Roy Dean - An Uchideshi Experience

An Uchideshi Experience: Introduction

Assumptions, Exchanges, and Credits

It’s hard to remember a year in its entirety.

It’s been said that people massively overestimate the changes they can undergo in one year, while underestimating the changes they can accomplish in five. While I partially agree that people can over-aspire, a year can definitely be life altering. In that time, I went from working at a cushy job in the federal government, living at home, driving a nice car, and having play-time in Alaska to living in a loft, commuting on foot, and getting thrown around by world class martial artists.

I wish I could have written this book as I went along, but the demands of the life of an uchideshi did not permit me to even keep a brief journal. So now, after the fact, I will attempt to piece together the account of a young man entering the adult world, in search of experience and exposure during a time in his life when the hunger for knowledge was insatiable. It is also the story of brothers coming together, and of spirits connecting despite time and distance.

An uchideshi is the Japanese term for a live-in student. It is one of the closest relationships students can have with their teacher, and according to some traditions, the only way to access the finest details, hidden techniques, and innermost workings of an art. Some teachers consider the intensive, required daily training of an uchideshi necessary to receive a teaching certificate, because only when you actually live in the dojo are you able to see the full spectrum of an art. How it is taught, how the students respond, the test procedures, the injuries, the challenges, and the endless stream of variables that life provides are best assimilated through the constant exposure that required training brings.Often, the apprenticing student would carry out domestic responsibilities for the master: cleaning, preparing the meals and bath, massaging their sensei, and even taking care of the books. This is a very traditional arrangement, and although I’m sure it’s still possible to find teachers willing to provide this service in the United States, I think you’d be hard pressed to find STUDENTS willing to undergo all of that.

I’d wanted to be an uchideshi ever since I was a teenager, but even as a child, I had some sort of fascination with Japan. I remember looking at Japanese toy catalogs, admiring their warrior-like robots, wishing I understood the kanji. I loved the elegant simplicity of Japanese architecture and interior design, expressing to my mother how I needed to simplify my room and put up Japanese screens as room dividers. Going to an international gift store, I’d slowly pore over their selection of martial arts books, silently imagining the mysterious powers of their deadly practitioners.

I certainly wasn’t aware that I had a fascination with Japan; I was far too young, but for some reason I thought it was all really cool. As a matter of fact, aided now by hindsight, I can clearly see a pattern, which (according to Northern California

philosophy) is an indication of a connection to my past life. I’m not sure what to make of it, but in retrospect, I can see how it all added up to the next step.

I was fifteen, coming off a very successful freshman year in high school, when I walked into my parent’s bedroom and told my mother, “I need to get out of here.” Oozing the kind of cockiness that can come only from youth, I felt an itching to leave Alaska and see the world, knowing there was so much more out there, without the slightest clue as to what it was. My mother suggested I go speak to a school counselor and check into an exchange program.

The next day I rolled into my counselor’s office, and he promptly sent me to another counselor who exclaimed, ”Oh, you must have seen the signs!” I didn’t know what she was talking about, so she informed me flyers had been posted for weeks advertising Rotary Exchange programs. Although it was past the sign-up deadline, and interview times had already been assigned, she made a call for me anyway.

The person she spoke with at the Rotary Club had just hung up with a student who couldn’t make it, and I slid into that cancellation spot. A few days later I went to the interview, laid it on pretty thick with heavy swagger and freshman grades (it should be noted, that if they’d known my grades for the current year, they would have kicked me out on the spot), and left quite satisfied with my performance.

But I made a mistake. I filled out a sheet requesting the country I’d like to stay in, with two backup choices. Being fifteen, I made an assumption that everything would go my way. Consequently, I put only one selection down for my country of choice. You can probably imagine what it was…

Sweden. I put Sweden as my top choice, for reasons that are pretty obvious if you think about what a fifteen year old boy is interested in. And I was definitely interested in it.

For the alternate slots, I smugly wrote, “Any other country in the world.” Four and a half months later, I received a phone call congratulating me on being selected to go to Japan. I tried to change things, but it was too late.

It was meant to be. Whether I liked it or not.

So I went, and it was a difficult time. Countless books and movies have been made on the “cute” consternation of westerners clashing with eastern customs, but my situation wasn’t cute at all. At 16, it’s pretty traumatic being ripped away from your friends (who mean more to you at that age than your own family), and taken to a place where you can’t speak the language, or even read their alphabet. It was sensory overload, and I had no one to blame for this disorienting situation but myself.

Japan is not what you might think it is. It is not America as a small island where people speak another language and everyone has black hair. It is far more foreign and paradoxical, and every assumption you may subconsciously harbor will undoubtedly be proved wrong.

Forget about the Japanese gardens you’ve seen in pictures. Those are microscopic pockets in a dirty and overpopulated land. Zoning laws as we know them do not exist. A small shop can be right next to a house, which sits right next to a bar. My high school happened to be uphill, yet strangely downwind, from a pig farm. The insects were gargantuan, but everything else in that country was crammed, compacted, and narrow. What you would swear is a one-way alley was actually a two-way street. An extra large shirt is equivalent to an American medium. And western-style toilets? Don’t depend on it.

The area where I lived in the summer was very hot and very humid. To give you an idea, jeans would mold on the clothes line after washing them in the rainy season. The winter was brisk (sometimes spitting snow), but you really got a feel for the temperature since there was no central heating. Too hot or too cold, it was never just right, and the only dependable constant was your assured year-round discomfort.

The only joie de vivre the Japanese experience is generated by contrast to their pains of daily existence. They believe it’s especially important for the young to learn how to gaman, or bear discomfort well. From my current perspective, I can agree that’s an important concept to instill in a country’s youth, but at 16, I wasn’t really receptive to doing things that were good for me. What I wanted to do was party with my friends, hang out with girls, and experiment with things that would land me deep in trouble. I was a self-absorbed, egocentric glutton of appearance and excess. In other words, I was an American teenager.

High school in Japan, in some respects, is a lot like college in the United States. It’s very competitive, and everyone wants to get into the oldest and most established schools to increase their chances of getting into a good university. New schools had difficulty attracting top students, so if they wanted to successfully upgrade themselves, they needed a hook to get the bright kids. Internationalism was fashionable at the time, so my school used exchange students as a public relations vehicle to lure in talented individuals. I felt bitter and antagonistic toward my Japanese school for using me, probably more so because they denied it, but nevertheless, I did my duty and played along.

In other respects, my high school functioned like a military academy. Of course there was a uniform to go along with the regulation book bag which was strapped to your regulation bike. Hair and nail inspections were practiced, and makeup and piercings were not allowed. Even in the wintertime, when you could see your breath in the heaterless classrooms, no additional clothing was allowed beyond the French military style uniform. My school was reputed to be the second strictest in Japan, and they were bent on proving it.

It was standard practice for students who had committed some minor infraction to line up in a hallway with their backs against the wall, waiting for a teacher to come by and dole out his version of discipline. When the instructor arrived, he would begin by yelling at the students, working his way into an academic frenzy: throwing their schoolbooks down the hallway, or punching and kicking the wall. Girls usually broke down into tears. If a serious infraction had occurred, then on top of the lecture, the student’s hair had to go; boys had their heads shaved; girls learned to live with a short cut.

While other exchange students were partying on the beach in Rio de Janeiro, exploring the wonders of Africa, or frolicking with Swedish beauties, I was stuck in the Westpoint of the Orient. Even though my classmates were friendly, and my host families were kind, patient, and accepting, I felt like I had been shafted, so my overall attitude was less than optimal.

The one thing that got me through that year was a school policy for international students to study a Japanese art. Kyudo, kendo, sado, and ikebana were among my selections, but I chose judo. My advisor warned me that judo training was very severe, but that was all right by me. I didn’t have anything else going on, so I earnestly welcomed the challenge.

Since I didn’t know any Japanese when I went (actually, I didn’t even know where Japan was on the map), it was impossible for me to crash into a classroom and understand what was going on. Consequently, I spent a lot of time in the library with my fellow exchange students. We studied Japanese, and I joined my assigned class for physical education, music, and English lessons. By the end of my term, although I could have asked for a diploma stating a year of full credits, I chose not to and returned to Alaska a year behind my peers, as an academic junior.

My junior standing, however, didn’t immunize me from contracting a nasty case of senioritis. I investigated early graduation, but my counselor couldn’t work it out with the “lost year,” as I would still be a few credits shy by the end of my first senior semester. I deeply regretted not asking for academic credits while I was in Japan, but at that point it was too late. I considered dropping out of school, and just taking the GED exam, but figured it would end up haunting me later.

My teachers, quite concerned for me, urged me to do something different for my senior year. It could be as simple as going to a different school, leaving the state, or taking off on an adventure to curb my restlessness. I didn’t know what I was going to do. I was pretty depressed overall, but something had to be done.

Then an opportunity arose. I could go to Canada and live with my brother-in-law in North Bay, Ontario, a resort town about three hours northeast of Toronto. He had room in his house, I would take Grade 13 classes where the students were my age, and it would be a totally new scene. All that was true, but it wasn’t easy being an American and moving to a small town where everyone knew everyone. Even worse was the lack of martial arts training. No judo, just karate and kickboxing. I studied a little karate, but spent the majority of my time reading about aikido- hardly the way to learn a martial art.

I bought every book I could get my hands on regarding aikido, learning everything I could about the art and its founder, Morihei Ueshiba. I bought it all: the books, the theory, the philosophy, and legends. But I couldn’t train. Nothing was available in the area, so I seethed and bided my time until I went back to Alaska.

Once I arrived in Anchorage, I signed up at the local dojo, Aikido North, and fervently began training. I was attending the University of Alaska so I could keep my job with the federal government as a stay-in-school student, but my job there was really just to support my aikido habit.

I trained diligently for two years, falling in love with the circularity, the aesthetic beauty of the movements, and the efficiency of blending with an over-committed attack. The people at the dojo were wonderful, and I looked forward to the daily practices.

It was through one of the instructors there that I came into jujutsu and the connection to Seibukan was made. Ken Blaylock taught aikido on Mondays, and one night after class, he related to another student and myself his experiences during a trip to Japan. He accompanied his jujutsu teacher, Julio Toribio, and they studied under Ninjitsu Grandmaster Maasaki Hatsumi and Machida Kenshinsai, head of multiple martial art systems. I could relate to what Ken was saying through my own experiences in Japan, and was wowed by his confirmation of some mystical and energetic aspects of martial arts I had only read about.

