Eight Times Up

by John Corr

“Hajime!”

  We were all exhausted. Sensei Rick was training with us again, and even he was taking breaks to stretch out his back when Kondo Sensei wasn’t looking. But he had to do the techniques too. Kondo Sensei wanted everyone working all the time, and we needed an even number of sh’te and uke partners.

  Just as I’d get used to one partner’s size and speed, Kondo Sensei would call for someone to move down the row, creating a new combination for everyone. It wrecked whatever rhythm my partner and I were starting to figure out, so no matter who I was paired with, switching made the moves feel difficult again.

  “Switch partners!”

  “GO!”

  “Next technique!”

  “GO!”

  And again.

  And again.

  And again.

  He didn’t interrupt us with corrections. Not even when I chopped the wrong way at Wafaa’s head.

  I struck at her. She put up a perfect block. Right at the empty air in front of her forehead. Right where my arm was supposed to be.

  But my arm wasn’t there. It was coming in at an angle to hit the side of her head. Luckily, I was so tired that it didn’t have much power behind it.

  Even so, I felt horrible. Her head got knocked a little sideways, and her face turned red. I guessed she was embarrassed that she had let one get by her. She didn’t need to be embarrassed. She had done the right block for that technique. It was me who had messed up. But as Sensei Rick had told us many times, aikido is about training for the unexpected. I had made her look sloppy.

  I held back for a second to let it pass.

  Wafaa snuck a look at Kondo Sensei as she rubbed the side of her head.

  If he had seen, he decided not to make a big deal about it. I saw him writing another note in his book.

  Sensei Rick, on the other hand…

  “Riley!” he shouted from the other side of the mat. “What was that?”

  I looked back at Wafaa. “Just an accident, Sensei.”

  He stormed over. “How was that an accident? You smacked her on the side of the head! That was supposed to be a front strike!”

  I stared at him. “I know I hit her on the side of the head! I’m the one who hit her!”

  “Excuse me?” he said.

  Wafaa held her hands up. “It’s fine,” she said. “I’m fine.”

  “Sorry, Wafaa,” I mumbled.

  “Is that the best you can do?” Sensei Rick asked.

  I frowned at him. “I said I’m sorry!”

  “Can you say it like you mean it? I tell you, Riley, you are just plain lazy! Sometimes I get really fed up with the lack of effort from you!”

  Sensei Rick had said this kind of thing to me plenty of times before. Maybe he was right. Maybe I was lazy. But this time he was just being unfair.

  Something in me snapped.

  “What about you?” I shouted right back. “Maybe you should apologize!”

  His eyes widened. “For what?”

  I didn’t have an answer. I hadn’t thought that far ahead.

  “You should apologize…” I stalled, then took a shot. “…for how you talk to me!” I didn’t know where I was going with it, but it felt right. “You might be the boss of this class, but you’re not the boss of my life! Do you ever think about how the way you talk makes other people feel?”

  I was shaking. It was the Surge, but angry. I didn’t even talk like this to my parents.

  A calm voice came from the corner.

  “Yame. That’s enough for today.” Kondo Sensei had risen from where he was kneeling and was making his way to the front of the mats. “Line up.”

  In the morning I had held my breath under the water and beaten the Surge.

  Now I had blown it. I wasn’t even mad anymore, but my hands wouldn’t stop shaking.

  There was nothing to do except to line up, to kneel in seiza.

  We bowed as usual and called out, “Osu!”

  But instead of dismissing us right away, Kondo Sensei sat for a minute in silence. When he spoke, it sounded like he was being extra careful with his words.

  “Sometimes mistakes happen,” he said. “We’re working hard here, training lots. Mistakes are gonna happen. Deep down, if you care about what you are doing, lots of feeling can come out. It can come out in different ways for different people.

  “But how you control that feeling, that’s the most important thing. For everybody.” He looked along the line. When he got to the end, his eyes stayed on me for a few agonizing seconds. Then he looked all the way back to the other end, where Sensei Rick was. “We are not karate, not judo. We don’t have competitions. The only competition you have is with yourself. Self-defense, but also self-control. Victory over your self. That’s aikido.”

