JOURNEY - on Mastering Ukemi (8 page)

“
But what about other women?” he asked.

“
Son, you’re going to be too tired. Forget about it.”

“
So do you want Curtis and Chris to go?” he asked again.

“
I do.”

“
Okay,” he said.

“
You don’t?”

“
Yeah, I guess I do,” he said.

“
Then you call them and tell them you would like them to join us,” I said.

He stood there looking at me for a moment. Something was up. “What?” I asked.

“
Um, well, there is something. Celine wants to go. She says her sister wants to go, too.”

Christ on a crutch! Women? That’s what this was about? That complicates things. I thought a moment. But maybe, not that much. Not really. Women have a wonderfully civilizing effect on men. Men won’t do or say many things they normally would if a woman is present. It might actually make the trip better. And Celine is tough, well educated, an experienced traveler – she comes from Izmir, Turkey and began her training there with my old friend Mustafa Aygun, Sensei. And, she is very attractive. Half the young guys in the dojo have either gone on dates with her or wanted to, but she won’t have a relationship with anyone who trains in aikido. I didn’t need to ask her why. Those kinds of things tend to be self-evident. I thought about it, holding the idea up to the sun, letting the bright light of day sift though the equation. Why not?

“
Do you think you can stand being around her for a month?”

He actually blushed. “Sure!”

“
I thought you had a girlfriend.”

“
She’s been gone for months. I’ve had a couple since.”

“
Christian, don’t complicate things. If this is some bright idea that you have and think you are going to seduce her on the trip it might make for a really rocky trip.”

He laughed. “Don’t worry, she’s not interested in me, maybe Chris, but other women feel safer when other hot chicks are around. You know?”

I didn’t, and suddenly didn’t want to.

“
Do you want her and her sister to go?” I didn’t even know she had a sister. “Where is she?”

“
She’s in Turkey.”

“
So what, we go to Turkey and get her? We meet her in Kathmandu? We go see my old buddy and do a little seminar in Istanbul?” That sounded like fun.

“
Well, Celine doesn’t have any of her stuff here for that kind of traveling, so she has to go home and get it. I guess she’s spent a lot of time trekking in the Alps and the Pyrenees. She likes mountain trekking and got really excited by the idea of the trip to the Himalayas, but didn’t want to ask you. I think she’s afraid of you. But it seems like she’s really been around and she and her sister have gone all over.”

“
You didn’t answer my question.”

“
We have to fly right past Istanbul to get to Kathmandu.”

I smiled. He had been studying maps. That’s good.

“
So we could fly there together with Celine, and get her sister and all their gear and then go from there.”

“
Okay,” I said. “It sounds good to me.”

I really haven’t a clue why he blushed again.

Chapter 6

Patience

Restless and bored I called my old friend Arthur down in St. Petersburg. It was August and the trip was planned for October so we had a lot of time. I get tired of planning and then revisiting my plans, which is why I have so many hobbies and interests to keep my thoughts diversified. Once I make a plan I tend to stick with it unless acted upon by an outside influence. Me and the laws of motion, I guess you’d say. Immutable. I sent him an e-mail that said I was ready for a trip to the Florida Keys to do some serious fishing. He got back to me in a few days and we worked out the details.

He was teaching an aikido seminar down in Miami and we hooked up Sunday night at the house of an old friend after it was through. We left for the Keys from Fort Lauderdale the next morning before the sun rose. Boat, trailer and gear were transferred to my van and by five thirty we were ready to hit the road.

“
Art, do you want some coffee?” I asked.

“
Sure, get me some decaf,” he said.

I walked across the street to the McDonalds to get the coffee and while I was there bought a breakfast sandwich. We were planning to stop for breakfast once in the Keys, but it would be a couple hours yet and I was hungry. I handed him his coffee when we both got back into the van and he reached for the bag with the sandwich in it. I handed it to him.

“
What?” he said as he looked into the bag. “Where are the cream and sugar?”

I looked over at him and shook my head. “My, how the mighty have fallen,” I said.

“
You know, Dan…” he began.

“
Art,” I interrupted. “Fifteen years ago you embarrassed me in front of a group of hunters out in the woods by remarking that if ‘I wanted a cup of cream and sugar, why’d I ask for coffee,’ remember?” I looked at the road and pulled out onto the highway. “Well it took me years before I was able to drink coffee straight and black like a man, so I guess I’m just a little shocked to hear you ask for decaf in the first place and cream and sugar, in the second. Just a little shocked…” I looked sideways at him and he was laughing.

“
Okay,” was all he said.

I drove and we talked. We have been friends long enough that despite all the differences we are remarkably alike. He will sometimes go off on a lecture about some subject in which we are in total agreement and I will have to stop him with a remark to the effect that he is preaching to the choir or, rather, teaching aikido to a teacher. Sometimes it is easier to just let him go on. I guess it should be noted that he does this with me as well, or so I assume.

“
Art, how do you look at the difference between uke and nage?” I asked.

“
That’s a strange question,” he said.