When Ken began teaching Julio Toribio’s jujutsu style, Seibukan, I quickly enrolled as a student, hoping to learn the roots of aikido. He taught on Sundays, and while other aikido students would occasionally drop in to play in a class, I ended up being his only regular student. He taught me well, and over time I inquired whether I could be an uchideshi for Sensei Toribio. I had investigated uchideshi programs for aikido students, but never found anything that felt like it would’ve been the right place for me. I even considered going back to Japan to study, but I would have really had to exhaust my options before doing so. Not only would it have been prohibitively expensive, but I knew far too well the additional pains a foreigner had to endure training in Japan. I wanted the opportunity to invest my efforts in training, without wasting time overcoming cultural and linguistic barriers.

Ken spoke to Sensei Toribio, and on his recommendation, I was accepted into the program. Both suggested that I travel to Monterey, see the dojo, spend some time with Sensei, and check everything out, just as you’d visit a university before enrollment. Although I would have liked to, I couldn’t afford that luxury. I just didn’t have the money to fly down, so I did a little praying, and trusted that everything would work out.

I had a lot of expectations that this experience would take me to a new level of martial artistry that I had, thus far, been unable to achieve. But beyond physical progress, I felt that the intensity and volume of training I had to endure to complete a full year would somehow legitimize me. Not to other people, but to myself. I wasn’t sure exactly what it was I had to prove to myself, but if I could do this, I felt that something inside me would be able to rest. Until then, there was no way I could go to a university and actually focus on schoolwork, despite my parents’ urging.

My best friend was attending Notre Dame while I was living in Alaska, so I flew down to visit him and check out the school. In short, he showed me around, we went to some parties and had a good time, but in the back of my head as I imagined myself in his situation, I couldn’t help but think, “God, I’d rather be anywhere but here.” Although Notre Dame is a fantastic educational institution, the lifestyle of university students wasn’t something I could handle at the time. It was too unhealthy. It certainly wasn’t healthy being crammed in a tiny dorm room with two other guys you usually didn’t get along with, or skipping meals because the cafeteria was too far to trudge in the cold. Plus, there was too much alcohol, too little sleep, noisy neighbors,

and a workload that left you hobbled by stress. There’s no way I’d have been able to handle it, because I wasn’t willing to sacrifice for something I wasn’t truly passionate about. And at that time, martial arts were my passion, not academic achievement.

I admit this is shortsighted, since education will serve an individual far better than physical prowess in today’s society, but I had to be honest with myself. This is what I loved, and I had to integrate an uchideshi experience into my being before I could “settle down” and focus on school.

So I took a chance, and hopped on a plane. I had lived away from home for two years in two different countries in high school, but they were very controlled, prearranged situations. This was different. I had written Sensei an introductory letter a few months before leaving Alaska, and had spoken to him once on the phone a few weeks before I arrived, but that’s not really a lot of communication, leaving a lot of unknowns. I put my eggs in a basket and left for Monterey, hoping for the best, resolute to live through the worst.

But amazingly enough, it all worked out. There were injuries and conflicts, relationships and reunions, trials and celebrations. Programs were established, precedences set, minds were opened, and secrets exposed. It was a year that exceeded every expectation, every preconceived notion I harbored, and in the end, satisfied the gnawing hunger that hadn’t allowed me to focus on other areas of my life. In retrospect, it seems almost too good to be true, almost scripted, almost as if it were meant to be. Sometimes I wonder if it was.

Near the end of my stay as an uchideshi, I called home to Alaska, asking my mother to send me the wad of Japanese certificates I had thrown in a drawer years ago, from my exchange student days. I told her to send them all to me (she wouldn’t have been able to tell them apart, most were written in Japanese), even though there was only one I was interested in. I wanted to have my shodan certificate in judo framed, and I knew it might end up in the trash or equally lost in storage if someone got the urge to clean out that drawer.

When I received the certificates a few weeks later, I had a Japanese friend translate them, mainly out of curiosity, before I threw them away. I recognized the judo scroll, and took a little journey into the past as she read aloud the hokey certificates I had received, including one for a ski trip and a speech contest for international students that I had participated in.

Then she came across one I wasn’t expecting. “This one,” she began ,“is some sort of certificate from a Japanese school. It says that you completed the requirements for one year at Mito Koko. Is that the school that you went to?”

I couldn’t believe it. There it was, the credits for the “lost year” that had held me back in high school. I looked at the certificate: It was written in English. It may have been presented to me while I was in Japan, or sent along with my Shodan certificate after I had left the country. I really have no idea how I ended up with it, but it was here now, right there in front of me.

If I had known that I had received it, much less had it lying in a drawer collecting dust, I would have never lived in Canada, investigated aikido, met Ken, made the connection with Sensei Toribio, or become an uchideshi. I’m pretty certain that I would have just graduated with everyone else and gone off to college, suffered through, and gotten a job. The course of my life changed because I needed a piece of paper I had in my possession the entire time. If I had only known, I’d be in an entirely different world, without ever enduring the toll of pain, abuse, and injuries that serious training exacts from its practitioners. In short, I never would have become the hopelessly addicted martial artist I am today.

Thank God I never found it.

An Uchideshi Experience: Chapter One

Luggage to Loft

If I wanted to be an uchideshi, I needed some money. I wasn’t sure how much I needed, or how much Sensei Toribio (from here on referred to as Sensei) was going to charge me over the course of the year, so I just played the denial game. It seems funny to say it now, but I was so resolute on creating this kind of experience, I really didn’t want to know how much it was going to cost in case it turned out to be more than I could afford. I was just going to save as much money as I could, and if it wasn’t enough, I’d work something out.

After graduating from high school in Canada and going back to Alaska, I worked as a stay-in-school student for the National Transportation Safety Board. The field office I worked for investigated airplane accidents. Basically, I was a secretary, but it was a great job with all the perks of working for a sharp governmental agency: a pleasant working environment, intelligent co-workers, sick leave, and my own parking space. This lasted until someone in Washington deemed my position unnecessary and cut its funding.

My supervisor at the NTSB generously allowed me to remain as long as I wanted that summer, paying my salary out of the agency’s travel fund. I decided to stay on until August, then immediately got a job slinging bags for a cruise line.

It was a terrible job, and one I was poorly suited for. It didn’t take a lot of mental acuity to heft bags off conveyor belts and throw them into trucks or trains, but it did require a certain amount of common sense, which I apparently lacked. I couldn’t stop making mistakes in this gig, and anticipated dismissal at every turn.

I came in at the end of the season, so I was already behind in understanding the operational logistics (which no one seemed able to clearly explain to me). I tried to hit the ground running, and asked a lot of questions, but despite my intentions of doing a good job, nothing ever seemed to go right.

One reason I took the job was they needed people to work a lot of overtime. At $6.25 an hour, I needed to put in many hours to build my uchideshi nest egg, and worked at every opportunity I could. I stopped training in aikido, I stopped lifting weights, I stopped everything, including getting adequate sleep. I worked 70 to 80 hours a week, and looking back on it now, I think my judgement skills took a nap while my body was chucking luggage.

Many of my problems in this job stemmed from driving their trucks. I was used to bopping around in a Honda Accord, so when they tossed me the keys and barked instructions on where to meet them and what to do, I did my best in getting this huge commercial vehicle from point A to point B. I always made it, too. I just hit a few things along the way.

It was bad news having me behind the wheel. Whether it was driving for miles with the emergency brake on, backing into the garage door of a hotel, or tearing bumpers off innocently parked vehicles, if it involved destruction of property or monetary loss for the company, I was most likely responsible. And believe it or not, these were warm-ups to that summer’s big fiasco.

The crew was loitering in the airport baggage claim as usual, when my manager, Paul, gave me the order: “Look, as soon as that plane comes in and you load the bags, drive the truck out to Seward. Got it?”

No problem. In Seward, a team of longshoremen would be waiting for me to deliver the goods, and transfer them from truck to ship. All I had to do was drive out there. How hard could that be?

The plane came in on time, we loaded the bags up, and as I got behind the wheel, the rest of the crew piled in the truck. I took them back to headquarters, driving all the way across town (in the middle of rush hour), stopping off at Wendy’s for some takeout food, then retracing my path across the city before getting on the highway and heading out toward Seward.

Everything was fine until I arrived in Seward, and people swarmed the truck as it rolled to a stop. At first they seemed concerned, asking what happened and if I was all right. Once they registered my confusion at their questioning and realized that there wasn’t an emergency situation that slowed my journey, the supervisor put me on the cell phone with Paul (who was livid), as he demanded I account for myself and explain where I had been. I kept telling him that I didn’t go anywhere else and had driven straight out to Seward. I felt that my stop at Wendy’s fell into the category of unnecessary information, so I chose to omit that beefy detail.

“That’s impossible! You had to have gone somewhere, you’re over an hour late!”

“No, I swear, as soon as I dropped the guys off at the yard, I came straight out.”

“You dropped the guys off? Don’t tell me the truck is still sitting there at the airport! Don’t tell me it’s still there!”

“I didn’t even know about it,” I said, and realized this mysterious hour they kept referring to was spent driving my crew through traffic when a vehicle had already been provided. I thought I was doing the right thing, but in ignorance, my actions created repercussions I could not have foreseen.

The supervisor in Seward carefully explained that every passenger on the ship, employee, longshoreman, and lackey were held up, waiting for me to arrive with their luggage. It was also clearly illuminated that since they had been unable to contact me on the road (I had the radio on the wrong frequency) to determine my estimated time of arrival, the ship’s engines had been on for over an hour. Time is relative, and this hour was considered particularly lengthy since the operational cost of running those engines was one hundred dollars a minute. Needless to say, there was a lot of attention on me at the time. Normally I’d like it, but this was not my finest hour. I went back to the truck, shoved the Wendy’s wrappers under the seat, and awaited my dismissal. Instead, the supervisor told me to hurry up and drive back home, since the highway would be closing soon. I thought to myself, ‘Great, Paul’s going to do the honors himself,’ and drove away from the dock, hoping to make good time before the road closed and midnight repairs began.

I was really frazzled at this point, and ended up taking the wrong dirt road (or what I perceived to be a dirt road, it was pretty dark) out of the harbor. Seeing nothing but weeds in my headlights, I stopped and put it in reverse.

All of a sudden, I heard an explosive BAM!, felt my body rock forward, and the truck stopped dead in its tracks. Obviously, I’d hit something, and shaking with frustration at what had already been a pretty bad day, I hopped out of the cab to check it out.

