Kokoro trained with Wakasensei the other day. This is a picture of the two of them after class — Ray was in his class and so isn’t in the pic. The yellow strap around her neck holds her Dojo membership card. Most of the kids put their cards on straps so they don’t lose them. I can pretty much guaranty that we’ll lose one or two in the next couple of years anyway but it is a good idea.
Two days ago we realized that the kids were expected to participate in the Aikido demonstration at the Budokan. We hadn’t really paid any attention to the leaflet that came from the dojo. We knew the kids weren’t eligible to test so didn’t read further than that. It turns out that we missed a quite a bit… Oops. So, the kids had their debut at the Nippon Budokan today. It turned out well. Ray knew the techniques and just did what was asked. Kokoro didn’t know what was going on so she just did ukemi the whole time. Her partner was confused at first but didn’t seem to mind once she caught on. Here are a few pics.
Ray, front row left, doing Shihonage from yokmenuchi.
Kokoro was on left side of the middle of the little kids mat.
There were other people demonstrating too…
I like this one of Doshu and his son.
The technique that I first learned to call jujinage (十字投げ) has long been a source of confusion for me even though the technique itself is pretty straight forward. Uke’s arms are crossed in front of their chest and the lower arm is used as a lever with the other (upper) arm as a fulcrum. The upper arm cuts forward like a sword strike as the two hands are stretched apart. The name comes from the cross formed by the arms which vaguely resembles the kanji character ju (十) and it is from the name that I have been confused.
In an Aikido context, I have also heard what I think of as hijikime nage (肘決め投げ) called jujinage. I have heard what I think of as jujinage called udegarami (腕絡み) and recently, Doshu called it jujigarami (十字絡み).
This sort of confusion leads to a lot of head scratching on the part of students and teachers in many schools. So, what is right? As usual, my answer is whatever your sensei says is “right”. However, there has to be an element of what you think of as “right” too. In my mind this technique will always be jujinage and when communicating with compatriots from my former schools I will call it that. I still need to be aware that my current teacher calls it something else and I must remember that as well.
The real problem is that most of the things we think of as names are more accurately descriptions. “Crossed arm tangle”, “decided by the elbow”, “wrist return” are the way these things sound in Japanese. Rather than thinking of them as names Japanese instructors described movements or positions and some of these descriptions have been codified as names. Others seem to be more fluid. As an example, ryote tori (両手取り) and morote tori (諸手取り) both basically mean the same thing and some schools use ryoute tori to mean both.
The real take-away from all this is not Doshu says X and Sensei says Y (Waaaa!) but rather that understanding Aikido is not about knowing the name for a thing whether that is a concept or a technique. Knowing the names is important on tests and when chatting with others but real understanding of Aikido is in the body.
I’m in the hospital library firing off a quick post. Not a particulalry exciting one and rather annoying for me. The local docs (sensei) removed my appendix on Monday evening. They’ve given me dire warnings about not training for a month. It can’t be a month! The Uchi-Deshi dudes are training with broken backs and crap like that! This was just a useless little sausage casing! Grrr!
OK, tantrum over. I will be patient and report from the sidelines. This may mean more pictures for folks who are interested in what Honbu looks like on the inside.
Japan is a land of many contradictions — at least it confuses the hell out of me most days. One of the contradictions that leaps to my eyes is the whole school-girl-skanky-uniform thing. Since high schools have dress codes that mandate skirts of a certain length and the current fashion is scary (I’m the father of a little girl, OK?) short, many girls manage to have it both ways by rolling their skirts into their waistbands. This gives them the short skirt they want but if challenged at school they can quickly prove that they are within the dress code.
And how is that related to Aikido? Well, you see, _my_ skirt is too short. When I first bought my hakama I intentionally ordered it a bit short. It turns out that my measurements were also short. I also roll the front panel under my belt. All that together means that I have a lot of ankle and more than a bit of gi-pants showing below the edge of my hakama. Back in Seattle, this drew laughter from Dave over at Aikithoughts but it didn’t really strike home to me until a student at the Mie Aikidokai took one look at my hakama and announced that I was wearing it High School Girl Style. Since then, I have heard other comments about how much I must have grown since I bought it, how fat my stomach must have gotten to have pulled the hakama up so high… Perhaps my hakama was made for training in the Sailor Moon Aikido Ryu? I liked this culture a whole lot more before I could understand the language. 
