JOURNEY - on Mastering Ukemi (5 page)

“
Name one.”

“
No. I’m not going to play that game with you. I’m going to put it on to you to start living your life like a warrior and as your tactical approach I want you to emulate the idea of
ukemi
. Do you worry about dying when you attack
nage
? Do you concern yourself that you might get hurt?”

“
Sometimes, like when I attack you.”

I looked at him and smiled and he flinched a bit.

“
Well, Sensei, you do have a habit of smacking your
ukes
when they don’t do it right. I’ve had a black eye for the last two weeks if you see what I mean.”

I thought about that and saw how he could have gotten the wrong idea. I really don’t consider a person to be hurt unless there is damage that is at a certain level. A torn ligament, broken bone, cut that requires stitches, ruptured spleen, etc; those are injuries. A bloody nose or blackened eye or sore ribs are just learning experiences.

“
Forget about that. That doesn’t mean anything because you know that I might blacken your eye, but I would never really damage you. I would give my life to protect you. So you attack relentlessly and as hard and fast as you can when I require it. And that’s the way you should live your whole life. That is the way to travel. Don’t try and be safe. People are the same the world over and love the same things, respect the same things and want the same things. We want a soft bed, a warm meal and love. All the rest is extra. Some people are willing to kill for ideology or desire for money or what have you, but the vast majority of people are just like I described and in that sameness you find your common ground. I remember walking around Istanbul one evening and looking at the architecture, the people on the streets, the veiled women, and wandering into a small store that sold your typical convenience store items. While I was paying for a bottle of wine for my wife and a couple bottles of beer I remember thinking how nothing was really any different eleven thousand miles away from Orlando.

“
Another trip I took found me in a small village all alone at the end of a long journey. That was in Germany. I wandered around until I found a restaurant, went in, and tried to communicate with the manager. I spoke no German beyond ‘ein beer!” and he spoke no English. Somehow I got through to him that I wanted a bowl of soup and a beer. He went off into the kitchen, made a huge bowl of fresh soup that he brought to me with a loaf of dark bread and butter, and kept cold beer coming until I was finished. Then he invited me to join him and a few of his cronies at the bar. We drank all evening and I talked to them in English, they all talked to me in German. I haven’t got a clue what we talked about, but we had a wonderful time and when I left they all hugged me and let me know I would be welcome back anytime. See? It’s a soft bed, a warm meal and love.

“
This is
ukemi
. We go forward and attack because it is the thing that we are required to do. We go forward and do it with the best of our ability. We know we might get hurt. We know we certainly put ourselves in harm’s way, but we do it anyway because that is where the real life is lived.
Ukemi
is attacking from the heart, to the heart. So we embrace travel as a beautiful metaphor for the thing we do on the mat on the other side of being
nage
. Remember that
nage
is the dissipater of the energy that is joined in the nexus of the attack. It is the
uke
that brings this energy to the union. Without
uke
, there is no aikido and without aikido
nage
is just someone drinking a coke or walking down the street.
Uke
defines aikido in much the same way that
uke
defines the technique that
nage
uses to bring him down or dissipate his energy. It’s the same way that life returns to you exactly in measure what you give to it.”

“
How does
uke
define the technique?
Nage
is the one who decides what he is going to do.” Christian said.

“
Nage
makes his decision on the basis of
uke’s
attack. It all depends on what
uke
does. If uke moves forward and grabs and pulls,
nage
responds in kind. If
uke
launches an attack straight up the middle, again,
nage
responds. It’s all about
ukemi
, not what the
nage
does.
Nage
is only useful for re-directing
uke’s
energy. So why does everything we do center around the training of
nage
? Good question, and it isn’t always a straight answer.”

Christian nodded his head and yawned. I guess that was as succinct a comment as he could make. I guess I am getting old and repeating myself. Or maybe I’m just boring the crap out of him. I got up and told him to go home, called my dogs and turned out the lights. What a way to end a day. As he was walking down the steps I called out to him and he turned around.

“
Whatever happened to that girl?”

“
Oh,” he said, “We got back together. I’m going to see her later when she gets off work.”

I just turned around and went into the house. Why do I waste my breath?

Chapter 4

Break Falls

Years ago we had a method of separating the boys from the men. If you could practice break falls by yourself – toss yourself up in the air and land flat on your back, or side, or face while slapping the mat with a free hand to soften the blow- then you were a man. If you couldn’t, well, you weren’t. I have never known a woman who could do this, although I’ve known some women who took a pretty decent breakfall. For years it was a kind of mark… just how well you could take that fall. Now I know that it was all merely a bit of tumbling, like a circus acrobat, just for show and also damn hard on the body. What a waste.

When a sensei throws an
uke
and he takes a big, high fall; when he smacks the mat and makes all that noise; it’s really just for the sensei’s ego. Most competent
ukes
can roll out of nearly any throw that they are moved into. Not all, of course, but about ninety-nine percent more than are generally rolled out of. Then why do they choose to fall hard? It’s because the teacher likes all that noise. He likes the way it looks and feels to have someone crash loudly to the floor when he is thrown. And the
uke
that does it loudest and best gets called for the demonstration. What utter crap.

