“Where did you get that, Em?”
“I brought my lunch from home, just like you.”
“I know, but yours looks so much better. Did you make that?”
“Yeah, it’s like one of my mom’s recipes. You want some?
“You bet,” growled Wendy hungrily. Emily slid it across the table and ate some of the cole slaw. Wendy gobbled Emily’s lunch down. She had eaten more than half of it before it occurred to her that she should give it back.
“I’m sorry about that, Em,” she said sheepishly.
“It’s okay, Wendy. If you like it that much you can finish it. I’ll just eat yours.” Wendy giggled with delight and finished it off. Billy and Wayne sat down a moment later. Emily ate half of the sandwich and finished off the cole slaw.
“Hey, Wendy,” said Wayne, mindful of Emily’s request the other night. “How you doing?”
“I’m okay. Thanks, Wayne.”
“You going to the dojo tonight, Em,” Billy asked.
“I wouldn’t miss it. How about you guys?” Just then Danny joined them.
“Hey, Wendy,” said Danny, trying to sound like there was nothing out of the ordinary in her joining them at lunch.
She nodded and grunted, a little bemused at how easy it was to join these guys. She had spent so much time disdaining them from a distance, imagining they were phonies, that she felt a little guilty as the recipient of their openhearted welcome.
“You gonna eat that, Em,” asked Wayne, gesturing toward the other half of Wendy’s sandwich. Emily looked at Wendy and they both laughed.
“You can have it,” she said with a smile and slid it over to him.
“You guys go to the dojo every night,” Wendy asked.
“Nah,” said Danny. “Just most nights. You should come check it out. Sensei wouldn’t mind. He likes it when people watch class.”
“But what if it’s meditation tonight? She’d be bored silly watching that,” Billy caviled.
“You should come, you know,” Emily offered. “But bring a book in case it’s meditation. You can ride over with me.”
Wendy was surprised to be the subject of this much attention. She really was very curious about the goings on at the dojo. But her old habits would have her turn them down with a sneer. She struggled with this for a moment, but finally relented.
“Yeah, sure, what the hell,” she said with all the grace she could muster.
Emily and Wendy drove over to the dojo after school. They arrived about twenty minutes before class. Emily showed her a bench on the side of the room where she could watch and sip some tea, and then went to change into some athletic gear. Tonight she wore a form fitting, black running outfit. Wendy almost snorted tea out of her nose when she saw her come out of the changing room wearing what looked like some sort of cat suit. She was reminded once again how fit Emily was.
Emily ducked into the office to talk to Sensei. She wanted to tell him about her name change. He seemed pleasantly surprised. She wanted him to understand fully her new resolution about living a secret life.
“I’m just tired of hiding. That’s not how I want to live, Sensei.”
“Are you sure that’s wise, Emily?” He was genuinely concerned for her safety.
“It’s probably not, but I refuse to let these people dictate the terms of my life to me anymore,” she said in a decisive tone. Sensei could see there was no point arguing with her.
“What do you need me to do?”
“I don’t know yet. Maybe nothing. Maybe everything.”
“Well, if you’re no longer in hiding, maybe you want to go to the tournament next month. It would certainly inspire everyone in the dojo to see you there.”
Emily smiled at this suggestion, but not for the reason Sensei had in mind. She thought it might be a way to bring her pursuers out into the open. It might be the best way to come out of hiding.
“Maybe I will,” she said slowly and deliberately. “Let me think about it. By the way, a friend is here to watch class today. Let’s not do a long meditation this time, for her sake.” Sensei smiled and nodded his head.
As the rest of the class filed in, Emily introduced Wendy to Sensei. He was gruff but kind, as usual. They worked on leg sweeps and grappling for most of the night. Wendy found it fascinating to see how much control a little joint leverage could give, even over much larger opponents—like Wayne, who was Sensei’s demonstration partner for much of the class. His huge bulk flew all over the dojo, much to his consternation. Wendy couldn’t help but be amused.
For the last twenty minutes, they practiced with nunchaku, a pair of wooden clubs connected by a short cord. These are too dangerous for sparring, but they allow for intense speed and reflex training. Sensei walked the class through a few easy techniques that had the students swinging their nunchaku around their shoulders, arms and waists. There were a few slight mishaps, but nothing serious. Billy clunked himself in the head a couple of times.
At the end, Sensei asked Emily to give a full speed demonstration of a particularly complex pattern. She started slowly, letting the class get a good look at the sequence of moves, and then went faster and faster. By the end, her hands were moving so fast the nunchaku were nothing but a blur. Sensei brought a couple of target pads over. Emily struck them several times in quick succession without breaking the pattern. When she finally stopped, the entire room burst into applause. Danny let out a loud whoop. Everybody started laughing, even Wendy and Sensei. It was a truly impressive performance. Emily smiled and bowed—what else was there to do under the circumstances?
When she drove her home after class all Wendy could talk about was that last demonstration. Emily tried to draw her attention to the other things she had seen, especially the grappling techniques that had so captivated her earlier.
“Don’t get distracted by the flashy stuff. It’s the simple stuff that really matters, like learning how to stand your ground, even against someone bigger or stronger.”
