It snows in Vermont. Less than it used to, but still a lot. There are paths that connect different parts of the campus. For years, Soryu has been telling people not to shovel the paths, and we just haven’t been able to listen. It’s in our bones to shovel the paths, we just have to.
One snowy day, the Buildings and Grounds lead told me to walk up and down the path to HQ with snow shoes to make it easier to walk. As I was taking them off back at the main building, Soryu was coming back from skiing. He asked what I had been doing and I told him, and he said what would work better is to take something flat and heavy, put 10 screws in it sticking out 1 inch, and drag that over the path people walk to compact the snow. Either that or a snowmobile. I laughed at the snowmobile idea. Later I went and found some materials and made a prototype.
Throughout the season, there was a lot of resistance to using the thing I started calling the snow path maker. I kept being insistent, no, this is what Soryu said to use. But people kept shoveling the paths. Gradually, through much feedback from Soryu, some learned to listen to him and sometimes use the snow path maker. However, still, when instructions were given to use it, many would say things like “I think we should just walk on it to compress it”, and I would say, no this is what Soryu said to use. But I wasn’t in charge of Buildings and Grounds, and people really had a lot of resistance, so often it still was not used.
Eventually, another resident or two learned to listen to Soryu about this and worked with him to improve the prototype design so it worked better. It became a two person harness system that pulled 4 cinderblocks piled on top of a piece of plywood with nails sticking out the bottom. It was quite an endeavor to make it to the top of the hill up to HQ.
One day it was my turn to use the new two person system. The B&G lead told me that Soryu had suggested that the two people using it chant to stay in sync. So we did that, chanting “gya-te gya-te ha-ra gya-te hara-so gya-te bo-ji sowa-ka” the whole way up the hill. By the end, it was so much exertion I was practically shouting it to keep going. Soryu saw this, came out of his cabin, and cheered us on.
In my interview shortly after, Soryu brought this up, saying that how I was pulling the snow path maker is how I should be practicing.