A telephone pole had sprung from the ground and collided with the back of the truck. At this point, the local supervisor noted I was teetering on the brink of self-destruction, so he told me to spend the night in Seward and forget about driving back. At the rate I was going, I would have rolled the truck before I hit town, and he knew it. I went back to Anchorage the next day, and instead of firing me, Paul told me to go home and get some sleep. I did, and felt much better.

I don’t know if I was necessarily in the wrong place at the wrong time, but having that job was like gambling with scared money. I needed it so desperately to attain my goal of becoming an uchideshi that somehow, I lost touch with common sense and remained defensively employed. In other words, I just didn’t want to get fired. Relationships predicated on desperate need rarely work well, and this job was a case in point. Paul had previously forbidden me from driving in town, then reneged on his word as times got tougher and they needed another driver. I needed them, they needed me, and it worked, but neither of us were happy.

One of the few things that brightened my long, sleepless days was a friendship I developed with a fellow bagcrew member named Chris. We hit it off immediately, and the shifts we spent together moved beyond mere tolerability toward actual enjoyment. He was very bright, and having already completed two years of college, was taking a year off before finishing up the rest.

I’ve always held that strong bonds in male relationships are forged through loyalty and time, so it’s almost uncanny when two individuals easily click into sync. Others notice it as well. Paul chided me, “So, I hear you and Chris are buddy buddy there, eh?”

It was true, we got along well, and it was a joy sharing our separate interests. He took me rock climbing, I introduced him to aikido and Brazilian jiu-jitsu, and we celebrated his twenty-first birthday in style: Dining at one of the finest restaurants in town, immediately followed by a long night of hard partying.

But moving forward to Monterey, I had to leave it all behind: Family, friends, training partners, associations, patterns and habits, addictions and failures; my old life was fading as my new one began. I needed something new in my life, and I felt an uchideshi lifestyle was it. I didn’t know what that entailed, exactly, but I’d figure it out shortly.

When I arrived in Monterey, an Instructor from the dojo picked me up, took me out to do some training, then deposited me back at my new home, where I checked out my living quarters. Hmmm… not terribly spacious. Then again, at least I had something. I was willing to sleep on the mat if necessary.

My living space turned out to be a loft, originally used for storage, recently cleared to accommodate two college kids from Kansas who did a three-month uchideshi stint. There was already a futon on some industrial carpet in the 5-by-15 foot space, so I simply laid my sleeping bag on top of it and got the rest of my personal items arranged in my compact living quarters.

Believe it or not, and as unglamorous as it may seem, this was my dream, and the giddiness I experienced by going through the motions of living out my goals translated into an insatiable appetite for training. Let me assure you, training was plentiful, but I still couldn’t get enough. That is, initially.

My required training schedule was pretty full. Monday’s evening classes began with a 5:15, plus a 7:00. Tuesday had the kids’ classes at 5:30 (which I was forced to participate in, despite strong protests), a seven o’clock, and a weapons class at eight. Wednesday repeated the 5:15 and 7:00 schedule, then added iaido at 8:30. Thursday repeated Tuesday’s schedule, with a black belt class replacing weapons at 8 p.m. On Friday, Sensei taught ninjitsu, so that was a day of rest for me (for the first few months, at least), and classes resumed Saturday morning at nine. Sunday was also a day of rest, but I usually did some sort of training on my own, feeding that compulsion.

When you add it all up, 12 classes a week doesn’t seem so bad, but a host of other factors were taking up my time, and breaking down my body. In becoming an uchideshi, you have, in effect, become a martial serf: Your body is no longer your own, it belongs to the dojo. If somebody dreams up a crazy technique and wants to try it out, the uchideshi is there and always willing to train. If higher-ranked students are offering instruction to newer ones and need an uke (training partner), you’re it. If a pretest is occurring, 9 times out of 10 you’re involved, getting thrown and absorbing techniques.

Additionally, once your ukemi (rolling and falling skills) is deemed suitable, Sensei will use you to demonstrate techniques, which keeps you on your toes and cuts down your rest time in class. But taking his ukemi is fun, since he’s developed the ability to effectively off-balance you with smaller joint manipulations such as wristlocks. He can put the hurt on, but you’re smiling all the way.

Every time they train, students go through the same warm-up sequence, which includes a variety of hand strikes, kicks, and falling exercises. Even by the end of my term, I didn’t mind participating in any of the classes (they were almost always fun), I was just tired of doing the same warm-ups, day in and day out. Since I had to do them, every day, for a long period of time, those skills and movements were deeply ingrained in my body. I guess that’s really the thrust behind required training, you’re going to get better, whether you want to or not. I think about the thousands and thousands of rolls I took in classes over the year, and note a definite difference.

I always thought I had good ukemi to begin with. In Japan, the head judo coach at my school, Kakihara Sensei, wouldn’t let me get on the mat with the other players before I learned some protective falling skills. I learned ukemi two hours a day, five days a week, for six weeks. After the first week, as angles were shaved and my body rounded out, two circular bruises appeared near my shoulder blades, each four to five inches in diameter. Every time I rolled, it hurt. Every time I fell, it hurt. Every time I slapped, it hurt. Generally, I was miserable. I told them this. They responded by telling me that if I did it correctly, it wouldn’t hurt. They were right, of course, but my body was at a point where everything produced pain. Finally, after six weeks, I took their ukemi test and passed. When I look back on it, I think my skills were acceptable weeks earlier, but they held off because my gi hadn’t been received in the mail.

Although I cursed them at the time, I’ve thanked them years after for saving me in countless occasions. In critical situations my body has simply responded to a surprise throw or an unusual takedown, protecting me in the process. But even though my ukemi was satisfactory in protecting me from major damage, that doesn’t mean there wasn’t room for improvement.

Daily Seibukan practices refined my protective skills as a martial artist, which is one of the benefits I was hoping for. I longed for a day when the movements of a martial art would be so infused into my body that no thought would be necessary to initiate appropriate action. Direct entries to off-balance an opponent, getting off the line and delivering a strike, spotting and directing my opponents into their balance points, all of these are concepts and movements repeated over and over again through kata, tai sabaki, and other often used Seibukan exercises. Having to be there, class after class, day after day, removes the magic from the movements, and after a while, what you may have thought of as a cool technique turns to merely something that you do. Then you move on and keep training.

One some level for me, being an uchideshi was a kind of ego trip involving hours on the mat. I trained a lot in Alaska doing aikido, but it still was never enough. Training, in itself, is significant to me. I really feel that the consistency and volume of training a student undergoes is a reflection of his character and dedication to an art. If you train a lot, in my book, you’re a serious martial artist, even if you’re not as

quick to catch on to things as others are. Adopting the discipline of consistent training is what really shows your mettle over the long haul.

I was already diligent about going to class, but by forcing myself into a heavy regimen of required training, I was discovering who I was as an individual and as a martial artist. It was my own manhood ritual and rite of passage. I almost joined the military, looking for the same sort of masculine vindication, but decided on an uchideshi program instead. It’s what I really wanted, and it’s exactly what I got once I found the right place.

How much training can you take? That’s the question my ego was asking, and my body was slowly formulating an answer. The first three months, armed with enthusiasm, I was easily able to take more training than the schedule required. By the time I hit six months, the toll of multiple daily practices started to wear on me, and the thrill had somehow waned. At the end of the year, training was nothing special at all; it’s just what I did. I ended up staying another quarter, totaling 15 months, and by the end of my term, I definitely had as much training as I could take. Actually, the last month I was there, my body fell apart.

It was a mental release with physical manifestations. I absorbed a lot of techniques, took gobs of ukemi, trained like a madman, but remained injury free for more than a year. Of course, there were little sprains and tears here and there, but overall, I just kept ticking because I knew I couldn’t afford to get hurt. But that last month, I had already left the dojo mentally, so with my body still hanging out and training, I paid a very real price for my lack of integration. My left wrist was trashed, right arm hyperextended, neck tweaked, hips misaligned, the list goes on and on. I was tired, too. Not tired of training, or tired of classes, but just tired of the uchideshi lifestyle. Allow me to ask two questions;

What do you call a musician without a girlfriend?

Homeless.

What do you call an uchideshi without a girlfriend?

Hungry.

Cuisine was an important factor. Before I arrived, Sensei had purchased a small refrigerator and put it in the back of the dojo with a microwave on top. Initially, that was the extent of my cooking facilities. Later in the year, a rice cooker and toaster oven were added, but what I really longed for was easy access to a stove where I could have boiled water. Large quantities of pasta as a staple would have made my life much easier. Instead, I ate a bunch of canned food, fruit, yogurt, and energy bars, on top of the frozen dinners I’d cook at night. Initially, I didn’t buy a lot of meat since I didn’t want to ingest the carcinogenic nitrates used to preserve them. That didn’t last long though, since I could definitely feel the effects of inadequate protein intake, so I bought it anyway, cancer be damned. Since I didn’t have a lot of money, eating out regularly wasn’t an option. People knew my situation well (hey, they trained in my living room every night), so

they sometimes brought me leftovers, and occasionally invited me into their homes for dinner.

My caloric intake was just too low for the daily energy expenditure training required, and consequently, I dropped well over 10 pounds. Unfortunately, none of it was fat. After 15 months, people told me I looked pretty gaunt and haggard, which is not always the most pleasant thing to hear, but it was the truth, and they mentioned it only out of concern.

I could’ve eaten more if I’d had the money, but no amount of money would have given me a shower. We didn’t have one in the dojo, nor hot water for that matter, so I’d bop down a couple blocks to the Coast Guard Marina and use the quarter-operated shower stall. That wasn’t a big deal.

What was a big deal was getting sick. If I was legitimately sick or injured, there was no expectation for me to train until I healed. So training wasn’t the issue; a healing environment was. Without any heating, and oftentimes alone, having the flu or even a cold in an empty dojo can be a miserable experience. It’s hard to imagine you’re recuperating quickly when you wake up and see your breath. Once, I got a bad case of food poisoning and Sheila Haddad (Sensei’s wife at the time) put me up at the house, which was a blessing. I don’t think I’ve ever been so sick in my life, and I hope that experience goes unrepeated.

