Want to escape your desk? Here’s three reason you need to try manual labour

“Only walk in the trenches.” Myumi says.

I look down and squelch my feet in the clay-rich mud. It oozes around my toes as my feet vanish. The morning sun starts to bear down and I’m glad I chose a comfortable baseball cap to wear today.

Kay lifts up a sand bag and a small wave of water is released over the mud. A network of channels move water from field to field ensuring each one can be quickly fed.

Once the water is above our ankles the sandbag is replaced at the entrance of the channel. Mud and water. A kids dream.

Before I started off Myumi has warned in advance only wear clothes I’d be happy to throw away after. As the mud slowly crawled up my leg and over my hands and into my FitBit I could see why.

I’m given a square pad of maybe one hundred young rice plants.

“Take off two and plant them together. Do a row of three then take a step back and do another row of three. We’ll stop for lunch in a few hours.”

I look at the handful of friends and relatives who have come together in the tambo (rice field) this Japanese spring. They are all ages and speeds: slowly bending over and putting their hands deep in the mud to make sure the young rice plant takes root.

I was in deep water.

The first few plants push in nicely and I begin to focus on the efficiency of my movement so I have enough energy to make it to lunchtime.

“You should plant to rice on the lines, not between the lines. That’s where your meant tread.” Of course it is. It was fortunate that we were friends. I had already ruined their planting system through my eager enthusiasm to keep up with everyone else.

Re-arranging my feet into the clay mud. And then reorganising the rows of young rice plants.

When I caught up with the other volunteers they were talking weather and recipes.

The fine, mica-rich mud was above my ankles. And the smallest kids were warmed not to join us because they would get stuck. Instead they could play in the small engineered streams that fed the rice fields. The stream was just big enough for the kids to sit in. So they got busy trying to block the water in the channel system.

This was a long way from my central london offices dealing with lawyers and banks. As part of the desk bound generation my only manual labour in a decade had been the occasional painting of walls.

This was the reason I had taken a mini-retirement in the first place.

Labour as Movement

The work was slow and repetitive…

1. Take two young rice plugs, push them halfway into the mud
2. Make a row of four that follow the lines in the mud
3. Take a step back and repeat the process

…but the slow, repetitive nature makes it’s a social occasion. Everyone walks slowly backwards in a row, chatting away. No one looked like they were finding the work hard. Just me.

Instead I focus on my movement and notice it has become repetitive too. Getting the movement right was the key to not hurting your back. It began to feel like a blend of yoga and CrossFit moves.

1. Getting balance standing in the mud requires practice (and instability equals whole body exercise)
2. Squat down with your legs wide
3. Forward fold and push the rice pugs into the mud
4. Leg extensions back to reposition the body to start the next row of planting
5. Lots of balance to get out of the mud

I was doing this for hours. Refining my movement and dealing with instability with each step.

It takes six of us most of the day to complete one field. The yield, depending on weather will be 15 industrial-sized bags of rice.

Our van is by the side of the field. The boot door is raised high up to create the only shaded canopy we can stand under.

Lunchtime

It’s finally lunchtime. With aching muscles and stiff calfs I scramble out of the field and on to the tiny access road.

The food was simple and glorious: whole grain rice balls made from the ramainder of last years harvest, mixed with a little salt (called ‘onigiri’), banana’s and cold wheat tea. After a morning of lunges and squats this is exactly what I want to eat.

As we chat in the shade I realise that this is the sort of work I had been craving while sitting at my desk.

1. It reminded me of the bricklayers we had hired last year to build our extension and how satisfied they were at the end of each and every day
2. It reminded me that I can do exercise anywhere. But the best exercise is when it’s outside with friends
3. It made me want to volunteer myself more often. I ached and a felt great. I ached for the right reasons…

Yesterday, I went back to the rice field to meet Myumi. She had asked if I would like to walk the waterlogged field with her to pick out all the weeds.

I arrived wearing my least favourite clothes…