So, when one of my sempai offered to introduce me to his favorite tailor I agreed. After practice on Saturday we hopped into his car with a third friend and went to the Toyama area of Shinjuku (north of Honbu a bit). The shop was completely unmarked — just a brown door between a cheap looking beauty salon and an odds-and-ends shop. The door lead to a very narrow staircase at the top of which was a cluttered little room with perhaps two tatami mats worth of space free. The rest was taken up with sewing materials, half made hakama and piles of belts and gi. It suited the little old man who owned the shop.
He came in and apologized for the mess while promising to clean it up. My sempai laughed and complained that he always said that but never did anything about it. The old guy ignored that but listened closely to the rest of sempai’s spiel. He went on about how I really needed a hakama but I also needed it soon. It turns out that the old guy is very good but also famously slow. He then took my waist and hip to ankle measurements. He made a note of my weight and height then promised to be ready by next Saturday.
The base price is 7,000 yen. Embroidery costs 200 yen per character and with shohizei (tax) the total was 8,190 yen (about $80) — excellent! As for quality and fit, I don’t know from my own experience but Sempai is actually stockpiling this guy’s work. He is building up a supply of tailor made hakama against the sad reality that the old guy won’t be making them forever. Given their friendly banter and the feeling that I am not the first person sempai has brought to this shop I think sempai may be performing a sort of a social service by driving customers to his door. I don’t mind, he is also performing a social service by getting me a longer skirt — reduces the need for eye bleach.
Ray and I were biking around the other day when he mentioned that he was thirsty. It was a short ride home so I said we could wait until then to get something to drink. Ray knows me very well so the next vending machine we passed he announced loudly “Oooh look, they have Dr. Pepper!” Simple but effective manipulation that I fell for immediately.
I finally figured out how they managed to make a market for a product in country where most people think it tastes like medicine: Anime porn! You don’t believe me? Here are some pics that I took of the can …
Like other simple, effective manipulation it works for me too. I bought two more.
The kanji characters for shoji are 障子. Translated literally they mean something like “disturbs children”. There are few words whose origin is more clear and appropriate. Shoji are paper windows and a feature of traditional Japanese homes. As you might guess, they tear easily. Small children must maintain enormous restraint not to rip the paper with their little fingers, crayons, baseballs and jump ropes. I’ve also noticed that “Restraint” and “children” tend to be mutually exclusive concepts. So paper covered windows clearly would be trouble for little kids. In Ise, we replaced the paper in four shoji, twice. Once we did it ourselves. The second time we called in a pro — Grandma. In both cases the need for new paper was due to my two wonderful, creative and clearly disturbed children’s games.
The new house in Tokyo has shoji only in the master bedroom. The paper looks old and soft. It’s a lot like butcher-block that has gotten wet and dried many times. Ours have probably weathered several rainy seasons. On sunny days the paper glows with a friendly, diffuse white light.
On our first day in the new house, I went from room to room making up beds and getting them ready for our first night. I did the kids rooms first and then the master. The bed was closer to the windows than we had planned and while flopping the comforter over the top, I put the first hole in the shoji.
Shoji disturb me too…
At the Mie-ken Aikidokai, Ueda Shihan often tells the kids class, “You have two hands, take two things away each time you train.” It is a philosophy that I have tried to apply to my own training. In practice, if I can learn one concrete thing in a class I am happy. Some days, though, all I get is the awareness that I have moved my body in a pattern that may be a little bit more right than last time. Though not concrete, I can still claim success on those days.
At Honbu however, I often feel as though I don’t have enough hands. Almost everyone who trains there is either a sensei or a sempai. Often I am lucky enough to train with what I have begun to think of as “real sempai”. A partner that likes to give and receive a good hard throw now and again but is also willing to slow down and patiently correct flaws. Repeating and helping me through my flaws (as opposed to criticism without correction) is what I see as the key elements of a real sempai. Recently, I worked with a fellow who gave me several concrete pointers and enough food-for-thought that, at the office, I have had to work hard NOT to think about them. 
It’s brutal honesty time. I am just not confident enough yet to be my own definition of a real sempai — at least not here at Honbu. I have trained with a small handful of people whose rank is lower than my own. I have seen flaws in both technique and posture but I am not yet comfortable offering suggestions. In my last dojo, I was asked for advice often enough that I just started giving it. At Honbu, there are so many amazing teachers around that are much closer to the source that I wouldn’t ask me either.