Despite the reduction in my standard of living, sometimes living in the dojo was magic. After the last people had left and lights flipped off, only I was there to break the silence with soft steps on the mat. The movements and exertions of the day were long past, but something else still dusted the air. It wasn’t like entering a barren warehouse or abandoned building, where the sense of vacant space can overwhelm you. Even without anybody in it, the dojo was never empty; it was simply still, like some kind of martial cathedral. I’d put Jewel in the stereo, sit back, and listen as her voice reverberated off the cavernous angles. Or, if there were other uchideshi there, I’d put in U2 and we’d do midnight training in the dark. Or maybe we’d dance. It didn’t matter; the playground was ours to do what we wished.

Other uchideshi would come in periodically, some for a few days, others much longer. Although I liked having the place to myself, it was great having company, and some very strong friendships were formed. The only thing about having extra uchideshi in the house was the fact that most were on vacation. That being the case, they usually wanted to live it up and make the most of being away from home. Those of us who were in it for the long haul couldn’t afford to stay up late talking or eat out every night, especially when Sensei would lead special uchideshi classes in the morning. Their vacation was our daily life, so our ability to burn the candle at both ends was brief at best. Having a good time just took too much out of us.

My day-to-day routine was pretty regimented. I’d wake up at about eight in the morning and prepare the dojo: vacuuming, straightening up and organizing the public areas before Sensei came in and began teaching private lessons. Then I’d cram some breakfast down my throat and head off to work at nine, return home a little after four o’clock, which gave me a bit of decompression time before I was on the mat at 5:15 to begin training.

A couple times over the year, I lay there in the loft and wondered if I could keep it together. There was so much energy going into work and training that I had to really be efficient in taking care of the day-to-day stuff. I went shopping on my lunch breaks and changed loads between classes at the laundromat across the street. I made friends with the homeless guys so they’d look out for my clothes and made sure no one stole them. There was at least one occasion where the Wasted Knights of Cannery Row, as they were known to some, made a gallant stand in defense of my wardrobe.

It was an exceptionally productive time, and over the course of the year, I feel that I really learned what jujutsu was about. From a physical standpoint, it’s using distraction, angles, leverage, and proper coordination of body weight to create the largest effect with the least amount of effort. Beyond that, it’s making the most of the time that’s available to you, and creating results that may seem spectacular to the uninitiated observer. Jujutsu is about fighting smart and living efficiently. There’s no magic involved; it’s just hard work and consistency magnified by guidance on where to direct your energy.

Because I lived it, it’s difficult to have an objective, outside perspective of how being an uchideshi has changed me. It certainly settled something deep within that I had been longing for, and satisfied a thirst for martial knowledge at a special time when personal responsibilities in my life were minimal, allowing dedication to match desire.

In its entirety, the experience was fascinating. I was able to observe the difference between the Monday/Wednesday and the Tuesday/Thursday crowd at the dojo; participate in classes taught by all the teachers; note the effectiveness of their methods and stylistic distinctions; see the progression of physical prowess in students from their first day on; endure subjection to runaway egos bolstered by rank; and much, much more.

From challengers, shysters, and mystical believers to the emotional ramifications of true self-expression, everyone I met, everything that happened, and everything taught, intentionally or not, became part of me. You never know how much you can learn until you’re pushed or overwhelmed, and this kind of experience can certainly do that. It’s not just about training in an art; it’s about living it.

Every class is a little bit different in the way that it’s taught and perceived, according to each individual’s level of skill. Attempts to verbally recreate the physical activity of training, subtle nuances of growth, and daily class variations in a book would be pedantic at best. Instead, what I’ve chosen to focus on is the stories, insights, and experiences that occurred on this lightly trodden path, rather than on an overly technical description of the vehicle itself.

I’ve always believed being an uchideshi was an elite position, and I did my best to represent this ideal. There is a tacit assumption and expectation that the volume and severity of training allows the technical requirements of the system to be passed cleanly, through direct transmission, from master to student. Whether it’s Sokaku Takeda teaching Morihei Ueshiba in exchange for serving him in his home, or Ken Shamrock taking fighters in to live at the Lion’s Den, the pattern of young warriors

hungry for knowledge and experience seeking guidance under masters is perpetual. Through this closeness in their respective classrooms, the transmission of wisdom may be so thorough and complete that students may eventually transcend their teacher’s accomplishments. If they’re successful in doing so, it’s a powerful testament to the depth of their instructor’s knowledge and teaching ability. As years go by, teachers will continue to live through their students, in their movements, and those students will eventually pass the flame to the next generation. It’s a timeless cycle.

As an uchideshi, you are also the physical embodiment of the dojo’s spirit. If you’re not on the mat, it’s noted. Your only job is to train with a smile on your face. That’s not difficult; after all, you’re doing what you love, and doing a lot of it, at that. It was my dream to be an uchideshi, a modest one perhaps, but it certainly held significance to me. I bet there are people just as hungry as I was, aching for an opportunity to fully invest themselves in an art. If you get the chance, take it. You will not be the person you thought you’d be at the end of it. You’ll still be you, but after all the adventures that constitute such an experience, you’ll be a different cat. I certainly am, but I know it was the best decision I’ve ever made.

An Uchideshi Experience: Chapter Two

Mailboxes, Et Al

I had often expressed concern to Ken about what I was going to do to support my uchideshiship in Monterey. I was willing to do whatever it took, but without knowing exactly what that entailed, I couldn’t shake a sense of trepidation.

“Don’t worry,” he’d assure me, “Monterey has a ton of jobs. Cannery Row is practically right next door to the dojo, and they have a mall there with a bunch of little shops. You can get a job sitting at a register, ringing up T-shirts or whatever. It may only be six bucks an hour, but it’s easy. Just relax. You’ll be fine.”

I tried hard to relax. I knew I would be able to engage in some kind of employment that would tide me over, but as I had learned already, life can be difficult if you land a job you’re not well suited for.

After arriving in Monterey, I headed to the Cannery Row mall Ken had described and began the job hunt. I took and filled out applications from a variety of shops and restaurants, but nothing seemed quite right. I definitely needed something far removed from the realm of manual labor, or else I wouldn’t have the energy to focus on training. I wasn’t looking for great pay; I just wanted something that allowed me to heal during daylight hours.

There was one store, not to far from the dojo, that did catch my eye. It was one of those copy and shipping convenience stores, but it wasn’t quite operational. Their grand opening was a week away, so I waited, and continued checking out other possibilities, but nothing really panned out.

Opening day arrived and during a midday walk, I stopped in. There were several people in the store, but I went straight to an attractive woman in her mid-to-late forties. I introduced myself and inquired about part-time work.

Her name was Jill, and she soon introduced me to her husband, Jim, and the center manager, Kathy. Jim and Jill were the owners of this new store, with a successful store in Carmel. We all hit it off, soon I was working for them.

It was the perfect job for an uchideshi. Hours were fixed so that I would have adequate preparation time before afternoon classes began in the dojo, it was a clean environment, only lightly physical, and the technology of the copiers, color copiers, and computers allowed us to have a creative outlet if we were so inclined.

One of my co-workers who was innovative with the tools at his disposal was Matt. He was hired shortly after I was, which was a large leap for the conservative owner, because Matt was a true punk with all the trimmings: shaved head, Black Flag logo tattooed on his forearm, and a leather jacket covered with spikes, stripes, and airbrushed art. He was from Huntington Beach, and had a colorful past which included bit parts in music videos, and associations with the then unknown groups No Doubt and Sublime. He had his own band, too: The Jon Benet Stranglehold. Tasteless, to be sure, but not completely unexpected. After all, it was punk rock.

Despite his severe image, Matt was charming, very funny, and highly intelligent. His mother was an executive with an international electronics company, and having grown up with computers, he was definitely a whiz.

After moving to Monterey, he’d begun promoting and generating interest in punk shows, hoping to give the local youth an activity to channel and focus their energy. His promotional strategies included the creation of punk flyers, under the name 8 Ball Graphics, using some of the tools available at work.

An unusual thing happened after we hired Matt, though. For a variety of reasons, we couldn’t keep more than three employees for any length of time. First off, they let a girl go just as I was being hired. Then Pat, our packing specialist, was fired. That left Matt, Kat, and me. Ryan was next; an aggressive multilevel marketing zealot determined to be a millionaire in five years. He didn’t know how to leave the spiel at home and quit after no one would buy his product. Then came Tammy, whose life was too full to take the time to actually work. She lasted about two weeks. Bryce worked out well, but his father fell ill and he had to rush back to San Diego to care for him. There were others too, but the pattern held. The fourth employee was doomed.

What really made a job like this such an experience was the variety of people I met. I’ve had a number of interesting jobs in the past, from office bliss in the federal government to digging ditches in Oregon, but I had never had a job that dealt directly with the public. Being exposed to unfiltered humanity leaves a lasting impression, and definitely gives you the ability sympathize with those who deal with unruly customers.

Our store was a crossroads of sorts. Everyone from pro-cannabis artists and anti-Eastwood activists to honeymooners and housewives came through our door. Wealthy

or homeless, they all got our best service, but the unreasonableness of certain customers could leave you bitter and frustrated. Some people push your buttons just because they can, but it’s only a matter of time before they get what’s coming.

Matt had already made plans for the day he was going to lose it. Eventually, a customer would force him to take the laws of common courtesy into his own hands. Calmly, he would look into my eyes. Clearly, he would enunciate his resignation before launching himself over the counter, fists flying at the offending customer, giving him a lesson in manners the old-fashioned way. Matt took these precautions to ensure the owner would not be held liable for the beating. Now that’s foresight.

I certainly met a wide spectrum of people through the store. At the end of it all, only the most extreme qualifed as memorable. One of those acquaintances whose saga urges retelling was a man that I’ll call Don.

Don originally came to the store because we were running a three cent copy special. He would always have a large volume of work to reproduce, often occupying two copiers at once. One of those days I glanced over and saw that he was copying screenplays. I inquired about them, we got to talking, and he told me they were original screenplays he had written. I’d always thought writing one would be a great project, so I asked his opinion of Syd Field’s Screenplay and the other books available on the subject. He seemed very knowledgeable, friendly, and we had some captivating conversations in the store.

He also mentioned that he taught songwriting, and had composed hundreds of songs, but that I’d probably never heard them. This was another interesting cornerstone, and I gave him a tape of a musical project I had completed in Alaska.

It was either that night or the next that he called me at the dojo, very excited with what he had heard. We began talking about music, and covered a range of topics and artists that included U2, Brian Eno, Paul Simon, David Bowie, and Trent Reznor. We talked at length, possibly two hours or more.

