JOURNEY - on Mastering Ukemi

by Daniel Linden

  Art and I share that unfortunate relationship that so many aikido partners do. Since we are both 6th 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.

  ***

  This is a lot like doing back rolls during the warm up section in an aikido class. It is practicing to do something with absolutely no thought at all. We practice rolling up and back onto our shoulders and then over all the way, and then standing and rolling forward all the way until we do it without thought. If we needed to think before responding we would get hit, hurt, or broken. An uke that has mastered the art is automatic unless he is initiating the response as well as the attack; unless he is controlling the nage’s movement as well as his response to the attack. But when an uke reaches that point he is a master of aikido as well as ukemi and he can do anything he wants with no thought at all. It is by whim, desire, recalcitrance, meanness or fun. It is his choice.

  But the root of the growing that becomes mastership is in the repetition of simple exercises. Every class begins at some point with ukemi exercise, and advancement in years and rank does not exclude anyone from participating. This is why I was packing and repacking my gear. My wife understood and let me alone although she was becoming less cheery than she usually is as the days wound down closer and closer to our departure date.

  “What are you planning to wear in Paris?” she asked.

  “I intend to stay casual,” I said.

  “That’s not like you. You usually wear a sports coat when you travel.”

  “Yeah, but I notice more and more that most people dress pretty shabby when they travel and even a nice pair of trousers and a decent shirt make you seem dressed up any more. I don’t really need the sports coat in Paris, I won’t be going to any of the fancier places for dinner and why drag it to Nepal?’

  “Okay. Whatever, I just asked,” she said. “But it doesn’t take any extra effort to have it along. And you should really have a black shirt and black trousers if you are in Paris. It’s almost a French law. And you never know when you might want to look nice. You’re going to leave it all in Kathmandu anyway.”

  “I know,” I said. “Honey, I’ll be alright.” She came over and put her arms around me and we stood like that until my dogs came into the room and insisted on getting in the middle of the big hug and then they got all the attention like they believed they should.

  ***

  The airlines’ new security regulations make it both easier and harder to fly than it used to be. It’s harder because of all the lines and waiting and searches of your athletic bags and shoes. And easier because you say goodbye
to your loved ones back at the curb or the ticket counter or the main concourse. Once you get over that hurdle, that saying goodbye, then your trip has really begun and everything takes on a different look and feel. You might still be right there in your hometown and be able to look out the window and see a building or a lake or a mountain range that tells you that you are at home, but you’re already gone. The momentum has begun. The rush of travel picks you up and gets the old adrenalin pumping and you feel a little giddy, your heart pounds a little harder and looking back is something you don’t even consider for a moment.

  I think that this has to do with commitment. The decision to engage in travel or any endeavor that moves you from one place to another (both literally and figuratively) is not one that is undertaken lightly by most people. We decide to do something or engage in something or undertake something and then plan, envision, anticipate, organize, worry, imagine, fear, long for and finally commit to it. But once the commitment is engaged we tend not to look back. Or at least those who are warriors try not to look back.

  Ukemi is attack and escape. The idea of attacking half-heartedly is dangerous at best and lethal at worst. In aikido we must temper the knowledge of what nage is going to do with us (and we usually know what this is) with the need to commit the attack with beginner’s mind. That is, we know we are going to be pinned, thrown or rolled; yet each time we attack we need to do it as if we are going to be victorious in our attack. We need to maintain the notion of suspended disbelief. To do otherwise we would be uncommitted. To be a proper uke, we need total commitment; otherwise nage cannot feel and experience the flow of ki and movement necessary to train to mastership. We need it for ourselves and therefore it must be reciprocal on the part of all who study aikido. Think about getting on an airplane.

  October rose up through the sweltering summer heat like mountains rising above Highway 70 heading west across Colorado. At first you don’t want to believe it, that it could be true, but then driving up across a small mesa you see that first clear sight of a huge fourteener rising high into the western sky and you finally give in and admit that those images aren’t a bank of clouds but the Rocky Mountains. In Florida you finally admit that the hint of coolness on the wind – that first hint of fall – is the harbinger of the end of summer’s heat. October arrives like that in Florida. At first it is just another sweltering hot summer day, but by the time you turn the calendar leaf the nineties are gone and the first good strong cold front has drifted through and you begin to believe that the long hot days are finally over and that reason has come into the world once again.

  So finally on the eve of our departure let me at last be completely honest. Let me say the thing that I have to say and that has bothered me like a hangnail for the last 60-odd pages. Okay, here goes.

  Christian could not take true ukemi if his life depended on it. There, it’s that simple. How a young, athletic guy with all his coordination and skill could be so bad at this thing, I don’t know, but there you are, and this is why I really want to go on this long-ass road trip with him; to see if I can turn him around.

  I want to see if I can get through to him, make the scales fall from his eyes, open his heart, show him the way and guide him down the tunnel to the light. Oh, he falls fine. He takes beautiful soundless rolls and his timing is nearly perfect. What he lacks is the ferocity and willingness to kill or die. He just cannot attack as if he really wants to harm you. His attacks are practically feeble and no one can actually feel them in the quiet place in the center. And that is essential to mastering ukemi. It is essential to mastering aikido

  And it is something almost every 6th dan has to some degree or other. Because they were all, at one point, ukes for their own senseis. They have it and understand it. They might deny it, but it is there. And God knows Christian needs some guidance in this. I’m hoping that the two best ukes in the dojo, Curtis and Chris, can help him understand what it is that he is missing.

