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Ok apparently three people can't lift me. Two people can't push me over when I'm sitting cross legged. So if I'm, as I do, sitting outside of a class room cross legged as often I do, waiting for a lecture and two people try to push me over I'll be like, "You're trying to push over the universe, which is slightly impossible".
And then they'll try picking me up and I'll be all "Get real, if you can't push the universe over what makes you think you can lift it, really?"
Tonight I was training with the big guy again and I couldn't move him. Then I kinda gave up, totally relaxed and moved. I mean I let my arm go limp and then I made kaiten. Uke moved. This made no sense. So for the next 15 minutes I had him try and stop me. It was a joke. I wont pretend I get it but when I let myself go limp and I move no-one can stop me. Maybe limp isn't the right word. When I pull from my centre only.
Eventually me and Sensei had it out, as we do occasionally. A feature of our dojo is students having it out with Sensei, sometimes physically, on the mat.
Seems to me I've spent the past seven years learning to do nothing because doing nothing is far more effective than doing something.
It doesn't make sense. If I try and move uke I fail. If I relax and just move myself uke hits the mat like God has bitch slapped him there.
Eh? The three of us that are 1st kyu sat in the bar afterwards discussing this and it makes no sense. How is it that someone using all their strength to stop me
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I know we're not supposed to have this kind of relationship in the west, but it would appear my dojo does. I love how my dojo sticks together. We're like this little army. I remember once we were in this bar and this guy wanted to fight one of us and our mate shouts out "Hey, this guy wants a fight" and literally everyone at the bar leans back and has a look. Everyone at the bar meaning half my dojo. The guy wanting the fight took note and foxtrot oscared.
I'm senior, I'm the best trained, it's my responsibility to take care of the situation.
I suppose my dojo is unique in that we live in each others pockets. We train together, drink together, used to be in college together, in some cases live and work together.
I remember those days in college. Weapons bags slung over shoulders and propped up in corners of labs. Nods and small bows made in corridors. "Training later?" "Hai." "Yosh!"
I remember once I was working on a computer and Sensei, being a computer technician came in to fix it and he asked if he could have access to it. This was in the middle of class and I said, out of habbit, "Hai, Sensei, dozo."
Broken Japanese was and still is a way of acknowledging this in group status, this deep connection we all have. "O genki des ka?" "Hai genki des, anata wa?" "Snafu." "So des ka?/honto, nani?"
Occasionally Sensei calls me when I'm in public and I answer, "Hai, Sensei?" And everyone looks at me. It started off as habbit and I'd cringe at myself but I've jus
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I can do some really freaky shit. I can put my hand on someone and they get stuck to it. It's happened several times by accident. Tommorrow I'm going to see if I can do it deliberately.
Yesterday Sensei had me throwing someone and it was effortless. The uke is big, very strong and was pulling as hard as he could in the opposite direction. Initally he just held me in place. Sensei was standing there with his hands on his hips just eyeballing me yelling "Use your hips!" I did try but it wasn't happening. Eventually Sensei stomps over, shows me what I'm doing, shows me what he wants me to do.
Uke went flying. I had him resist as hard as he could. It made zero difference. This story has been repeated about a half dozen times in the past six months and I'm slowly starting to get it.
Increasingly this kind of stuff has been happening in our dojo, we call it, "witchcraft." If a member of the dojo misses a class and asks what was taught we'll say, "Oh Sensei was teaching witchcraft again." Several jokes have been made about Sensei arriving for class on a broom.
Thinking about it though it's only really the 1st kyus that get taught "witchcraft." I quite like it, not all of the seniors do. It doesn't feel right. As uke it feels like suddenly you just start moving, you don't feel tori is doing anything. Kinda like you've just fallen into a hole. Then as tori it doesn't feel like you're really doing anything either.
His eyes narrowed and his jaw clenched as his face contorted into a focused scowl. Swallowing hard and exhaling deeply and slowly through his nose he tilted his head slightly. A pause. Then, with a slow deliberate movement, he reached for his bowl of tea, took a few sips, and replaced the bowl, exactly in its spot.
"The wasabi is quite potent here, isn't it" I opined. "It is" he responded.
I passed 1st Kyu. I feel like I've climbed up this huge steep hill, the mudansha hill. Towering over me is the yudansha moutain with its various sub-peaks.
It's odd because numerically speaking most of my gradings are done, I've passed six and there are only four more. It feels kinda good to think that until I realise that the space between gradings just got huge.
I don't really feel like I've achieved anything so much as I've brought something to a close. Ikkyu is over. Shodan has begun. I've not reached anything, I've just passed a spot on the road.
Feels like I'm staring shodan in the face actually; it's not some distant thing over the other side of 1st kyu, it's my next destination.
It could be only a year away which, considering I've been attempting 1st kyu for three years, isn't very long.
It doesn't feel like it means anything though, grades are transient, I pass though them they define nothing about me or my practice, they're more like sign posts on the road I'm walking along. Actually shodan isn't my next destination, it's the next section of road that I'll be traveling on. It's like turning off one road and onto another.
Apparently I'm grading on sunday. "You'll be turning up for your grading." Then in the car on the way home I got the further diktat, "No drinking until after the grading."
Disaster. Weekend ruined. End. Of. The. Universe.
So I've made do with a (dry) theatre trip to see Anna Karenina and am now watching The Karate Kid Part Three.
I'd like to quote from Dave Lowry at this point, "When his master Ittosai was off on one of his many journeys in search of worthwhile opponents (or dallying with a variety of the mistresses he kept, in search of something perhaps even more worthwhile), Kofujita practiced under the school's seniormost student, Ono Tadaaki."
How do I honestly feel about my 5th attempt at 1st kyu? Not happy. Pass or fail, not happy. There is a certain young lady I was hoping to be out drinking with on saturday night. I know this may come across as lack of dedication or wrong attitude to keiko or something. I disagree.
Going when you want to go is not dedication. Going when you don't want to go is dedication.
I've done zero prep for this grading. Sensei doesn't know what, if anything, is wrong. The feeling at the moment is that it's going to be the ukes that decide it. If I can get someone who can handle "young man's Aikido" then I'll be ok. Likely as not I wont. I've told everyone from my dojo that on no account are they even to get on the mat, never mind take ukemi for me. I want to see how seriously my grading's being taken i.e. if there's even a r
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02-25-2010 07:27 PM 