I was impressed with the depth of analysis and thorough understanding of songwriting he had cultivated over years of careful listening, keen study, and musical passion. He mentioned how, at my age, he was being groomed as another David Bowie, but for whatever reason, had not gone down that road.

But what Don really wanted to do was work with me, and help me as a young artist. Seemed good to me. I was interested in working with someone like him, who could possibly provide guidance as a mentor. Things were still pretty up in the air, but we were both optimistic about the connection we had established.

I did, however, tell him that I had committed myself to life as an uchideshi for at least one year, and explained exactly what that entailed. He was not deterred, and within a short period of time, we were getting together at night. Either he would pick me up from the dojo in his car, or more often, I’d borrow Sensei’s bike and pump pedals half an hour to his garage, which he had converted into a studio.

He had a bunch of musical equipment in this studio, but didn’t have it connected and didn’t know how to use it. Nor could I put his equipment to use without a keyboard. He didn’t have one, and I didn’t have one, so Don came up with a solution. He’d buy one that I could use for whatever projects we were working on, but he would own it, and retain it after I left. He volunteered to do this, much to my surprise, and we shopped the local music stores and settled on a used keyboard I thought would be appropriate. Don excitedly plunked down five hundred-dollar bills and left with yet another piece of equipment for his studio.

It wasn’t too long before signs started popping up that all was not well. Sensei withheld judgement on him, as did my best friend at the dojo, Carolynn, but Matt didn’t trust him from the beginning. “Satan, line 1!” was how he’d notify me that Don was holding on the phone at work.

Initially, there were little things that didn’t seem right. Once, having left his phone number in the dojo while I was out, I failed to call him at a specified time. I had made numerous attempts to reach him ranging from calling 411 to guessing his unlisted number. The next day, he phoned me at work and berated me, furious with my failure to call.

He had mentally prepared himself to have a conversation with me, but forced to go without, he sat up half the night, unable to sleep. As his insomnia was obviously my fault, I apologized and vowed that next time I’d call him at the appointed hour, ending the conversation. Within 15 minutes, he called back and apologized, quite sincerely and with a tremendous amount of remorse. He acknowledged I was under a great amount of stress already, and did not want to contribute to that stress load. A remarkable about-face within a number of minutes.

That was just the beginning, though. His neighbor trained at the dojo, had seen me with Don, and advised that I be careful since, in his opinion, Don wasn’t mentally stable. I filed his advice away, since Don had warned me, over and over and over again, how people would say terrible things about him, that he was misunderstood, that they had him all wrong, that he was often ostracized because he knew The Truth and people didn’t want to listen.

But he listened to others. In fact, he recorded every phone call he received. In the studio, I spied a huge tape case filled with cassettes of conversations past. When I asked him about it, he told me it was necessary to document the death threats he received, which set me as ease.

Although he accused me of being self-absorbed, he found it difficult to empathize with my point of view or personal challenges. Despite my explanation of being an uchideshi, I don’t think he ever understood that my lifestyle was physically draining. This lack of understanding was a large blot in what could, at times, be a very strong rapport.

I once told him that I was too tired to ride a half hour to his garage, in the dark, through questionable neighborhoods, on an ill-fitted bike, after several classes and many hours of martial training, in addition to working all day. He was totally unsympathetic. He would tell me, “Listen, I used to do improvisations after going

without sleep for 36 hours! Trust me Roy, you have not even begun to stretch yourself!”

Perhaps his unsympathetic reaction was situational. He had no experience in the martial arts, and although not in ill physical health, did not appear to be highly athletic. Or, it may have been his detachment from the necessary energy expenditure of the working world. He wasn’t actually employed, but instead lived with/off his pregnant wife, who had a good job with a publishing company.

What really divided us was an agreement he drew up about our working relationship. It wasn’t necessarily unfair, but warning bells were going off in my head when he continued to push me into signing it and then having it notarized. Carolynn looked it over and didn’t like it either. Although Carolynn wasn’t a contract lawyer, her father was, and his clients included a number of notable rock stars. Using a combination of common sense and knowledge gathered from conversations with her father, she didn’t like what she saw. I didn’t like the contract, she didn’t like the contract, and Don didn’t like Carolynn for “interfering.”

Eventually, my refusal to sign the contract led to a hand-delivered notice regarding our working relationship. I wasn’t actually there when he dropped it off at the dojo, but I took the bold type that read “HAND DELIVERED” at the top of the page as a tip-off on how it got there. The letter read as follows:

December 23, 1996

Dear Roy:

Effective immediately, my studio rates will be $25.00 per hour. This will include unlimited use of my equipment, and my moment-to-moment presence, which you may utilize in any way you wish. Transportation to and from my studio will cost you $2.50 each way. This rate applies to all discussions of music and composition, including those conducted over the telephone. Payment will be in cash, immediately after services are rendered.

I trust all other aspects of our relationship will not be affected. I will remain available for unpaid discussions of films, metaphysics, consciousness, etc.

This in no way diminishes, or is meant to be seen as diminishing, my continued high regard and fondness for you, or my deeply held belief in your potential as a man and as an artist.

Very Truly Yours,

Don

The next day, I received the following fax at work:

December 24, 1996

1:30 PM

Dear Roy:

On November 29, 1996, after conducting searches in Los Angeles, Monterey and Salinas, I bought, in accordance with your wishes for a “weighted keyboard,” a used Roland EP-7.

I want to divest myself of what is to me a useless apparatus. Not including travel time, mileage, and wear and tear on my vehicle, I have spent over $500.00 on this instrument.

You can purchase the instrument from me for $505.00. If you wish to do this, please inform me.

Very Truly Yours,

Donald

This is not the kind of fax you usually expect to receive on Christmas eve, but it’s the one I got, so I called Don up and told him that I’d buy the keyboard. I didn’t have the money, or the time to practice, but I think I rationalized it as a way to get this man out of my life. He was happy to hear that I was going to buy it, but as I was going to tell him my reasons for doing so, he cut me off and completed my sentence. Imagine this: “Don, I’m going to buy the keyboard because-”“Because you have a heart, Roy.”This guy was uncanny. Because I have a heart. That’s it exactly.

But that wasn’t all. He said that he had been investigating Sensei, and warned me that I was in a very dangerous, cultlike environment. This, coming from a man who admitted to spending more than 10 years in a Gurdjieff “cult,” was a bit much for me, but I bit my tongue. I told him I’d be interested in knowing more, and asked about his sources. He assured me they were very reputable, and we scheduled a time for him to come by the dojo so I could buy the “useless apparatus” for $505.00.On December 31, New Years Eve, I received yet another fax from our friend, explaining that he had received copies of Julio Toribio’s expulsion papers from Hakko-Ryu Jujutsu. Perhaps if Don had investigated further, he would have realized that every single person who signed those papers had subsequently left Hakko-Ryu Jujutsu, many of them forming their own styles, including Yasuhiro Irie, who should have rightfully inherited the system from Ryuho Okuyama. The fax continued with a list of allegations, beginning with simple questions like “Was he an Assistant Physical Therapist with the U.S. Army?” and “Was his first wife half Japanese?” to eventually, “Is it true that the loft where you live was originally built by associates of Julio to facilitate his ‘meditation’ before his classes, but that he used the space for illicit sexual relations with students?”

Carolynn and I had a good laugh over it, but it clearly signaled to me that I should steer clear of Don. He just liked to stir things up. I had been told that he showed up at the funeral of Luis Valdez, handing out flyers that explained to the mourners the reason Mr. Valdez hanged himself was that he was a criminal. He was so dirty he couldn’t take the heat from civilian researchers like Don who were on to him, researchers who knew The Truth. I don’t know, I wasn’t there at the funeral, but I certainly wouldn’t put it past him. So the day came for him to come to the dojo, and swap the apparatus for a check. I helped him unload the keyboard from the trunk of his car, and brought it inside. I had my checkbook ready, and was about to make a check out when handed me a bunch of papers, stapled together, and tells me to sign them as a receipt. I briefly scanned them and stood there, aghast. What he gave me was a six-to eight-page manifesto, written in the first person (as if I were verbally confessing), detailing our entire relationship. I mean, everything. How I had sought to use him for his “connections” to the music industry, personal information I had shared, my relationship with Carolynn, it even detailed buying lunch at the McDonalds drive-through, which he paid for, he duly noted. Making assumptions of my intentions and internal thought processes, then writing them down with his twisted perspective made my stomach turn. It was sick. In a mixture of shock and disgust, I stammered “I- I can’t sign this.” He didn’t say a word. Don grabbed the papers out of my hand, picked up the keyboard from the chairs it was resting on, and headed for the door. Coincidentally, a female worker for the electric company had come into the dojo to check the meter, and happened to be right in front of Don. Ever the gentleman, he walked straight through her, slamming her shoulder and blasted out the front door. Clutching her shoulder with her other arm, she turned to me and asked, “Did you see that? Can you believe what he just did? Who was that guy?”“An asshole,” I replied, “Just an asshole.”Even though I thought, and hoped, that I’d never see him again, he came back into the store about a year later, with his wife and new baby girl. He told me how great everything was going for him, and how he thought of me every time someone mentioned Alaska. He acted as if nothing unusual had ever happened between us. He even gave me his phone number and asked me to call him. It’s been hard to find the time. Not every experience is as dark as that one was. In fact, the other customer who qualified as most memorable was the polar opposite of our martyred artist friend. We’ll call her Simone.Simone was a retired schoolteacher in her 60s. She had, on occasion, asked me to join her for a drink, which I regretfully declined, as I was always on my way to class. She would regularly come into the store, and set me to task on a variety of projects, most of them centered around her small Lhasa Apso dog, Muffin.Simone had even written a book, “Muffin Magic,” rife with illustrations, stories, and odes of adulation toward her beloved “child.” After the book was printed, actual sales were below expectations, and thousands of copies remain in storage to date. Nevertheless, she carried on, trumpeting her affection in the grandest manner yet: A birthday party celebrating Muffin’s 15 years on earth.It was going to be held in the Garden Room at Quail Lodge, one of the most spectacular and expensive resorts on the Monterey Peninsula. I knew that Simone, on a teacher’s retirement, had to have been financially strapped by selecting such an exclusive setting, but such is a mother’s love. Money was not the concern, only

