JOURNEY - on Mastering Ukemi

by Daniel Linden

  The whole experience reminded me of Hurricane Charley and the wreckage left in its wake. It slammed into the dojo at 9:00 PM Friday August 13th, 2004. I doubt if I will ever forget that date. Charley had one hundred mile an hour winds with gusts much stronger. It had come ashore a category four storm. Its first victim was the small town of Punta Gorda about one hundred fifty miles southwest of Orlando and it had raced across the state in four hours. When it reached us it was still a category two hurricane and it rolled over us like we were mere blades of grass. At the dojo, my home, we lost over a dozen major trees and about thirty smaller ones. My house and the dojo sustained much damage as the trees landed on the building roofs and were then tossed around like matchsticks.

  In truth I was little worried that we were in danger of our lives even though over twenty people died in that storm. My house was built back in the nineteen twenties and it has survived hurricanes for going-on a century. I had boarded the windows and taken all the precautions that I could prior to its arrival. A couple students had helped and barely left before the first squalls hit.

  Afterward the devastation was amazing. It looked as if bombs had gone off all over the city. Everywhere you looked there were huge trees down in the streets and on houses and automobiles. My own cars were buried under several trees but under the carport and were, amazingly, not even scratched. The building roofs were covered in trees that had to be cleared with chainsaws, deadfalls and a backbreaking amount of labor. By Sunday morning I had succeeded in clearing the greater part of the debris from the roof, but was almost immobile with the amount of work ahead of me. Then a student came up the driveway and asked if he could help. I almost wept. Soon another and then another and by ten o’clock there were eight pairs of hands doing the hard work.

  They kept it up for four days, coming in shifts and staying until darkness or rain or exhaustion made them quit. Finally, by Thursday we were able to look around and see we were closing in on it. We still had five big trees to cut up and clear, but there was more grass than debris and I made the decision to cut the grass. It would act as a mulching engine to help get rid of the smaller debris that made everything look so terrible. It really helped and from there it became a systematic labor until it was finally done.

  Two weeks later we were slammed by another hurricane and two weeks after that by Hurricane Jeanne. Three major hurricanes in six weeks hit Florida and no matter how much we tried to overcome the feelings of powerlessness and depression, the whole state reeled in shock and despair. The doctors called it Post Traumatic Stress Syndrome.

  My students came to the aid of the dojo and their Sensei and I will always be grateful and proud that I have been able to create a place that inspires this kind of dedication and loyalty. I have always tried to instill a sense of community about everything associated with the dojo and when times get very bad we see how inspired and inspiring that kind of community can be. They are still helping me.

  ***

  I was thinking about this when I saw Oscar standing against the far wall in his very red jacket. He is an imposing figure. Both tall and wide shouldered, he is hard to miss. And he had seen us.

  “Sensei! Curtis and Chris! You must be Christian? Welcome, welcome. Hello Celine!” He kissed her on both cheeks.

  “Hello Oscar,” I said.

  “Was it a good flight?” he asked.

  I grimaced. Curtis shrugged. Christian slipped between Oscar and Celine and Chris said, “You know, back in Orlando the bars are still open…”

  ***

  Paris is such a remarkable place that it is easy to write about. It is so easy in fact that you can get carried away. First you describe the monuments and the museums and then start to explain it by giving a little history, and the next thing you know you have written 90 pages. Or you try to keep it simple and easy and just talk about day to day things, the food, wine, and bread; only then, how can you not talk about the shops and the cafes and restaurants, the street life and joi de vivre? Another 90 pages…

  No, trust me, it is much better if I just say that a few days later we arrived back at the airport for our flight to Istanbul. And when we arrived…

  Chapter 9

  One Step Closer

  Curtis and Chris were shocked at the size of the Istanbul airport and even more so by the sheer immensity of the city itself. Celine’s father had sent a van to pick us up and I was impressed by that. We drove at a stately speed for an hour and then the driver pulled up to the entrance to a small hotel.

  “I thought we were going to Celine’s place?” I said to the driver. “I was under the impression that we had been invited to stay.”

  The driver looked a little uncomfortable and then the look on his face changed to one of amusement.

  “You see,” he said, “She told her father that it was her teacher coming. Turks honor education and teachers. But then he learned of these..!” He pointed his chin to Chris and Curtis and Christian. “He arranged for rooms for you.” He leaned toward me over the front seat and said, “He has three daughters, all single, all beautiful…” He arched his eyebrows and grinned.

  I couldn’t help but shake my head and smile. I got out and indicated for the others to join me. The driver got out and unloaded our luggage, which was formidable. He said, “I am supposed to wait until you get checked in and unpack and do whatever you feel you need to do and then you are invited to dinner at the family home. I will park the van over there.” He pointed.

  We met in the lobby after everyone had showered and changed. The driver was nowhere to be found and we looked up and down the street for him. When we eventually found him I asked the driver his name. “I am Mustafa,” he said.

  “Okay, Mustafa, we’re ready to go.”

  “Oh,” he said. “You are much too early. Not until after five o’clock.”

  I looked at my old watch and tried to do the math. “Anybody know what time it is?”

