Before Zen crossed the shores into Japan, the students of the Tendai school would study meditation, as part of their daily practice. Four of them, close friends all, promised one another to observe seven days of silence.
On the first day, no words were spoken, and the students took pleasure in their auspicious beginning. When night came however, the oil lamps grew dim, and the room slowly darkened.
One student, named Hoshin, called out to a servant: "Servant! Attend to the lamps, so that I might better observe our accomplishment!"
The second student was surprised to hear Hoshin speak. "We are supposed to keep quiet," he chided.
"But you also spoke!" declared the third. "You are an idiot!"
"I am the only one who has not talked," concluded the fourth, as he settled into seiza.
She had no business being there.
Thirty-five, her friends all in Jacksonville. And Aikido, of all things. She practiced four, five hours a day.
She’d never even been to New York before.
But there she was, for five weeks, sleeping on the mat. And training, with partners fifteen years her junior, and twenty years her senior. I can hardly imagine how grueling it must have been.
I wish I knew her, then.
Sorry, Sheena.
The July 2010 newsletter has been published.
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I’m not going to mention his name, because I’m not sure he’d want that.
He’d been training a long time, and not just Aikido. So long, in fact, that his instructor, a senior American practitioner, once referred to him as sempai.
The day he came I was teaching. We were cubs back then, that day, rolling and tumbling on the mat. Not him, though, as he watched us training, off to the side. He was a wolf.
So one day he’s teaching bokken and I was there. I was arrogant then, and amused, when he walked over to demonstrate.
It’s hard to describe what happened. I doubt he even remembers it. But I do.
I held my bokken before me, the way I was taught, the blade extending outward, my wrist slightly turned. I projected from my center. It was, I remember thinking, a solid and impenetrable barrier. With time enough and patience, I could almost keep the world at bay.
The cut was immediate, decisive. So quickly did the blade drop, that I had no time to think, to even breathe. As the moment passed, and my breath returned, I felt the tip of his sword resting lightly against my trachea.
Nowadays when I teach bokken, I demonstrate the movements, again the way I was taught. Sometimes, though, I’ll stop, and think back to that day.
“You have to understand,” I tell them, “this happens very fast…”
And then I’ll wait, and look, and see if they understand. And sometimes, as I watch them, I’ll see my younger self: eager to train, quick to answer, and confident.
He certainly didn’t look extraordinary. Tall, thin, his hair carefully combed back, he would sometimes hunch his shoulders, the way some people do when they walk. When I first met him, there was nothing to indicate anything unusual, or special.
I remember when he first stepped foot on the mat. He did so carefully, without pretense. He asked if we would accept him as a student. He seemed, in sum, what he appeared to be: an older gentlemen, gracious, with an on-off, sometimes persistent, cough.
I’ll never forget that first class. Sensei was teaching koshinage, which can be a bear for new students to pick up. I paired up with him, bowing low. I grabbed his wrist, and prepared to explain the mechanics of the throw. “Put your feet here,” I began to say. “Slide this way.”
As soon as I moved, or began to move, I suddenly found myself upended, staring into space.
Thwat.
Jim was above me, smiling, a twinkle in his eye. His time with us was like that. Techniques he had no business knowing, executed with a grace far beyond his experience. But other techniques, those I would have guessed he knew…nothing. During those times he looked every bit the 5th kyu he was.
Over time, Sensei and I would get to know Jim better. We’d go to lunch, hang out, shoot the breeze. But we never asked him about his martial background. Jim never brought it up, and—strangely, now that I think about it—it seemed intrusive of me to ask.
One summer the dojo took a day trip to Orlando. Jim was there, of course, and I resolved to finally broach the subject. We were alone, by the car, when I flat out asked him:
“How good are you, really?”
He looked at me for a moment, and then, quietly, gave me his martial arts resume. I was floored. Sixth dan, Kodenkan Jiu-Jitsu. Fifth dan, Karate, multiple styles. Others, too. Apparently he’d been training, continuously, for the past thirty-five years.
Yes, he was a beginner in Aikido. Yes, he smoked too much. But man, that koshinage.
About five years ago Sensei and I heard he had a mild heart attack. We tried to find him, then. We knew, in a vague sort of way, where he worked, so we went out one Saturday, determined.
I haven’t seen Jim now in about seven years. I hope he is well. I miss him.
It was 1982, and for me, the beginning of punk. I remember the first time I heard Boys Don’t Cry, the album, and it blew my mind. There was a club in those days, Einstein A-Go-Go, and years later, on open mike night, I would watch my friends play there, badly.
It was also the time when the wider world began to slowly seep into my consciousness. I can’t say for certain whether my interest in the martial arts began then. I know I began reading about Aikido in high school. It didn’t matter in any case – I wouldn’t start training for another decade or so. But the seed was planted.
A few minutes ago I heard the single What a Wonderful World, covered by Joey Ramone. I can’t help but think about O-Sensei, idealism, and the crazy, anarchic world we live in.