  He bowed once more and called out, “Osu!”

  We bowed back and said “Osu!” in reply. He stood and walked to the edge of the mats. He hopped off, slipped on his wooden flip-flops and then stood, waiting. Sensei Rick quickly bowed at the edge of the mats and hustled over to Kondo Sensei. The two of them walked off toward the cottage.

  With Kondo Sensei’s speech, my hands had stopped shaking. But now I felt like I was actually going to throw up.

  Yelling at a teacher? What was I thinking?

  Was I going to be kicked out?

  I tried to put that thought out of my head. But if I was asked to leave, I needed to make things right with Wafaa.

  I spoke loud enough that the guys could hear too.

  “I’m sorry I hit you, Wafaa,” I said. “I know it was supposed to be a front strike. I just forgot.” I bit my lip. My eyes filled anyway.

  I’d hate to end aikido like this.

  “It’s fine, Riley,” she said. “It happens all the time.”

  “Okay,” I said. “But I’m sorry it happened this time.”

  “It’s fine,” she said. “It didn’t even hurt.”

  “I know,” I said. “But I’m sorry.”

  She exhaled. She sounded annoyed.

  “I didn’t want to have to do this,” she said. She walked over and plopped down, kneeling right in front of me. I had no choice but to look directly at her. I quickly wiped my eyes.

  They filled again.

  She just looked at me for a second. Then, as fast as lightning, she smacked me upside the head.

  Her face broke into a huge smile.

  “Now we’re even!” she said. She got up and started talking to the other boys about how the rest of class had gone.

  I laughed and wiped my eyes with my sleeve.

  This time they stayed dry.

  TWENTY-ONE

  Our dinner that night was going to be the same as the night before. Which was to say, it was going to be perfect.

  I had a nap in the afternoon, and when I woke up I looked out the trailer door to see Sensei Rick setting up the wood pieces in the fire pit. I didn’t feel like being alone with him, so I read in my room until Joe suggested we go out. By then Zack, Dion and Wafaa were out there, and the flames had burned some of the wood down to coals.

  Sensei Rick was a little later bringing down dinner supplies and starting the fire, so it was darker out when we were cooking. We could see the coals turning red-orange when the wind picked up and dimming to red-gray when it died down. The changes made the fire pit look like a living, breathing thing.

  But being able to see the hottest coals didn’t stop us from burning our hot dogs.

  Then again, burning the wieners didn’t stop us from eating them.

  Too many of them.

  “I’m never eating again!” groaned Joe as he swallowed the last bite of his third hot dog.

  The other kids talked nonstop, but I didn’t say much. I felt like I had said enough for one day. I still didn’t know what was going to happen as a result of my outburst. I kept my eyes on the stars. At home, even on a clear night, we could only see a few stars in the sky, and each star looked like its own lonely dot. Here, so many stars came out, and so fast, that it lo
oked crowded.

  Not a bad night.

  Joe got over being too stuffed when Dion remembered the second cooler, just outside the light of the fire. The treasure box. Marshmallows, hard chocolate and graham crackers. Everything we needed for s’mores.

  Dion ripped open one of the king-sized chocolate bars and chomped the end off. Still chewing, he ripped open the bag of marshmallows, scattering a bunch of them onto the ground. Joe jumped up and elbowed Dion to try to steal the bag away. Dion hooked into Joe’s elbow and dropped all of his weight. Joe managed to stay up, stretching to keep the marshmallows away in his other hand. Zack jumped in and tried to put a wristlock on Joe’s marshmallow hand. Joe shook Dion off his arm, then turned and picked up Zack. He tossed him sideways, away from the fire. Zack tripped over Wafaa’s legs and landed in her lap. Wafaa shrieked and dumped Zack on the ground. She leaned forward to mash his face in the dirt but lost her balance, tumbling out of her chair and landing right on top of him.

  I smiled at the action but didn’t join in.

  Instead I stood, picked up my can of pop and stepped away to the other side of the fire. While the other kids got themselves untangled and the s’mores sorted out, I walked a couple of steps into the darkness. I leaned against the rough wood fence that overlooked the lake.