Muffin was. She had given me an invitation and told me to “bring that girl of yours.” I called Carolynn and explained the situation: Simone’s invitation, Quail Lodge, Muffin’s birthday, a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. She laughed and persuaded by my argument that she’d be missing the social event of the year, she was game. A few weeks later, we got dolled up and drove out to Quail Lodge in Carmel Valley. It was a gorgeous Sunday morning, and we were careful to arrive early for the noon party time. We weren’t sure in which building the Garden Room was located, so Carolynn and I approached the front desk in the lobby to get more specific directions. A male and female concierge were behind the counter, and making a wild stab at discretion, I quietly inquired of the gentleman where the Garden Room was, as we were en route to a party.“Which party would that be sir?” Exactly the question I was trying to avoid. “It’s, umm, Muffin’s birthday party,” I muttered. Then Carolynn and I both cracked up and explained this event was actually for a dog. Ha Ha. Can you believe it? Isn’t that funny? They were totally stoic. Obviously this wasn’t the first ridiculous eccentricity they had experienced working there, and the concierge calmly explained where we could find the party.We made it in plenty of time, so Carolynn and I loitered, taking in the scene. At least twenty other guests were milling outside the Garden Room, which was decorated in a pink and white motif, complete with a large cake (scrolling birthday cheer), adjacent to an enormous portrait of Muffin, painted in her prime. We were the youngest people in the room by at least 30 to 40 years. Simone was active in several organizations, so guests were fielded from Meals on Wheels, a swim club, and a line dancing class for seniors. Members of the press were also present, ready to record this momentous occasion. The stage was set, the time had come, and finally, Simone and Muffin made their grand entrance. All eyes were on the adorable couple as they slowly strode through the crowd. Muffin was ravishing, and Simone … Simone looked very relaxed. The center of attention, Simone announced that she would “like everyone to have a good time,” and it appeared that she had already gotten a head start in that department. The guests filed into the Garden Room after their matriarch, many depositing birthday gifts for Muffin in a heap to the left of the entrance.Carolynn and I sat at a fairly lively table, all things considered. Lunch was Cobb salad, and afterward, dessert was sliced by Muffin herself. Really. Simone picked Muffin up, put the knife in her paw, and then guided the dog in cutting the cake. That was weird enough, but I thought the people taking pictures and blocking Simone out of the shot (capturing the illusion that Muffin was doing the work) were even further out there. Next, Simone wanted everybody to say a few words and toast Muffin. Not everyone had close, intimate knowledge or a long history with the dog, so despite the struggles of many, only a few managed to rise to the occasion. I was lucky enough to have something to share, and stood up to tell a heartwarming story of welcoming Simone and the little one in our store, on which occasion Muffin had promptly dumped one of her special biscuits in the middle of the floor. Smiles and tears received my story, and glasses were raised. Here’s to ya’, Muffin. The last toast was also memorable. One of the waiters went to the front of the room, silenced everybody, and with a thick Spanish accent said, “My name is Juan, and I am

from El Salvador. I have never before been to a party for a little dog, and I was very afraid that it would not be behaved. But it has been very well behaved, and it is a very good little dog, I think.” Amen brother, and bottoms turned up on our glasses again. After this was finished, Simone had one of her friends from Meals on Wheels sing a few songs to serenade the guest of honor. A huge black man walked to the front of the room, put a cassette in a tape player, and with a resonant voice akin to Luther Vandross, began to sing, “You are so beautiful… to me.”It was too much. Having him sing that line pushed me over an edge I couldn’t recover from, and I just lost it. A stifled laugh shot through my nose and my body bent over. With the exception of the song, and my little outburst, the room was absolutely, unquestionably, pin-drop silent. Maybe no one noticed. Clearing my throat, I grabbed my water glass and tried to play it off as a cough. I was better behaved during his rendition of “Wind Beneath My Wings,” and shortly after, Carolynn and I made our exit. We rushed off to make a prior commitment, despite its lack of comparative significance.It was all too surreal, but so were my associations with Don and the loads of other random characters that filed through the doors of that store. I’m sure any job that requires interaction with unfiltered humanity produces equally unbelievable stories. You can’t make stuff like this up. People simply wouldn’t buy it. Who needs fiction when you can look at life as a bizarre adventure, meet vengeful artists, and attend regal birthday bashes for dogs? I certainly didn’t need transport to an imaginary world. I’ve had enough on my plate making heads or tails of the one I was living in.But what happens if I don’t ever manage to make sense of this world I’m living in? What if the Donalds and Simones of the world are just too much for me to handle? I can always retreat to the ordered sanctuary of the dojo, right? Well, maybe just for a recharge, but if that’s the only place I feel comfortable, then something has gone seriously awry. No matter how much I train, I still spend the majority of my life off the mat. It’s easy to lose sight of that. I’m a little bit of a control freak, so I like the tight parameters that a dojo provides. It’s very clear cut. The sensei is at the head of the line, students know their ranks, and from that, their respective and respectful relationships to everyone else in the dojo. Rules are enforced; there are no loose ends. It’s reassuring. Safe. I like it. Consequently, it feels good to derive my identity from an area of my life where I feel very secure. But taking the lone identity of a martial artist wouldn’t be quite right. It may not be delusional, but it’s not entirely accurate.I find it suspiciously comforting to mentally block out areas of my life I’m dissatisfied with, especially if there’s something more pleasant to hinge my identity on. “No, I’m not racking my body slinging bags for crappy pay. I’m a martial artist!” That’s not an honest approach, though. Leftover frustration levels, massive energy expenditures, unfair pay scales, everything I experienced in the workday, in any of my jobs, has affected me on the mat. To simply write about a year immersed in martial arts without giving some insight into the flipside, the other half of my life that made the pleasant possible, would be tacitly dishonest. Of course I’m a martial artist. But I’m also a bag slinger, a retail shipping clerk, and an uchideshi. I’m the world’s worst truck driver and an eager student. I am all of these things; they are not separate. I don’t think this is just owning up to my past. It’s closer to realizing that every person and experience, no matter how painful or bizarre, has shaped me into who I have become. Both the loathed and the loved are never

truly out of my life, because as long as I’m around, I’ll continue to serve as the link between them and the person I was, am, and will be.It’s funny how we separate experiences the way we arbitrarily segment time, when it’s really just a steady stream in the Great Experiment. Of course, what happened once may not still be happening, but the effects of that experience continue to unfold in our attitudes, perceptions, and assessments. Whether it’s work or recreation, training or recuperation, all aspects of this uchideshi experience will continue to linger in my life. Easy endings or simplistic separations don’t ring true because there are no separations. It’s an inescapable, undeniable part of me. I can’t just put it in a shoebox and label it “The Past,” since I know that the past shades the present as the present forms the future. Phases of our life don’t just stop on a dime. If there’s one thing I’ve learned, in all of this weirdness, it’s that nothing just ends.

An Uchideshi Experience: Chapter Three

Christmas Kamikazes

I took a trip out of Monterey right before Christmas. It could’ve been a vacation, but the word vacation usually implies that the traveler had a good time.

Every year, my brother Brad hosts a Christmas party at his home in Oregon. I’d heard the stories, seen the pictures, but the geographic realities of living in Alaska sufficiently blocked me from ever attending. Now, for the first time, I was close enough to rationalize taking money out of my savings account and buying an airline ticket to Portland.

Since Brad was significantly older than I was (he was 40 at the time, I was 22), and we didn’t grow up together, I always thought it was important to put in a little extra effort to maintain some sort of connection with him and his wife, Julie. Brad and I got along really well, and four years earlier, I had lived with them for a summer, working under Brad at a large azalea farm he managed. It was hard work, but definitely worth it since we got to know each other on a level beyond simple family visits. They had to put up with an 18-year-old kid for an entire summer, which was (I’ve been told), torturous.

So I was definitely going to the fabled Christmas gala, which was a good idea. Then I came up with an even better one: Why not bring a date? I knew a girl who lived in Oregon, fairly close to the Portland area. I had met Jenny years earlier at a scouting convention for models in Seattle, and knowing I’d be back in Portland eventually, we’d both kept in touch. Now, circumstances aligned for us to meet again. I called her and told her I’d be coming into town for the party, would she be interested in attending? She said that her parents would have to meet me first, but she was sure she’d be able to go.

I arrived in Oregon on a Thursday night, with Brad picking me up from the airport, along with an old friend who also flew in from California. I had talked to Brad about bringing a guest, and that was fine with him. I just needed to meet her parents, so I called Jenny up and arranged a breakfast meeting in a town halfway between Colton and Portland. Turns out she didn’t live quite as close as I’d thought.

Brad and Julie were close with a couple named Bobby and Renee. Renee was a sweetheart, sending me care packages of cookies through the year, and once again, she came to my rescue by driving me to the morning meeting and vouching lies of respectability on my behalf. Thanks to her, it all worked out well. Jenny’s stepfather had studied kempo, so he loved the fact that I was into martial arts, and her mother seemed to like me as well.

As for Jenny, she was certainly a pleasant surprise. The years had been quite kind, and she was nothing less than a knockout. Having grown taller and fuller, every pound was precisely molded and properly proportioned. We were very excited to see each other, but if her enthusiasm hadn’t matched mine, it wouldn’t have mattered. I had enough for both of us.

Just standing next to her was electric. It’s difficult to describe exactly how I felt, and this may sound esoteric, but there was something about her energy that was intoxicating. I had dated some attractive girls before, what she had didn’t depend solely on exterior appearance. Still, between her creamy complexion and the way she filled out those jeans- every curve, every fold, from every angle, was delicious.

But there was something deeper, and more primal, taking over. I was wholly alive, but whether my awakening was due to hormones, pheromones, or energetic phenomena didn’t matter. I was just looking forward to spending the rest of the day with her and her parents as we indulged in a Christmas shopping spree. Renee drove back to Brad’s house, where Jenny’s parents dropped us off around six that evening.

It was only a few hours until the party and I was hoping to catch a nap, but I simply ran out of time. Jenny and I helped prepare a little (most of it was already done), got dressed, and began sipping wine as guests rolled in. Family, friends, work associates; everyone invited had a great night as bottles were drained and Brad’s culinary spread was devoured. He’s a fantastic chef, and had prepared two deep-fried turkeys for the occasion (sounds heavy, but it’s great), both of which were fully consumed by the end of the night.

Eventually, guests filtered out and when only the hardline loyalists who were spending the night remained, Brad broke out his specially mixed Kamikazes and threw some old records on the stereo. The Kamikazes were so smooth going down, I didn’t really heed Brad’s warnings of their potency, and Jenny and I danced slowly to the Elton John LP “Madman Across the Water.”