  Christian muttered, “Istanbul is an hour later than Paris.” He looked up at the sky and then continued, “Paris is five hours later than Eastern Standard Time unless you are in Daylight Saving Time when it is six hours later.” He seemed dazed.

  “So…” I did the switch. My watch showed 8 o’clock. “Is it still daylight savings?”

  “It is 3:00 PM,” said Mustafa.

  Chris said. “If it’s 3:00 PM, then it has to still be DST. And it also means we have two hours to kill. See you later.” He nodded to Curtis and they took off.

  “Mustafa, did Mr. Demiroglu say what you are supposed to be doing?”

  “No. I am at your disposal.”

  “Well, Mustafa, let’s go for a ride.”

  Christian and I climbed into the big van and Mustafa asked where we wanted to go.

  “The old city?” I looked at Christian in question. “Down by the Topkapi Palace, that area. That is very near the Grand Bazaar, isn’t it?”

  “Yes, sure,” he said. He drove off and we settled back to look at this strange and ancient city. After a bit he dropped us off at the Grand Bazaar and we wandered around for an hour fending off shop keepers and hawkers of everything from leather coats to carpet bags and rugs. The leather merchants would step up to you and thrust out their wares and snap a bic lighter into flame and lay it against the leather to show you it wasn’t plastic, I guess. It was disconcerting, but I found the rugs and the amazing hand woven carpets to be thrilling. I love textiles and to me the finest textiles in the world are oriental carpets. Some have 600 or more individual threads in a single square inch. It is an amazing art form.

  We met Mustafa by the entrance and arrived back at the hotel a few minutes before five o’clock. Curtis and Chris climbed in and we were off. Then we were there. Just like that. We could have easily walked. Celine and her family lived about four blocks from the hotel.

  I gave a questioning look to Mustafa as he opened the doors for us and he raised his eyebrows and shrugged. Celine came walking out of the front door and gave everyone a hug. An older gentlema
n in a very good suit walked out to join us and I shook his hand.

  “Mr. Demiroglu?” I asked.

  “Of course,” he said.

  Celine spun on her heel and made introductions. Mrs. Demiroglu joined us as we went inside and introductions were repeated. I looked around and the only word that came to mind was opulent. The house had marble columns, plaster facades, gold leaf with embellishments, 12 foot ceilings, two staircases of marble… one to go up, and one to come down? And it was huge. This was clearly a very wealthy man.

  We went into a room at the end of the hall and a maid brought tea and fruit drinks. It looked like we were in a sitting room or maybe a library; there were books on one entire wall, but the room was very light and airy, not overstuffed and dark.

  On a large table to the rear Celine had all her trekking gear laid out and wanted me to look it over for her. It looked fine and I told her as much.

  “But where is your sister?”

  “Oh,” she pretended to pout a little, “She likes to make a grand entrance. She will come down soon.”

  Her father stood looking us over and seemed to decide that we were not going to steal the books so long as his daughter was present and excused himself.

  “Papa is very busy,” she said.

  We all settled around the long low table waiting for Esra and had tea.

  “My father is happy that three martial artists and their teacher are escorting his daughters,” Celine began. “He has not been very happy when we have gone off on holiday by ourselves. Of course, now he says he has to worry about our escorts – you seem too young and handsome for him – but I told him that I trained with you for a year and you have always been gentlemen.”

  There were some surreptitious glances passed between several of those present, glances I chose to ignore, and she continued. “He wants to show you that he is wealthy and powerful and then he thinks you will be certain to do the thing right.” She frowned. “Do the right thing.”

  “Behave ourselves.”

  I glared at Chris. He looked steadily at me and I understood how he was feeling, but we were guests.

  “Please tell your father we will take good care of you and we will always be very respectful of both him and his daughters.”

  She seemed relieved. “Thank you, Sensei.”

  “Although I really haven’t got a clue what I could do unless someone walks up and grabs my wrist.”

  She laughed and bumped my knee which caused me to spill a small spot of tea. She jumped up and made a show of getting a napkin. Suddenly there was a maid with a cloth to dab the tea away. I wondered where the camera or microphones were hidden. I had known that we were under surveillance; strange men in a wealthy Turk’s house with his daughter? I was sure that all meetings between his daughters and suitors happened here.

  “Sensei, what would you do? I mean if someone wanted to grab one of the girls… um, I mean, ladies. Women! Darn, I …”

  “Christian that is the biggest problem in aikido. How do we defend someone else? I believe that an experienced aikidoka could probably defend himself against most untrained fighters. But O’Sensei specifically said that we are to ‘protect and defend all living things.’ Those are his words. What are you supposed to do, stick your arm out and say “Grab my wrist?”

  They all shook their heads. I knew I was now lecturing not only for them, but for an unseen audience. I believe that Curtis had probably made that leap as well because he hitched forward and said, “Sensei, what is the most effective way to engage someone who might be attacking someone else. We’ve never trained for that.”

  “No. That’s not true. Sensei taught classes for a whole month on engaging an attacker who was going after a third person.” Chris turned to me and asked, “Was that last winter?”

  I turned to Curtis. “I think you were out in Houston doing something on a space shuttle.”

