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Masanori – Commentary Lesson

Hi, this is Kristin, welcome back to the commentary for the conversation Masanori. So I first wanted to say that I really admire this little guy, this little guy meaning Masanori. I really admire his intense focus, being able to really focus in on one thing. I admire that because I’m a bit opposite of that actually. I have a lot of interests, so for me to focus in on one of those is a little challenging.

I tend to have many focuses although I don’t, unlike Masanori, who becomes extremely or intensely focused on one thing, because I have a lot of different interests, I never really become as focused with one thing like he does, whatever it may be, as mentioned in the conversation, cicadas or mushrooms or acorns.

So I really admire that about him. And I also admire that his focus, his passion is exploring the natural world. And I was thinking of exploration in the natural world, how Masanori really enjoys doing that, and it reminded me of a time when Joe and I were in Indonesia and we were on the island of Bali with a friend.

And our friend, he’s American but he knows Indonesia quite well. Actually, he lives there now. He lives on Bali.

At this time, he wasn’t living there but he knows the island very well and he took us to a park in the western part of the island and we went there to go hiking. So I thought it was going to be a day of just walking through the woods, that’s a usual hike for me. And it was very different because our friend, Kenny, is a naturalist, so he is a science teacher. He teaches young children about the natural world, basically things like Masanori is interested in.

So this hike, or I thought it was going to be just this walk through the woods, was very different. We started out going very slowly and quietly. And that was so that, well, for a few reasons, one was so we could listen to what was going on around us, all of the sounds of the birds. If we could hear any animals walking.

We were also walking slowly and quietly so that we could pay attention to what we were seeing. There’s so much when you really start to tune in, if you’re in the woods, there’s so much going on. There’s so much to see and so much to hear that can easily be tuned out, y’know, not paid attention to if you’re walking fairly quickly through.

And also if you’re in your head, in other words, if you’re thinking a lot about, oh, what am I going to eat for lunch later, or what am I going to do tonight? Am I going to go see this friend? If you’re not really paying attention, you can miss so much of what’s going on. And so our friend Kenny was, he’s very tuned into observing and focusing in and really trying to find things to look at, listen to. It just comes with his training of teaching, taking children out and teaching them these things.

And so it was a very interesting walk. We ended up seeing, I think it was a little deer. They’re smaller…a deer is an animal with a short tail. They’re usually brown and white on their stomach. We have many here in North America. This particular deer was smaller though. I think, if I’m remembering correctly, I think it was a…he called it a barking deer.

So we saw one of those. Now, had we been walking, just doing a usual hike, we probably would have missed the deer or we would have been walking, not paying attention, walking quickly, somewhat loudly, it would have scared the deer. So we saw a little deer.

Our friend Kenny pointed out some leaves on a tree that were all eaten up and I think he could even tell from the bite mark on the leaves what kind of insect or bug had been eating these leaves. He probably also knew what insects or bugs liked these particular leaves from this tree.

We saw and heard many different kinds of birds. I can remember our friend, Kenny, he actually focused in on a bird in a tree right away and kept trying to point it out to Joe and I. It was difficult for me to see for the longest time. Finally, I could see it. So it’s just a very, very different way, like I said, of doing a hike or a walk through the woods.

Another experience that I had a few years ago that was somewhat similar to our friend Kenny taking us on the hike in west Bali. This was a tracking class that I participated in. It was a tracking adventure so I went with a group of people up about an hour north of San Francisco to an area, it’s kind of like a park.

And there’s a small lake there as well, so small body of water.

And we were guided. We had a guide, someone who was showing us animal tracks, that was what the class was about. And so we spent several hours in this park, which a lot of times parks, people can think of parks as being just open land. This was actually, there was a part that was open where the water was, but then there was also woods, y’know, a lot of trees.

So he walked us around and we got to pay attention to all of the tracks from animals. And he pointed out or explained, he had enough experience to know the different animal tracks or prints in the ground, when I say tracks I mean prints in the ground, he had enough experience to know what animal made each of the prints.

And then we walked around and he was showing us areas where you could see where the grass had been pushed down, where animals had been walking. So for us, for us humans, there was a path that we walked on that had been created by humans. A lot of times, animals don’t want to walk on these human paths because they’re more out in the open and wild animals like to stay hidden a lot of times.

So he would actually point out in the woods, y’know, in thick, where there would be thick bushes, areas we could see where the grass was pushed down and there was clearly an area made for animals to walk, to and from areas. If I had just been out there doing a normal usual hike around, I probably wouldn’t have paid attention to something like that.

We came up to an area that was kind of behind a big bush and you could see where the grass was all pushed down in a large area, and what he was saying, there had probably been a deer laying there, making her, his or her bed. We eventually went down to the body of water, the small lake, around there was so many animal tracks. Because, y’know, animals need to go and get water to drink. They need water like we do.

So we saw a lot of animal tracks and they were very clear, too, because the area around the lake was a little, the earth or the dirt was a little bit wet so you could see a lot of tracks. And also we were looking at scat. Scat is animal poop. So we would look at the poop and you could see fur in it sometimes, so you could see what the animal, or bones, you could see what the animal had actually been eating. And, again, our guide had enough experience to where he could, usually he could tell what kind of animal had left the poop based on the size of it and what we could see had been eaten. It was really fascinating.

And so the next time that I went hiking, which was with Joe and AJ and Tomoe, AJ’s wife, Tomoe, I remember I had just taken this tracking class and so instead of just walking through the woods and having all these thoughts in my head, not really paying attention to what was around me, I started looking and noticing, wow, there’s an area where it looks like animals had been walking that I wouldn’t have necessarily have noticed.

Or look, wow, there’s some scat or some poop, and y’know, stopping, trying to figure out what animal had left that. Or maybe noticing some animal tracks. Actually, I don’t remember if I saw animal tracks on that hike, but definitely animal poop and areas that were, you could tell animals had made a path walking because the grass was pushed down.

Also, something that was pointed out in this tracking class and I saw it on our hike, my hike with Joe and AJ and Tomoe, was a tree that had scratch marks on it. So here in Northern California we have cougars, cougars are large cats, big large wild cats. And you can see scratch marks on a tree. Y’know, they like to, just like a small domestic cat, y’know a pet, they like to scratch their claws.

So it was so amazing to see this tree that our guide had pointed out in the tracking class where clearly a large cat, and you could tell, too, it was standing up on its back legs to be able to scratch really high on this tree. And I think on our hike then, the hike I did with AJ and Joe and Tomoe, I think maybe I saw a tree that had some scratch marks, if I remember correctly.

Anyway, those are just some stories I wanted to share of exploring the natural world and I was reminded of these stories because of Masanori’s curiosity for the natural world, his passion and focus for the natural world.

Alright, that is all for this commentary for this month. Have a good month and I’ll see you next time.