“
Okay, I’m just trying to fill out the mind map. You know I do this exercise where I put down every quality and aspect of a thing I can think of on a huge piece of paper or a chalk board… anything, I don’t worry about what it is. I ask for input from anyone who knows something or I think can help. I ask anyone who might have insight. Then when everything is there I organize it by category and then by relative importance and then try and impose a time line. Analytical thought is applied and hopefully everything becomes clear. Not always. Sometimes you need more input and sometimes that input comes from places you least expect. I am trying to utilize every source I have. That’s it.”

We discussed his ideas about the relative differences in
uke
and
nage
in aikido and I soon realized it was something he had never put much thought into. Not unusual, it seems most teachers accept the obvious and since for most it is merely a necessary evil in the pursuit of true ‘aikido’ I wasn’t surprised. I dropped the subject as I felt a twitch of impatience with him. He is a 6
^th
dan
after all.

Art and I share that unfortunate relationship that so many aikido partners do. Since we are both 6
^th
dan it is amplified, yet far more subtle. We never really attack fully. We always hold enough back so that we can counter each other’s moves. It’s silly and sad, yet I have seen it on and off the mat for almost forty years.

It starts with who began aikido first. I’ve actually heard Art tell someone that since he began training in July of 1975 he was senior to someone who started in September of 1975 with no regard to the other man’s intensity or quantity of training. It’s ridiculous. So when we train together there is never the pure quality of unrestrained
ukemi,
but rather a pretense of it, so that Art or I can then stop the technique and somehow prove we are superior. Honestly! And people seem to think nothing of this. I wish that everyone would stop this nonsense and concentrate on being the best that they can be and not worry about where anyone else is. Trust me, hamburgers cost the same no matter what rank you are in aikido. And no one thinks you are special except your own students.

The posturing goes on off the mat as well. There is always the apparent desire to best your partner. So there is always a subtle disregard for whatever another instructor says or teaches. When more than one master is present, see how many get on the mat together to actually train and see which ones go off to do something else. In front of students one master may praise and encourage another, but when it’s just the big dogs, the scratching and biting is monumental. Believe me.

“
I think you might have a fish on your line,” he pointed.

I grabbed my rod and waited for a tug and when one didn’t come after a few minutes reeled in and re-baited the hook. We had set out after arriving in Key West and checking into our room. No time to lose when after big fish. Key West is the Mecca for fishermen who want to catch fish. They are everywhere, plentiful, large, medium or small and they are willing. There are so many species it is hard to believe. We were targeting grouper and snapper and had a great deal of success with smaller fish. We now were interested in much larger fish.

I felt a tug and caught a small snapper. It was much too small for keeping and I began to toss it overboard when I changed my mind, laid it under a damp cloth and dug into my tackle box for a larger hook. After changing the hook I carefully baited it with the small fish and tossed the sinker, live bait and hook over the side. I lowered it to the bottom and then reeled up two turns to wait and see. Art had caught three fish in the time it had taken me to re-rig and asked what I was doing.

“
I’ve always had a suspicion that you could come out here with live bait and dig some big grouper and snapper out of this water. I don’t have anything to support that, really, but we have been catching so many small fish, well, there have to be large fish here as well. I’m going to eliminate all the smaller fish and use bait that only big fish will go after.”

“
It sounds logical,” he said. “I’ll be interested in seeing if you get a…”

My rod snapped down and the weight of the strike turned the front end of the boat around. The fish was trying to get back to its hole in the rock and if it succeeded it would break my line on the rough coral. I pumped up and reeled going down, but my drag was letting too much line rip off the reel at the same time. I tried to thumb the spool to keep it from turning so easy but when I did that I was afraid the line would break. I wasn’t using heavy enough line and knew it, but had decided that I was okay and had gone with it anyway. Darn! I could feel the huge grouper winning and tried desperately to turn its head up and away from the rock. Art had brought his line in and was asking if there was anything he could do. I thought about telling him to start the motor and hit reverse to help get the fish away from the rock when the line snapped like a pistol shot and I rocked back into the seat.

I turned to look at Art slowly and he at me. We both grinned and he said, “We need live bait.”

“
That’s a fact,” I said.

Chapter 7

Truth Time

When you wait for something it seems to never happen and when it arrives it flies by so quickly that it seems to have wings. We had prepared the best we could with gear lists, weekly exercise, packing and re-packing our duffels, practicing a few words of Nepali and general anticipation that bordered on the manic. We were anxious to go.

My gear was all over the bed. I could have put it on the living room floor, but then I would have had to bend over time and time again to pick things up and place them into my duffle bag only to take it out again and try it in another order. I had been at this for a couple hours trying to find the perfect combination of efficient fit and common sense for each item to come to hand. You don’t want to have to unpack an entire expedition kit in order to find a down vest because the weather just got uncomfortably chilly.

My sleeping bag was no problem. It went on the bottom along with my ground pad wrapped around it and conforming to the canvas walls of the duffle. On top of that were the clothes that would be for every day, incidentals like shaving gear and toothpaste, heavy coat, vest, and the extra packets of dried sports drinks that would be so essential for keeping our energy up and electrolytes in proper balance. After that went the emergency gear and foul weather gear, and extra glasses and a hat. We had to have everything, could count on nothing being there in an emergency. I slowly packed, emptied and repacked until I was certain that I had the order and consistency that I knew I would need. Then I did it again with the lights down very low. It was tedious, but I remember having to find items in dark rooms and then having to pack in the dark. Better to do the work now.