Gary-sensei gave an unenthusiastic and more-than-ordinarily unfocused lecture on kaiseki, charcoal, and the way to wash ash. (Of course we wash our ash. Our charcoal, too. Did you expect any less?)

In the afternoon we practiced making koicha using a tana. (The marujoku version, in my case.) Iit differs from making tea on the tatami almost exactly as tana usucha differs from hakobi usucha, so having gotten my head around tana complications and koicha complications separately, I was able to combine them without too much difficulty. And Hamana-sensei had a rather genial air–not that he’s ever unpleasant, mind you.

After supper, Sean and I paid a visit to our favorite local dōgu shop to see if we couldn’t relieve ourselves of some of the scholarship money Oiemoto had handed us on Wednesday. I finally picked up one of the tea person’s basic behind-the-scenes mizuya necessities: a sifter. Matcha is so fine that it packs itself tightly when you leave it alone for a while, so just before making tea it’s best to sift it. You can get an nicer, clump-free suspension in water much easier that way. Sure, you can get the desired results with a standard kitchen model, but I felt like shelling out a little extra for the kind common in the tea world: a tidy stainless steel lidded canister with a bamboo paddle for pushing the tea through the removable screen. More significantly, I acquired what I think of as my first real piece of temae gear; that is, not just the cheapest practice implement available–not something I’ll be looking to replace anytime soon with a better version. I bought a lacquered tray for doing bonryaku and chabako temae. Very basic, very useful. Very pretty. Standard black kakiawase with the bright red tsumagure rim. Not expensive. Just exactly what’s needed. Yes. I’m a little giddy over my new tray.

Late in the evening, Sean and Szymon and I put ourselves into a certain condition with a bottle of Polish vodka, and went for a long ramble around the neighborhood in the quiet small hours. Our stated aim was to locate Funaoka Hill, which is tricky even in broad daylight and sober; it’s a low enough rise that you can’t see it until you’re nearly on it, and no street runs directly to it. We circled until it rose black immediately ahead of us, by which time we didn’t feel like climbing it anymore, so we weaved our way home and to bed.

Hang on–that’s not how the day started. We actually began with a quiz on which I did respectably but not outstandingly. For that I’ll go ahead and blame Ro-sensei. Nice as he is–and, of course, knowledgeable–the language barrier keeps him from imparting to us much in the way of facts of the kind that I needed to know for the quiz. Ah, well–these don’t go on our permanent record or anything.

Hlawatsch-sensei covered the early history of Christianity in Japan, from the arrival of the Jesuits in the mid-16th century to the expulsions, exterminations, and forced re-conversions that virtually extinguished the faith here a century later.

My supervisory duties went smoothly in the afternoon before and after practice. In between, we practiced more with the sugidana, which I’ve quickly grown to dislike, and here’s why. Failing an experienced sense of touch with the sliding middle shelf, the only way to put it where you want it is to look at it, which is impossible for anyone in the class, regardless of size, to do without hunching over and craning his or her neck in a most unbecoming fashion. And I don’t see how mastering the thing blindfolded would be worth the effort. The real point of the practice was to play around with various futaoki, kettle lid rests, on which we also set the hishaku from time to time. For hakobi temae, the futaoki should be plain bamboo, but with a tana, it should be anything but. (Exception: if the bamboo lid rest has an iemoto’s ciper on it.) So they can be metal or glass or ceramic or what have you, and certain shapes have certain rules governing their use and display. Fun fun fun.

Being Dude to Whom the Buck Might Be Passed means you don’t have to do any cleaning or anything afterwards, so I relaxed, had supper, and spent another evening failing to get to the bottom of my to-do pile. I would have made more progress than I did, but a script arrived for my perusal: the predetermined dialogs in which I’d have to participate during the next day’s chaji. I studied until bedtime, and dropped off feeling apprehensive.

As I’ve mentioned, we begin and end our days with chores according to the tōban list. Today was the first day that we newbies didn’t have special activities in the morning or afternoon, so we got to follow our senpai around and learn. Anita and I were on mizuya-chō detail, in charge of the preparation area outside the tearoom. Before morning lecture we stopped into the school’s second-floor kitchen to bag up everything we’d need for practice later. Then we prepared sweets, tea, water, and a hot towel (oshibori) for our teacher. After class began with a bow, Anita brought in the sweets, retreated to whisk the tea, brought it in, disappeared once more, and returned carrying a tray with the towel, glass of water, and second kind of tea.

During the first lecture period Mittner-sensei explained Urasenke’s organizational structure to us. Most of her talk went not quite over, but definitely to one side of my head. Hamana-sensei dedicated the second lecture period to a round-table get-to-know-one-another session.

We lunched quickly on hayashi rice and hurried back to prepare for afternoon practice. The mizuya-chō retrieves the day’s special sweets from the kitchen along with the various trays and wooden picks needed to serve them, makes a mental note of the arrangement of the mizuya (everything must be cleaned and restored to its original position at the end of practice, and readies stacks of towels and chakin, the strips of linen used to clean tea bowls during temae.

Hamana-sensei taught us how to fold a fukusa and use it to symbolically purify the natsume and chashaku. Like everything in tea, this is harder than it looks–and done well, it looks beautiful. Dancers and some athletes know the kind of strength and control required to make a thing look effortless, but it was new to me. Posture and movement in tea, moreover, should communicate a feeling of peacefulness to the guest, and to let go of tension when one’s knees are screaming for mercy is no mean feat.

Before he dismissed us, Hamana-sensei helped us bend our copper haisaji (ash scoops) into their ideal shapes. Then we rejoined our senpai to help clean up. The mizuya-chō puts away everything he took out while making sure everyone else has done the same. Once all the dōgu have been cleaned and replaced, the head mizuya-chō for the whole practice facility is summoned; only after his review and approval can we leave.

We hurried back to our dorms to change into work clothes and then returned to school. The floor of the large room that hosted the opening ceremonies has been covered with dozens upon dozens of tatami to transform the space into a giant practice facility. Every day Midorikai is responsible for sweeping and wiping down all those tatami. We made short, fun work of it, though, and were soon over at the shokudō, eating nice broiled fish.

Sean and I needed more appropriate work clothes than jeans and t-shirts, so Szymon took us to a kimono shop to buy samue, the pajama-like working garments of Buddhist monks, and favored cleaning attire at Urasenke. (They would also make terrific pajamas, for that matter.) Then Sean and I stopped by the 100-yen shop to buy this and that. We realized on our way home that we hadn’t had a thing to drink since the airplane ride here a week before, so we popped into Lawson for some beer and holed up for the evening in Sean’s room.

Somebody had suggested soaking sore knees in hot water, so before I went to bed I used my big bathtub for the first time. Now I doubt I’ll go a night without a bath. It works magic on the joints and is just pleasantly relaxing in general. Warm, limber, and a happy distance from sobriety, I dropped off to sleep.