Also in the spirit of brutal honesty, the esoterica that some of the older guys teach, though clearly powerful, is often too far up the mountain for me to apply. I love the fact that they can sense exactly how to unbalance or redirect my motion but when I am spending my time polishing (grinding?) gross movements their subtle magic is just too distant. So, I will play with the ki wizards when I want to get a sense of where the path leads but stick to real sempai for how-to details. For now though, my hands are full and it is wonderful.
I’m not in the good old boys club. I’m neither good enough nor old enough and one out of three doesn’t cut it. Getting older seems to be working for me so two out of three may be possible eventually. As for “good”… that’s another story…
Since I’m not in the good ol’ boy group that Doshu regularly greets and jokes around with, the fact that he was very solicitous about my health this morning made me nervous. As my partner for the day and I were starting out, he walked up to me and said, “Be careful, I’m not sure why but, be careful.” It turns out I was training with a man Doshu has, apparently, nick-named “The Destroyer”.
Aikido has its fair share of jerks and Honbu is no exception. The Destroyer is the first one I’ve met here. He was definitely rougher than most people that I have worked with here but the thing that set him apart was his determination to make me fail. I don’t mean that he just fought techniques, he fought them in ways so that they could never be made to work without using significant force. He then acted as though it was my Aikido that was at fault.
People who let their personality problems influence their training and Aikido are more than a pain in the ass, they are dangerous. Sadly, these people are not as rare as one would like. Usually these wastes-of-effort are just a few minutes out of my life and I can move on. At Honbu, however, you’re stuck with your bad choice for an hour. When it’s good it’s very good but the other way is true too.
Assholes are a fact of life and Aikido too. They are a big enough problem that I have been in seminars where the topic of “self defense” was presented with regard to dealing with jerks in the dojo rather than on the street. As with the infamous street, the secret to survival with a jerk is awareness. If you can avoid them in the first place, do so. If you can not, set you limits verbally and up front. If they pass your limits, walk away. Training as though your life depends upon it is a great philosophy but training with an untrustworthy nage really could put your health at risk.
During class, Doshu approached my partner a couple more times and cautioned him. Doshu pointed out that making a training environment that everyone could enjoy was his goal. From that point on my partner spent the class watching out for Doshu and only being an ass when he thought he could get away with it. For my part, since I didn’t trust him fully, I stayed soft and over-committed my ukemi so as to make sure that I was in control of every fall. Shihonage was my only real worry and, oddly enough, Doshu was nearby during that technique. Fancy that! So, from the health and safety perspective all turned out well. From the training perspective, not so much.
The nicest part of the whole thing was leaving the changing room and bumping into one of favorite teachers. He was looking into the dojo and scowling. “The Destroyer” was throwing someone around rather roughly. This sensei explained the nickname and its origin. He turned to me and in English said, “Don’t be bothered with him, he is stupid.”
With Megumi and the kids in Ise and me here in Tokyo, I have been depending on Skype for my daily fix of family. Every night after work the first thing I do when get back to my “mansion” is to skype home. Usually Ray will answer. With a quick, “Hi papa” and a wave he’ll quickly go back to homework or his dinner. I miss my kids waaay more than they miss me. Sometimes though, they’ll be patient and sit in front of the computer and tell me a bit about their day. Rikimaruo-kun was mean, Ryo-kun got a new video game, Yume-chan won’t play tag if Maya-chan is going to play, etc… I eat up every word.
The other night Megumi was doing something upstairs, Ray had gone to bed early and Kokoro was having trouble with her homework. She sat in front of the computer and held her book up to the camera so I could try to figure out why she was upset. My little Sweet-Heart understood the problem and had gotten it right but when Ray had checked her work he had marked one problem and it was bothering her to tears. We played Simon-says, taking turns being Simon, until she calmed down enough to explain what was wrong. I just wanted to hug her but that technology is not yet available — even on Macintosh.
But it is over, my family moves to Tokyo this week. I will go back to Ise tomorrow (Tuesday) and we should all be in the big city by the weekend. As much as I appreciate Skype, I look forward to having my family together again. They are all going to be tired of random hugs before the week is out!