  “It was a control issue for the command module…”

  “Great. Still, good question. The answer is hanging in the corner of the Dojo; in each corner as a matter of fact.”

  Christian said, “The punching bags, that’s how you engage someone who is hurting somebody. Punch them in the head.”

  “We don’t have punching bags in our dojos here in Turkey. I’ve never seen a punching bag in any aikido dojo except yours.” Celine raised her eyebrows and looked at me.

  “I have spoken with many senseis who believe that practicing yokomen-uchi or tsuki is the same as training to strike. All I can say is that they are idiots. The only way to train at striking is to hit something heavy as hard as you can, over and over. Pretend striking just doesn’t get it done. It’s a joke. Ask anyone who has ever broken or sprained a wrist by hitting a bag or board wrong. It is something that absolutely must be trained if it is going to be used to save a life.” I grimaced, but then continued.

  “Okay, here is a lesson I was taught by one of my old senseis. He told me that he and his wife, who is a sixth dan, were leaving the dojo one night and found three street punks sitting on their car. His wife is a very feisty woman and told the punks to get off, and one of them said something and the next thing that happened was the guy punched Sensei’s wife in the head.”

  “Wow!”

  “Yeah, well, the next thing that happened after that was Sensei coming over the trunk of that car and punching the guy that had hit his wife. I mean a good old-fashioned hay-maker, that’s what he did. It only took a fraction of a second for the two aikido masters to find their centers and present arms and when they did the punks took off running.”

  “What specifically, was the lesson, Sensei? If you don’t mind explaining...”

  Well, Celine, there were several things I picked up from that story. The first is that a 6th dan can get cold-cocked by a punk. You know, all that posturing by so many shihans is just that, posturing. Outside of the safe and controlled environment of a dojo, they aren’t Rambo, you know. They don’t get into street fights. And face it, most of us are either on one side of sixty or damn close to the other. Even F.B.I. agents have to retire at 57.”

  “Really? I didn’t know that.” Chris looked surprised.

  “Yeah, and not just them, DEA, Secret Service, all the federal agents have to retire by 57. Think the Fed knows something most people don’t? Timing, coordination, physical conditioning, eyesight, balance, all these things start to deteriorate with age. I don’t care how many willing ukes jump over your hand and then stare up at you with abject wonder from the mat, you’re still doing it in a dojo and with students who are trained by you to do just one thing perfectly...”

  “Make you look good,” they all chorused. Then they laughed. So did I. It is what I tell every young student when I call them for demonstration for the first time. Their job is to make me look good. It always makes them laugh and relax and then they are no longer afraid of me.

  “The second lesson I got from that story is that an 8th dan grand master reverted to a haymaker when he saw someone clobber his wife. Do I need to explain the significance of that?

  “Look, before the war O’Sensei taught masters of other, deadly martial arts. Aikido was a way to defend while mitigating the killing power of the techniques these other masters knew. Then the war came, and the dojo was closed. In order for the Ueshiba family to re-open the family business they had to convince the Allies that it was merely for self defense. They made it much softer and such gentler. Doshu (heir to the family business) told me once that O’Sensei was shocked at how many people wanted to train at something like that, but you can’t knock success. O’Sensei grew old, the business took off like a rocket and now Hombu won’t even allow you to throw a punch in the dojo anymore, or so I’ve heard; at least not in atemi waza, defense.

  “So the result is that there are a million aikido people out there that believe they are training in a martial art and cannot save someone who is being abducted or attacked or molested. That is clearly not what O’Sensei wanted. So I took a cue from my old sensei and put up
heavy bags and make you guys hit them 100,000 times before I will test you for your first black belt. What’s the result? Any one of my students can knock an attacker off their feet with a single punch, if need be.”

  “Do you think the story was true?” Christian asked.

  “That’s an odd question,” I said.

  “Why? I mean there are a lot of stories that get told in martial art dojos that get all embellished with the telling. You know, like that crazy guy who told you his sensei had taught him 41 ways to strike a man and kill him dead. You remember him?”

  “Yea,” I laughed. “I said, wow, your sensei killed 41 men? Then he said, no, of course not. Then I asked how in hell he knew that those blows would kill a man.”

  “I remember that,” said Chris. “He left. He never came back.”

  Christian said, “He’s probably an assassin for the C.I.A. and doesn’t use a gun.” After everyone stopped laughing he asked again. “Still, Sensei, I mean, stories get told.”

  “Okay, I don’t know that it is a true story, although later his wife told me the exact same story. But what difference does it make? Teaching is hard. Teaching aikido is very difficult because you have to figure out a way to keeps someone interested in something for about 15 years, which is how long it takes to master it if you work hard. You have to keep them interested. I mean, come on, we only have a handful of techniques. We demonstrate them each a hundred different ways and even then it takes a remarkable teacher to keep people interested for 15 years. Each of us has his way. Some guys are stern and unapproachable, so they remain distant and mysterious. Some keep coming up with more and more variations. I tell sea stories. I tell stories about everything under the sun and you all know that eventually I will bring it back home and make a point and then you will understand something profound. It is the way I teach aikido.