Is this a conscious thing? I don’t know. But over time a person who can roll out of every throw is used less and less for demonstrations and a person who takes bigger and higher break falls gets used more and more. Is it a conscious decision on the teacher’s part? Who knows? I am aware of it and that is all that is important to me. I ask my students to take big break falls only when I want to impress a visitor for some damn reason. Otherwise I insist that they take them only when necessary. Years ago when this art first began the students prided themselves on being able to roll away out of any fall. It wasn’t until the young, 30 year-old
rokudans
started to teach, guys like Chiba and Yamada and Saotome that their egos required all that noise.

So when I walked into class about a half hour late one evening and saw and heard everyone in the dojo doing high falls from
kote-gaishi
, a technique that only fools take a high fall from, I might have over-reacted.

“
What is going on?” I asked. My body language was probably a lot less ambiguous than my tone. I stood in the open doorway with my hands on my hips, feet splayed apart and head cocked forward and to the right just enough so that I could raise one eyebrow up and still keep them level. Not that I’ve ever practiced that look in front of a mirror, or anything. “What are you doing? Erik?”

“
Tsuki kote-gaishi,
Sensei.” Erik said.

“
Not that. I can see that. What’s with the break falls? You know I hate break falls.”

“
Well,” he began, “Christian said he needed some hard training to work some tension out. Finals are over and he got his M.B.A. from Rollins College. He’s finished.”

“
Really!”

“
I haven’t had anyone doing anything from a hard fall in months so I figured why not do it for one class. Is that a problem?” Erik is really a good teacher who could easily handle having his own dojo.

“
No, of course not. I was just surprised,” I said.

“
Are you taking over, Sensei?” he asked.

“
Yeah, I am. Attention on Deck,” I shouted.

They rushed to the side of the mat to line up and I then bowed the class in. We trained for an hour and I then bowed the class out. As I was leaving the mat Christian came over and said that he would like to talk to me after we changed back into normal clothes. I said I would be back out in a bit and went into my house to shower and dress.

I heard Christian talking to my wife as I came out of the bedroom. She sounded excited and he was rambling on about something that was causing her to laugh out loud.

“
Hey,” I said, “want a beer? Honey, did Christian tell you he graduated from Rollins?” I headed into the dining room and the bar. After drawing two tall ones I went back into my wife’s office and handed one to Christian. “To your M.B.A.!” I said.

Laurie said, “Christian has a surprise for you.”

“
I don’t like surprises,” I said.

“
Yes, you do,” she said.

“
No, I don’t. Whatever, what is it?”

“
And I want you to know I’m jealous and envious and no matter, I want you to do it,” she said.

“
Do what?” I asked, getting more concerned.

“
Sensei, I got a present from my family for graduation. It’s a sort of ‘Have Fun’ present, so I don’t want you to think anything weird. But I want to take a trip, one like you described and I want to take you along and go to that place in Nepal you were talking about. The monastery.”

“
Tengboche?” I asked, surprised. I’m always surprised when anyone actually listens to anything I say.

“
Yes,” he said. “That one.”

“
Really. Wow. That’s, well, hmmmm. You must have gotten a pretty nice present. That is an expensive trip. You have any idea how much that will cost? And, how long it will take, and how hard it will be? I think you need to spend a little more time thinking before you decide to do something like that and although I appreciate your invitation I can’t accept that kind of gift. Thank you, but I really can’t accept it.” I drank my beer and walked through the house and out the back door and went all the way back to the dojo. I needed to put some distance between me and the idea, because it was seriously tempting.

“
Sensei, wait!” Christian came walking up.

“
Christian, I won’t say that I don’t want to go. But I can’t accept that kind of gift from a student, especially one who just got through school and I know damn well could use that kind of money elsewhere.”

“
Sensei, please take a minute and listen. I told my folks about the idea that you and I discussed; that I should see some of the world before I settle into a profession. My dad agreed completely, but my mom freaked out. My dad served in Korea and was in Viet Nam and saw all kinds of places in the world and thinks it’s a great idea. My mom is completely against me going anywhere. So I asked Dad if he and I could go together, him and me. But his health isn’t very good and anyway he hates to walk anywhere. He won’t even go into a store if he has to park more than fifty feet from the entrance.

“
My grandfather thinks it’s a great idea, too. But when we talked about it I thought Mom would just lose it. So my grandfather said he would pay for the trip if maybe we could get you to agree to go along as a kind of guide and mentor. You know, you’ve been there and could watch out for things. You could arrange the trip and organize things. It would be like you were a paid tour guide, or something. The deal is this. If you won’t go, my mom won’t let me go, or at the very least won’t ever speak to my dad again. And Grandpa won’t give me the money for the trip unless Mom is happy. I guess I could just go by myself, but I can’t afford it, either. So in a nutshell, it’s this. Grandpa and Dad want me to go and Grandpa will pay, but only if you go along as a guide. My mom will accept the idea of the trip as long as you are willing to go. Otherwise it’s a long weekend in Chicago visiting my cousins. What do you say?”