Exhausted from a long day, we decided to hit the sack. The room I usually stayed in was already reserved for Bobby and Renee, so Jenny and I made our bed downstairs in the den, in front of the fireplace. I’m sure I hadn’t lain down for more than 30 seconds before I shot up and ran to the bathroom, hurling Kamikazes like an Allied nightmare.

Waking up the next morning, I remembered every time I swore to God I’d never drink again. I had consumed, at the top end, three beers in the two months I had been an uchideshi. Now the weight of my overindulgence had been brought to bear right on top of my head, and there was nothing I could do to alleviate the pain, except to maybe not speak. Or move. Or breathe.

It got worse because I had to drive Jenny home, rush back, then have Brad run me to the airport to catch my plane. Jenny and I got in Julie’s car and headed out fairly quickly, since it was almost ten o’clock. My plane left at two thirty that afternoon, so I was under some definite time restrictions.

I wasn’t in the mental space to handle independent thought, so Jenny gave directions and I followed orders, only pulling over once(!) to throw up alongside the road. It took an hour to reach her house, which was deep in the rural countryside, basically in the middle of nowhere. Her father implored me to stay for breakfast, which I did, and felt considerably better for doing so. We said our good-byes and I tore back to town a little before noon.

I was making pretty good time when I looked at the gas gauge and realized I was low. Very low. I saw the sign for a station, took the exit and went down a few blocks, expecting to drop a few bucks and be on my way.

Instead, I stopped the car and stared in disbelief at what was in front of me. There were 12 to 15 cars in a line that spilled back into the street. I had seen something like this once in a black and white photo retrospective of the 70s, but I thought those dark days were behind us. After all, this was America. We’re here to waste the earth’s natural resources, not stand in line for them. The whole scene had communist undertones.

I don’t know if this was the only gas station within 50 miles, or just the place to be seen. All I knew was that I didn’t have enough gas to get to the next station, time was ticking away, and all I could do was sit there in line… fuming.

I suppose the enlightened thing to do in my situation would have been to calmly ride it out, wryly noting my circumstances versus desires, then trusting in the process. The terribly human, massively hungover approach would be to scream obscenities at the cars in front of you, slam your fist on the steering wheel, and break out in a sweat of frustration and rage. I chose the latter. It may not have served my spiritual growth, but it felt better than doing nothing.

Waiting in line, I spied a pay phone and called Julie. I tried to explain that I was in a slow line at the gas station and was going to be even later. She didn’t say much before hanging up, so I knew I was in the doghouse. I got back in the car and continued to let the people in front of me really have it.

Forty-five minutes later, I reached a pump, filled the tank, and went inside to pay. There was a line of people waiting inside like you wouldn’t believe, and no cashier to be found. What could I do? I guess I could have left, but instead, I waited with everybody else. I was accustomed to it by now.

Eventually, the attendant moseyed out of the back room, lazily wiped the counter off with a rag, looked at the people lined up before him, and finally called out a number. The grateful customer quickly paid, then our counter sloth called for pump number nine. That was me. I don’t know how I got to the front of the line, but I wasn’t in the mood to be chivalrous or fair. I just threw my money down and got out of there.

I raced back to Brad’s house, but it was far too late. It was after one thirty, and Julie and Renee were the only ones left. They explained to me how Brad had waited around, got frustrated, wrote me off, and took off with his other guests. Harried, adrenalized, and hung over, I was beside myself as Julie drove me to the airport.

She was very gentle in explaining to me that this didn’t mean they loved me any less, they were just disappointed that I acted like an irresponsible kid. She dropped me off and I thought about it all on the plane ride home. I had spent a considerable amount of time and energy cultivating this relationship with Brad and Julie, only to piss it away with the first distraction that came along. I was so wrapped up in Jenny that I wasn’t thinking clearly, if at all, and burned up time I should have spent with my brother. Not that there were obligatory time periods pre-established, but to come into town, crash a party, then leave is pretty inconsiderate. But what was done was done, and I couldn’t undo the past.

Carolynn picked me up at the airport, and stepping off the plane, she could tell I was an emotional wreck. I told her the whole thing, and she hugged me, which made me feel better.

I called Brad that night and apologized. He accepted my apology, and said it like it was. “Hey Roy, you just fucked up, that’s all.” I certainly did.

I’d like to think I learned from this lesson. From then on, I was going to watch out for whirlwinds of pleasure that left you high and dry. I couldn’t forget to think. Always use your head, Roy. Always use your head.

I still felt terrible, but for now at least, I was home.

An Uchideshi Experience: Chapter Four

On Seibukan Jujutsu

Seibukan Jujutsu was designed by Sensei Julio Toribio to be the art that he would have liked to have studied as a young practitioner. Consequently, it’s a welcome addition to the world martial arts, with a unique structure that can produce enormous growth in a comparatively short period of time. Everything he believes a quality martial artist should know is included in the system, gathered from his experience as a 7th degree black belt in Hakko-Ryu Jujutsu (Sandaikichu), a 5th degree black belt in Aikikai Aikido, a 2nd degree black belt in Okinawan Kempo Karate, a 6th degree black belt in Enshin Itto Ryu Batto Jutsu (iaido), and a 10th degree black belt in Bujinkan Budo Taijutsu (ninjutsu).

Seibukan Jujutsu was partially formed as a reaction to Hakko-Ryu Jujutsu and aikido, both being direct descendants of Daito-Ryu Aiki-Jujutsu. He had completed all the technical requirements in both systems, and thought it necessary to utilize a tight structure in his new art, in order to deliver to students the techniques he had mastered in the most efficient way possible.

When Seibukan was created, it sought to go beyond the rigid all-kata structure of Hakko-Ryu, while still avoiding what Sensei saw as a pitfall of modern aikido training. He felt aikido classes were a bit too nebulous and the structure provided for students wasn’t clear enough in guiding them to their next level. He noted how a martial system could hinder the progress of students who would have been ready to move on if the structure itself focused more on progress rather than on perfection.

One of the core ideas in his philosophy was that in technical systems you aren’t able to fully digest and understand a level until after you’ve passed it. In other words, once you’ve become proficient at the skills of a particular level, don’t hang out for a few months waiting for a mandatory time period to expire. Move on to the next level because: 1) There’s so much more to learn, and 2) Now you have a better perspective on the skills you’ve recently acquired in your former level. Far too often people can’t see the forest for the trees, and feel they don’t really understand when their level of proficiency is perfectly acceptable. Perfection is never going to happen, so if you pass through and keep training, you’ll progress more quickly than if you stagnate at the same level while aiming for an unrealistic level of proficiency. Jujutsu is about efficiency, and wasting time is anything but.

There are seven dan levels in Seibukan, each with its own unique kata, each meant to be learned and experienced by students, and three final non-technical dan levels reserved for instructors of the system, awarded for contributions to the art. Sensei set out to abolish the concept of “hidden” techniques by creating a system without secrets, where students are allowed to receive inspiration from witnessing upper level kata and demonstrations. Those “secret” techniques and concepts he directly paid thousands upon thousands of dollars for (not to mention the expense of flying to and training in Japan as mandated by tradition), he now offers his students in Seibukan.

This system has been called many things: Old style/Pre-World War II jujutsu, aiki-jujutsu, “sophisticated aikido,” et cetera. Whatever you choose to call it, it’s a thorough, well-organized, and highly structured system founded on the offspring of Daito-Ryu Aiki-Jujutsu, that manages to link the effectiveness of aiki techniques to modern-day applications.

Five kyu levels must be passed before a student receives a Shodan. The concepts of kotegaeshi (wrist turn), shodan osae (straight-arm pin), nihonage osae (two-corner shoulder throw), nage (projections), and otoshi (body drops, what judo would call nage) must be sequentially mastered. Twelve bokken suburi (exercises with a wooden practice sword), a 40-movement jo kata, 10 basic knife defenses, katana-waza (using the hilt of the sword to defend against disarm attempts), bokken goshinjutsu (sword takeaways), jo goshinjutsu (staff defense), and gun disarms are some of the weapon skills that must be demonstrated.

Hand-to-hand proficiency is shown through kata (pre-arranged techniques), tai sabaki (a body movement exercise designed to teach students how to execute techniques with minimal resistance and effort), and several forms of henka (variations on techniques, similar to randori), including tachi (standing), hantachi (half-standing; defender is kneeling, attackers are standing), suwari (defender and attacker both kneeling), newaza (ground defense), and isu no henka (chair defense).

All successive levels are equally dense, and the upper levels have much in store. Nidan focuses on nidan osae (similar to aikido’s nikyo), and introduces a beautiful sword kata. Sandan uses sandan osae (similar to sankyo), and after adding even more sword work, requires proficiency in the use of the hanbo (short stick about the length of a cane), for both offensive and defensive purposes. This completes the first triangle in Seibukan. Shodan,Nidan, and Sandan have established the jujutsu foundation which the upper aiki levels will rest upon.

Yondan focuses on a single principle, yondan osae (similar to yonkyo), and serves as the bridge between the jujutsu and the aiki-jujutsu, connecting the triangle of Shodan, Nidan, and Sandan to the Shihan levels of Godan (Shihan Dai), Rokudan (Shihan), and Nanadan (Menkyo Kaiden Shihan) with their emphasis on self-mastery. The weapon of Yondan is the knife, and methods of knife retention if any of the Shodan knife defenses are attempted are taught at this level.

Godan rounds out the student’s knowledge by moving away from the traditional wrist pin syllabus of many aiki schools and practicing armbars, kneebars, and chokes. The weapon studied during this time is the infamously versatile rope (this was Sensei’s favorite weapon for missions when he was an Airborne Ranger). Rokudan uses the tanbo (a stick 12 to 14 inches in length), introduces rokudan osae (often called gokyo in Aikido), and then adds shoulder locks to the practitioner’s arsenal.

Nanadan, the final technical level, exposes the student to the “dark side” of the art. Nanadan Osae is one more technique and principle among the many a student must have already mastered to get to this completion of technical training, and aspects of the dark side that are taught include pressure points, vital areas, knockout blows, and psychological distractions.

I found that transitioning from Aikido to Seibukan was very easy. The movements and techniques are closely related; however, they are not the same. The movements in Seibukan are more direct, the circles tighter, and connection is more immediate. A good example to contrast between the styles is aikido’s shihonage (four-corner throw) and Seibukan’s nihonage (two-corner throw).