  I remembered that the rail I was leaning against was probably the same one that the boys had knocked off the day before. I stepped back to have another look. Kondo Sensei must have replaced it when we were swimming.

  Was it only yesterday that they knocked it off? Feels like a month ago.

  I grabbed the fence and gave it a shake to test it before leaning on it again. Whatever Kondo Sensei had done to it, it was as solid as a stone wall.

  The lighthouse in the distance was dark, but it still stood on guard, protecting the ships, maybe protecting us. The sky above me was packed even tighter with stars than it had been a minute earlier. If any more came out, the sky might get too heavy and come crashing down. The moon looked as solid as the rail fence though. Tonight it was full. It was bright and almost painfully white.

  Like my uniform on the first night of class.

  “There’s an old story about the moon on the water,” Kondo Sensei said, his voice croaking out of the darkness.

  I nearly dropped my drink over the edge. If the fence wasn’t so solid, I might have dropped myself over the edge. I squinted, trying to make him out. As my eyes adjusted, the shape of him in his untucked plaid shirt took form. He was leaning on the fence, maybe keeping an eye on us or maybe just taking in the night view.

  “Not exactly a story,” he said. “A story to tell an idea. A Zen idea.” He held out his drink to point at the water. “The lake is still. Perfectly still. Like a mirror. Just like a mirror. Reflects the sky, the trees, the moon, everything.” He paused. “Two perfect moons. One up, one down. If you look for a long time, you can’t tell the difference. No way in the world.” He laughed a little.

  He took a sip of his drink, and I joined him, sipping from my pop can.

  “Very peaceful. Very beautiful. But. One tiny leaf falls down. Just one.” He shook his head. “Ripples. Ripples everywhere. Across the whole lake. The moon, the trees, everything. Everything is broken up.” He paused. “Shattered.”

  He turned to look at me. One eyebrow raised. “How’s the moon right now?”

  I looked up at the sky. It was beautiful. Perfect.

  Then I thought about the story he had just told me. I realized this was a trick question. I pulled my eyes down to the lake, searching for the moon’s reflection.

  Kondo Sensei watched me for a few seconds, then leaned over and poked my chest with a powerful finger. “How’s the moon in here, Riley?”

  I looked down at my chest. I looked at him. I had no idea what he was talking about.

  He laughed and turned back to the lake. “Well, that’s just Zen idea. Zen mind. This lake”—he lifted his drink to the water as if toasting it—“this lake is never peaceful. Always ripples. Always waves. That’s real life. Always a ship cutting through, always a storm blowing in. No perfect reflections.” He stood up from the fence and shrugged. He started to leave but turned and said one last thing. “But we can try to make smooth reflections. Calm reflections. Inside.”

  He looked out at the lake one last time, then walked off toward the cottage. Away from the lake, away from the fire, away from me. I looked back out at the waves. At the imperfect lake.

  The reflection of the moon slipped and wobbled. Kondo Sensei was right. It shattered with each little wave. I stared at it, wishing it would hold still, if only for a second.

  It wasn’t perfect. It never would be perfect. It wasn’t fair.

  The waves washed away at the rocks far beneath me. The sound reminded me how much fun we’d had down there that morning. A smile broke on my face in spite of my heavy heart.

  The moon on the lake slipped, then danced its way back along the tips and edges of the waves.

  No, the moon on the lake wasn’t perfect and never would be. But it sure was something special.

  Right then I understood something with my gut, with my heart. I couldn’t quite put it into words. But I knew Kondo Sensei’s little story was telling me something big.

  And the message was not that I was kicked out of aikido.

  I smiled at the moon on the water.

  Who needs perfect anyway?

  TWENTY-TWO

  That night I slept heavily. I had listened to Joe’s snoring as I drifted off, but not even that chainsaw could keep me awake.

  And when I did wake up, it was not, thank goodness, to the blast of a whistle. Instead, there was a knock at the trailer door.

  “Hey, guys,” Dion called through the screen. “Breakfast on Kondo Sensei’s deck. Come quick, or the only thing left will be last night’s cold wieners.”

