase too. Yet even Bach, when deciding what to tell, knew and asked from his interpreters their own voice, their own melody and rhythm.  

Brother Swan decides, the kata ends. Time wasn’t frozen after all. The blade enters the scabbard and I breathe. Once again, I could not hear the music. Or did I?