  I had a student in Denver years ago; let’s call him Jake. Jake couldn’t take ukemi either, the physical act. He was simply the worst, but he had an unusual physique and that contributed to his inability to fall down and get up properly. He was six feet and seven inches tall, weighed two hundred fifty pounds and had wrists like a ten-year-old girl. He was huge yet so delicate it was simply hard to believe. Behind his back some of the students referred to him as Baby Huey because of his size and delicacy. I tended to discourage that kind of thing in order to embrace the notion of unit integrity. Still, seeing this giant with his huge belly and towering height try to grab your wrist with his smooth and narrow fingers was odd to say the least.

  Jake stayed with it; I’ll say that for him. I know it was hard for him though and actually would not have been surprised to see him quit. Somehow he had made a decision to change his life and had decided that he was going to do that by studying aikido. He believed a martial art could erase three decades of his mother’s constant attention and devotion to her little man and his “sensitive” ways. Face it, he was a mama’s boy and had finally rejected her attentions and had decided to become a man, by God. The problem was that he simply did not know how to break the chains that held him to earth. He didn’t understand that his pain was a warning signal, not the end in itself and that pain was something that could and sometimes needs to be endured if only to prove to ourselves that we can stand it. He couldn’t look another man in the eye and stand up straight and tall. He slouched, and sometimes, I can’t be sure, but sometimes during training I actually thought I heard him whimper while being pinned.

  But he stayed. After a couple years, and failing each test a time or two, he had made it to fourth kyu (level). He was changing and we would see the changes every once in a while, but he was fundamentally the same. There was no pride, no fire, no machismo, and for a martial artist – until he assumes the mantle of humility – those things are dearly important. You must believe, make that BELIEVE, that you are the toughest, strongest, quickest, wiliest, smartest, and most ferocious. Why walk into a battle believing that you can or will fail? It just doesn’t make sense. Even in aikido. Can you imagine O’Sensei (the founder of aikido) not believing in his invincibility?

  But Jake was certain that he was weak and small. His mother had told him often enough and that was his mountain. He had to climb it alone and to this day I believe that Jake was my most successful aikido student. I believe that his training in aikido allowed him to change his life in a more significant way than any other student I have encountered, and I have encountered many whose lives were radically changed and improved as a result of their training.

  The day Jake became a man started like winter days, Saturdays, often did in that Denver dojo. We had open mat time. People came and went, worked out, worked on weights, hoped someone would come by to do aikido for a while, and sometimes we would have a sensei on the mat for an impromptu lesson.

  Jake was there. So was Ron, a nidan. After a while Bruce and Jack came in and dressed out. We were on the mat just doing a free-style kind of relaxed training when Ron threw Jake in what should have been a high fall.

  It was a disaster. Jake came apart at the height of the technique and crashed to the mat in pieces. First his leg, then his elbow, and then maybe his back followed by all the rest of him. He screamed. We were all a little embarrassed, but Ron was angry. When he threw you, Ron liked you to crash hard on the mat with a resounding whack as you landed. It was totally misplaced ego. He did not like to look as if he was not completely in control. Ron could hurt you and really not care that you were hurt. In fact, he would get angry that you did not continue attacking him even if you were hurt if he was demonstrating for someone he wanted to impress. Ron was not the best example of an aikido black belt, but that is secondary to the story here. It’s only important to understand what happened next.

  Ron yelled at Jake to get up. Jake did. Ron yelled at him to attack again and reluctantly Jake did as he was told. Jake flew high and landed, if anything, worse than previously.
Ron yelled at him to get up again. Over and over, I could see Ron getting angrier and angrier, as if Jake’s clumsiness was an affront to his manliness and martial prowess. He threw Jake until he was too tired to continue and then ordered Bruce to throw Jake. He tried to go easier on the big guy, but Ron would not hear of it. He kept growling that we were going to teach this candy-ass how to take a break fall if we had to kill him in the process. I believe that what happened next was not the result of Ron’s intent, but a moment of true enlightenment brought on by Jake’s dedication to his training.

  Ron grabbed him away from Bruce and literally lifted him up over his shoulder and threw him to the mat. He started screaming at Jake to get up, but Jake was all done. He was finished. Jake could not rise up one more time. His body screamed at the mean treatment and his ego and pride, what little had developed over the last two years, was now finally completely ripped out of him. He lay there and I was suddenly terrified that he would start to cry.

  He was a thirty-year-old man who had a good job, was a fine handsome man with no bad character traits or at least no worse habits than any other man, yet he had never been on a date with a woman. He had never had the courage to walk up to a pretty woman and ask her out for lunch. He had never felt the quiet joy of a woman’s hand slipping into his in a darkened theater. He had never sat at a table in a fine restaurant with wine and crystal and linen between him and a lady he wanted to impress and then once impressed taken her home. Not Jake, not once. He had no courage and no ability to deal with rejection. The mere idea that a woman would turn down his attentions kept them bottled up inside him. He was thirty years of frustration, misery, ineptitude and fear.