  Joe and I rolled out of bed and joined Dion in the sun outside. The three of us hiked up to the cottage.

  Dion was kidding about the leftover wieners. Cereal, bagels, cheese and fruit were laid out on a long picnic table.

  Wafaa’s plate was already loaded up, but Sensei Rick and Zack were just digging in.

  “Grab a seat, boys,” Sensei Rick said. “Get something in you. It’s going to be a long day.”

  I lost my appetite when I saw Sensei Rick. I felt guilty for yelling at him the day before. I knew that wasn’t okay. But I couldn’t make myself apologize. I’d only been standing up for myself.

  I sat at the other end of the table, as far away from him as possible.

  “Hey, Riley?” Sensei Rick said. He looked uncomfortable. “Listen…I want to say sorry for how I spoke to you yesterday. It is a teacher’s job to correct his students, but I didn’t really do that the right way.”

  I nearly fell off the bench in shock.

  He kept talking. “I guess it’s like Kondo Sensei said. When you care about what you’re doing, sometimes feelings get mixed in there, and not always the way you want them to. And I care about you guys. All of you guys.” He cleared his throat, then shoved half a bagel into his mouth.

  I was speechless. I had not expected to wake up to this.

  One of the other kids kicked me under the table.

  “Uh…yeah, Sensei Rick,” I said. I could hear my voice giving away how surprised I was. “Me too. I mean, I’m sorry too.”

  Sensei Rick smiled and nodded. He didn’t say anything else, but I saw his shoulders relax as he chewed.

  All of sudden I was starving. I grabbed a box of cereal and a bowl.

  “Where’s Kondo Sensei this morning?” Zack asked.

  Sensei Rick took another bite of bagel. “He’ll be out in a minute. He doesn’t talk to anyone until he’s on his second coffee.”

  I carefully poured milk into my bowl until the cereal floated up to the edge.

  A few minutes later the back door slid open and Kondo Sensei stepped out. He had on a fresh plaid shirt and shorts. And a large mug in his hand.

  “
Ricky!” he said. “No more whistles in the morning!”

  Sensei Rick stopped chewing. “But I didn’t whistle today, Sensei.”

  “Exactly!” Kondo Sensei said. “So much better! Do you know how bad it is?” He answered himself. “I don’t think so!”

  He looked around the table. “Everybody eating? Good, good. You’re gonna need it!”

  “What are we doing today, Sensei?” Wafaa asked. “More swimming? Or are we starting on the mats?”

  “No time!” He took a big gulp from his mug. “We’re gonna test!”

  I looked around the table, and it wasn’t just me. The other kids looked confused too.

  “Excuse me, Sensei,” Zack said. “What are we testing?”

  Kondo Sensei’s eyebrows shot up. “What? Test you!”

  “Test me for what, Sensei?” Zack asked.

  “What do you think, black belt? I don’t think so!” Kondo Sensei laughed his deep, rolling laugh. “Yellow belt, of course. Seventh kyu.”

  A test?

  An aikido test?

  For a color belt?

  My spoon clanged into my cereal bowl. Everybody looked at me.

  “There’s a test today?” I asked. “But when are we supposed to study? Wait—what’s on the test?” My head was starting to spin. I looked around at everyone. “Like, today today?”

  “What’s the matter?” Kondo Sensei asked. “You don’t want to test? No need to worry. You’re gonna do fine today.”

  “Today?” I could hear that I was getting louder, but I couldn’t turn down the volume. “Today we test?” I looked around at the cottage, the clearing, the trailers. Before this morning, it had all looked so spacious and free. Now it was closing in on me. My eyes stopped at the little dojo platform. I pointed. “Here?”

  “Not here,” Sensei Rick said. “At the dojo. The Cultural Center.”

  Kondo Sensei rubbed his head. “Ricky!” he said. “You didn’t tell the kids?”

  Our silence was his answer.

  “Can I call my parents?” Wafaa asked. “My parents always came to my judo tests.”

  “No problem!” Kondo Sensei said. “All the parents are coming!”

  All the parents?

  My stomach dropped. But then I took a deep breath. I was pretty sure that not all of the parents were coming.