“Yeah, yeah, I know. But what’s wrong with enjoying the flashy stuff too?” Emily laughed. Of course, she was right. There was nothing wrong with it.
“And what’s the deal with your name? I heard you changed it. What’s the story with that?” Emily smiled. The news was spreading, just as she expected.
“I didn’t change it. But Emily is really just a family nickname. My real name is Michiko. You can still call me Emily if you like,” she teased. “or just Em.”
Wendy laughed at her little joke. She sensed there might be something darker hiding beneath it, though she couldn’t say what it could be.
“Well, aren’t you full of surprises?” Wendy sat silent for a moment as Emily pulled up to the bed and breakfast. “It’s good you’re back, you know,” she continued. “I really missed you.”
“Yeah, without me, who’d make your lunches,” Emily mocked.
“Oh, yeah, I’m sorry about that.” Wendy stopped for a moment, then said “Oh, and I like your friends. They’re alright.”
“I think you mean our friends.”
Back to top
Chapter 20: The Tournament
Martial arts tournaments are surprisingly common events around the country. In most states, some tournament or other is held just about every month somewhere. These are often small, local affairs, attracting mainly little kids, who make up the bulk of any dojo’s students. A few times a year larger tournaments are held that attract more adults and higher ranking practitioners. Mostly the tournaments are sponsored by karate organizations, some local or regional, a few even national in scope. But typically all fighting styles are welcome. Competitions are held in katas, both empty hand and with weapons, and in sparring. For the kids and the adults in the lower ranks, the sparring is narrowly controlled and heavily padded—no full-force contact, no take-downs and no contact to the face. For the black belts, some tournaments allow more open bouts, with little or no padding and fewer restrictions on contact or take-downs.
Sensei and Emily were talking
about the East Coast Regional Martial Arts Competition, an annual tournament held this year in Norfolk. Most of the competitors would come from eastern Virginia, Maryland and North Carolina, some people would come from further away, some even from abroad. Because of its proximity to several military installations, it would also attract a lot of military personnel. This meant there would be a large field of competitors in the black belt division. Emily registered for the advanced kumite as a black belt. When the boys heard about it, they all wanted to register for the tournament, too. She had some misgivings about this, since she expected to encounter the Chinese there and didn’t want them to be caught in the middle. But she also knew there was going to be no way to keep them away.
The next few weeks in the dojo were devoted to tournament preparation, to polishing katas and to fine tuning sparring mechanics. Emily spent almost every extra moment there working with her friends, showing them in much more detail how they were making themselves vulnerable inadvertently, going over every technique in slow motion as it were. She seemed infinitely patient with them. Of course, they couldn’t get enough of her attention. Fighting Emily was a very intimate affair, even if it always ended with a humbling defeat.
Wendy became increasingly envious of the boys for monopolizing her friend’s time. The only solution was for her to come to the dojo, to cheer them all on and to poke fun at them, too. Eventually, Wendy became a fixture there, even though she wasn’t a student. Sensei did everything he could to make her feel welcome, since it was apparent that’s what Emily wanted.
“I don’t see how I’m making any progress,” Billy moaned after finding himself once again on his back after a bout with Emily. Wendy giggled from the bench at the side of the room.
“You’ve improved a lot from just a week ago,” Emily insisted.
“Not compared to you!”
“Billy, that’s not about strength and speed. I’m not better at this because I’m faster,” Emily said for the umpteenth time. “It really is all about sen, just like Sensei always says.”
“Why can’t I get it,” he whimpered.
“That’s what the meditation is for, dummy. Sensei wants you to learn to listen to yourself, even just your breathing, so you can hear what your opponent is doing. That’s how I do it. I listen to you, I ‘hear’ your decisions as you make them.” She could see he was hardly persuaded by what she said, and she could hear Wendy snort in disbelief from the side of the room. “Don’t worry about it. No one in the brown belt division will be able to do that either. You’ll do just fine against those guys,” she tried to reassure him. Perhaps it was unrealistic for him to think he could train against someone like Emily. But she thought a little humility would probably serve him well in the tournament.
As the day of the tournament approached, decisions had to be made. It was going to be about a five hour drive. Emily wanted to catch a flight out of Shenandoah Valley, but there was no way Danny could afford that, and she didn’t want him to feel excluded. The next best thing was to drive in a big group. They were going to need a couple of hotel rooms, but Emily figured she could take care of that without embarrassing anybody in particular. Since the tournament was being held in the ballrooms of one of the big downtown hotels, Emily quietly booked a three room suite for the weekend. Wendy’s parents let her have the minivan they used for guests for the weekend. Friday morning they all set out for Norfolk: Wendy, Emily, Wayne, Danny, Billy and Sensei. Before they left, Emily sent an email to the address Connie had given her.
The hotel turned out to be a huge complex a few blocks from the water. There were large parking lots on all sides of a crescent shaped central structure as well as two smaller outbuildings across the parking lot from the convex back of the main building. One was a wedding center with a small garden reception area, the other was a taller, not yet completed business suites wing the top floor of which was only partially enclosed.
“Whoa, Em! How on earth did you pull this off,” gushed Billy when they got up to their rooms in the main building.
“Convention discount, doncha know,” she dodged. “Wendy and I have this room, you three take that one. Sensei, you’ve got the couch out here. Sorry about that.”
He grunted his assent, trying to look put out, though he really couldn’t care less. Later, when they were alone, Emily talked over the dangers with him.
“We need to be careful here, Sensei,” she said. “If there’s trouble, keep those guys away from it.”
“What about you, Chi-chan,” he asked, using her new name as he understood it.
“I have to find my own way through this, Sensei. But I can’t bear to have my friends in danger. Promise me you’ll watch out for them.” He grunted and nodded gravely, though with obvious reservations about her safety.
After an early dinner at a nearby restaurant, they went down to the tournament to watch the sparring finals for the younger competitors. The competitions were held in the largest ballroom in the hotel complex. It accommodated six separate rings, marked out by red tape stretched along the carpeted floor. A wider ring was marked out around it to keep the audience at a safe distance. There were rows of banquet style chairs positioned around each ring. By the time they arrived, there were already eight or nine hundred people present. Most of these were competitors and their family and friends. There were also a few people who seemed to be there just as spectators unconnected with any particular participant. By the time of the final sparring events for the black belt division the following evening, the audience would have swelled to a couple of thousand people. Even at that size, the large ballroom still seemed roomy. It could easily hold twice that many people.
The first competitions involved the youngest kids, some as young as six or seven years old. As the day progressed, the organizers included more and more of the older kids, until by the end of the day, the final matches for the pre-adult division were held. Emily was glad to see the courageous way in which the finalists faced their fears, overcame them and won, or lost. If only her friends could attend to the same things she did. She was nudging Wayne to notice this very thing when Sensei caught her eye and, with a tilt of his head, indicated a woman standing by the door. She glanced over and caught sight of Connie, watching the room from the door. A quick scan of the room revealed nothing more suspicious than herself. She walked to the refreshment stand across the room and Connie went to meet her, while Sensei kept the attention of the boys on the sparring.
“The Chinese are here,” Connie told her matter-of-factly.
“How many?”
“I’m not sure, maybe seven or eight. I think they are still uncertain who they are looking for.”
“They won’t be for long,” Emily muttered.
“What are you planning?”
“To compete.” Connie knew exactly what that meant.
“What do you need from me?” Emily hesitated before replying, looking directly into her face. For the first time Connie could look into her eyes without fear or shame. It felt as if she was undergoing some sort of catharsis, an almost spiritual purification, and could now just begin to imagine measuring herself against this strange girl. Emily gestured to the ring across the room where her friends were watching the sparring.
“Do what you can to keep them out of danger.” Connie nodded and walked off, quickly disappearing into the crowd.
The next morning after breakfast, they all went down to watch Wayne take part in the adult kata competition. There were about fifteen other brown belts in the adult division. Most of them performed very elaborate katas, some of their own devising. At Sensei’s suggestion, Wayne chose to do a traditional Shotokan kata called ninja shiho. His performance was very precise and quite forceful. But the judges preferred a flashier kata done with a good deal of verve by another competitor. Wayne came in second place. He was thrilled and took the result as an affirmation of all his hard work.
Later, Billy and Danny competed in the brown belt kumite and, as Emily had predicted, they did quite wel
l even though they did not possess a profound sense of sen. They were stronger and faster, because of their athletic training, than most of their opponents. Billy did particularly well by attacking first and unsettling his opponents, forcing them into ill-judged counters. He won several matches in a row with this tactic. But in the final match, his opponent was as aggressive as he was and attacked his attack. Billy lost the advantage his aggressiveness had given him in the earlier matches, and was unable to regain his initiative through counters. He ended up with the second place trophy. Danny came in fourth. Wendy cheered them on from the side, along with Wayne and Emily, and she was crestfallen when Billy lost his last match.
“That was so unfair,” she protested. “The judges missed at least two points Billy should have gotten.”
“You are really into this, aren’t you,” observed Wayne. “I had no idea.” Wendy blushed a little, feeling she had been caught out.
“I guess I’m just a fan-girl,” she said half defensively.
Emily couldn’t resist using the occasion to teach something to Danny, who was standing next to her watching the match. He’d been cheering Billy on and was especially impressed by his aggressive control of his earlier matches.
“You saw why he lost, didn’t you? It was the same reason he won the earlier fights.”
“Something about sen, I suppose.”
“Not something, everything,” Emily replied. “He didn’t really control any of those matches. When he met someone as aggressive as he had been, he had nothing else to respond with.”
Danny knew what she was going to say, that initiative was not the same thing as aggression. He had heard it many times before from Sensei. Maybe he even saw the way in which Billy had failed to control the sen of the last match. It was harder to see how that could be so in the matches he had won. But Danny knew he had not felt in control of the matches he himself had won. He had taken chances in them, and they had paid off, until finally they didn’t. He had a pretty clear idea of what sen was not. It was just a lot harder to see what it was.
Girl Fights Back (Go No Sen) (Emily Kane Adventures) Page 18