Typically, as an opponent attacks with a right-handed strike (like a haymaker), the aikido student deftly steps off the line to the right (outside of the power stroke), catches the arm, and pulls uke off balance to his front balance point. From there, the student quickly spins under the arm while standing, then throws his partner to the ground by bringing the attacker’s wrist back to his own shoulder.

Seibukan’s version begins with the same attack, a right-handed side strike, but instead of stepping off the line, the student remains on the line, plows straight in, and unbalances uke to his rear balance point while delivering a strike to the face. Borrowing this moment of disorientation, the student catches the arm, spins under the arm while dropping to his knee, and throws him to the ground as the attacker’s wrist goes back to his own shoulder. Then the student puts their shin on the attacker’s rib cage for immobilization (while simultaneously affecting an energy meridian), cranks on his wrist, and chokes them with “L” shaped portion of the pointer finger and thumb.

Sensei told me a story about using this technique in Iwama, Japan, while training in aikido as an uchideshi. Apparently, some of the students give a hard time to others of lower rank over there (I think Sensei was a Sandan at the time), and will “freeze” them out during a technique. Most people that have trained in aikido have had this happen at one time or another, as I know I certainly have. Your practice partner offers resistance at a certain point in the technique, essentially stopping you, just to impart the message that “your techniques won’t work on me” or “you don’t know the secret to making it happen.” This stuff occurs now and then, but the Japanese guy training with Sensei was being particularly difficult. So the next time he froze Sensei out during yokomen uchi shihonage, Sensei dropped to his knee (disappearing from the guy’s peripheral vision), cranked down on his wrist, and tossed him to the floor. The guy got up and didn’t know what had just happened to him, but suddenly realized that maybe he shouldn’t be freezing people out, especially with this gaijin.

All kinds come to the dojo. Warriors and pacifists, blue and white collar, physical specimens and the physically challenged. Seibukan has something for all of them. After all, a lot of people aren’t really interested in combat effectiveness. They just want some exercise, a clean and friendly social environment, and a fascinating discipline they can devote themselves to. If they are interested in combat effectiveness, then Seibukan can also serve them; however, other training will be necessary for them develop the attributes of a fighter and to realize how much repetition is actually necessary for an instinctive application of a technique. Usually though, if a person is really concerned with activating the techniques, a little research will bear out what’s necessary, and these are the people willing to undergo the additional training.

Sensei allows the students to choose whether or not they feel that additional training is needed by providing a framework of techniques, and focuses on passing on those specific skills and knowledge during class time. If students want to get stronger, or learn how to develop additional speed and power in their punching and kicking techniques, then they can do that on their own, and are encouraged to do so. It’s such a dense art that Sensei could do nothing but teach variations on the 108 techniques of the system and never exhaust them in his lifetime. In a sense, Seibukan is a purely technical system, as he leaves attribute development (speed, strength, flexibility, aggressiveness, etc…) up to the individual practitioner.

One of the most controversial aspects of Seibukan Jujutsu is its ranking system. It is possible for students to receive their Shodan after one year of training. On the surface, this may seem to be a difficult thing to swallow, but just because it’s possible for students to receive their Shodan after one year, that doesn’t mean that they’ll automatically get it. Most don’t, and many take several years. But, there are exceptional people in this world, so why punish those that are most capable of inspirational progress by instituting long waiting periods?

A retort to this may be, “Then why have any restrictions at all? Why not let people advance as quickly as they can?” Well, burnout would be a big factor. There’s so much information that a student would be overwhelmed unless a pace were established. If you tried to learn a foreign language as quickly as you could, without any external pacing, you would most likely absorb a mediocre amount before giving up. Why? Because a large, complex goal like learning a language first requires a

number of short-term and intermediate goals to be met, eventually culminating in verbal fluency. You can’t learn it all in one night.

Look at what universities do if you want to learn Japanese. They set you up in a basic Japanese class, paced on a quarter or semester system, then have the next goal established as Japanese 2. That system doesn’t want students to “perfect” the basics learned in Japanese 1 for a couple of years before allowing new information to come in. That would be a very inefficient use of time, since those elementary skills will automatically be reinforced as new material builds on the old. Sure, basics will always get better over time if they’re continually practiced, but the understanding of what those basics are deepens and unfolds as more advanced skills are acquired, and the student can now see how the basics relate to the whole in a new context and perspective.

After finishing a basic Japanese class, if you found yourself dropped in the middle of Tokyo, you could probably survive with the language skills you had acquired, even if you didn’t go much further than hopping on a train, finding a hotel room, and ordering some food. Seibukan Jujutsu is the same way. At Shodan, the basic skills and fundamental principles learned will serve you well, but that’s just the beginning. There are seven dan levels, each one building on former ranks passed, and all students are encouraged to progress and explore the system at their own pace.

While some might think this is another American bastardization of the Japanese ranking system, I disagree. If anything, it is preserving and awarding ranks in a very traditional sense. Sensei didn’t come up with the custom of yearly promotions by himself. He merely continued the Hakko-Ryu tradition of eligibility for annual dan promotions, while substantially increasing the amount of knowledge and skills required on the syllabus for each dan level, as well as implementing more stringent standards. In Seibukan, you cannot simply learn the kata for Godan and receive your Shihan certificate, or jump two ranks in one year by doing back-to-back kata, no matter how much money is offered. Sensei is very protective of the standards he has established, and so far, no one has kept pace with the possible, testing for every rank as soon as they’re eligible. A few people have risen rapidly up through Sandan, but after they hit that bridge (Yondan) to the aiki-jujutsu levels of mastery, progress tends to slow down. There’s just too much to know.

Let’s contrast this with another of my martial experiences: I received my Shodan in Judo in less than a year, in Japan, and my certificate came straight from the Kodokan. How is that possible? It’s actually quite simple: I fought for it.

It’s a beautiful thing, really. There was a written test for the rules, a kata requirement, and a point total amassed from tournament wins. The point total was, in fact, the real test for Shodan. Actually, it was challenging enough to where I almost didn’t get it.

I was pretty enthusiastic when I joined the Judo club at my Japanese high school. After I had learned ukemi, and was finally allowed on the mat, I sparred with Ichikawa (our team captain) during the first day of practice. It was, by all accounts, a total massacre. I had no idea what he was doing; all I knew was that every time I grabbed him, I wound up on the ground. Immediately, I got up to repeat the process,

while Ichikawa smiled. He liked the fact that I didn’t give up, even though the situation was hopeless. To me, it felt like he was throwing me easily, effortlessly, almost at will. He wasn’t even breaking a sweat! The only thing I knew for sure was, whatever it was that he was doing, it was magic, and I wanted that same kind of power.

Looking back on it now, I realize that I had a potent combination of factors going for me, the kind of combination that can create success in almost any athletic endeavor. I was motivated, almost hungry to eat pain, fairly strong, youthfully supple, and most importantly, relatively fearless/ignorant. I had no idea how a bad fall could make you long for a chiropractor, or what the semi-orgasmic feeling of a good neck adjustment was like. How could I? At 16 years old, your body heals instantly, and nothing gets out of whack. I may be looking back with a rosy perspective, but there’s no denying a young body can joyously take the kind of abuse that I’m too old/smart to take today.

I trained really hard the first four or five months, and tasted immediate success as I rolled through my opponents each month at the local shiai (competition). I was stronger than most of the Japanese players, and taller as well (which has its own advantages and disadvantages in this sport), so I started skipping practices and coasting on my natural abilities.

The way the promotional system worked was that to be moved up, I had to obtain points by beating a certain number of practitioners in competition who were equally ranked. Then, I had to beat an increasing number of opponents who were also at my new rank to go further. It didn’t dawn on me while I was goofing off that the competition I was now going to be facing was far more skilled than anything I’d experienced thus far. Soon enough I’d understand.

I showed up at the next shiai not having practiced a whole lot, especially in the two weeks prior. I don’t feel like delving too deeply into this, but let’s just say that each time I stepped on the mat that day, I had my ass handed to me in a very thorough and complete manner. One of the gentlemen from my Rotary club who came to see me in action felt pity for me and took me under his wing. Mr. Natsumi had been an excellent judo player in his youth, only losing once in his competition career, and clearly saw that I was in need of tutelage.

I went home to my host family and they, of course, asked how it went. I told them that I didn’t want to talk about it. I’m sure that my host father and Mr. Natsumi convened at the next Rotary meeting to discuss a remedy. Shortly after, Mr. Natsumi was picking me up at the house after my club judo practice and taking me to the community dojo to train with more bodies. He encouraged me to bow to the most formidable master there, Igami Shoten, for sparring, who easily deflected my best attacks and casually threw me at will.

This man was so thick, strong, and skilled (I know he was at least a sixth dan) that I, realistically, had no chance. If I were to hold both my hands flat, palms together, maybe they would equal one of his hands. Still, he took a liking to me, and soon after, Mr. Natsumi was also taking me to Igami Shoten’s home dojo for his classes, on top of the community dojo schedule, and daily school practices. Without fail, after

every training session, Mr. Natsumi would treat me to a cold soda or ice cream. Because of his kindness, things really started to click in my training.

That was the first time I realized how much better you could get when you trained constantly, every day, and planted the dream seed of becoming an uchideshi. Since I was training like a madman, I started winning again at the tournaments, and I eventually amassed enough points by the end of the year to receive my Shodan.

It’s almost elegant in its simplicity. You train; you fight. If you win, you advance. If you lose, you don’t advance, and there’s not much you can do about it except train harder and try again. It’s very cut and dried. My point is this: if it’s possible to receive your Shodan in less than a year from one of the world’s most reputable martial organizations against live, noncooperative opponents, then what’s the problem with the possibility of receiving the same rank in a less physically demanding, technical art?

What defines Seibukan, Hakko-Ryu, and aikido as technical systems is the fact that your partner or opponent is not fully resisting. You are not fighting, you are not sparring, you’re learning movements and martial options according to a variety of situations. You are amassing information and practicing courses of action. This doesn’t necessitate any kind of attribute development. If you want the techniques to work on the street, of course you’ll want to foster strength, speed, and aggressiveness. But if you’re studying the art for the art’s sake, then why should you have to hang out for a couple of years repeating the same nonresistant exercises? Learn what’s required, and then move on, because it’s amazing how much more there is to know if you want to be a well-rounded martial artist.

The ranking structure is just one example of how Seibukan is a middle ground in the realm of martial arts. Get too stingy with rank and people who haven’t seen it in a while build it up to something it’s not, or simply lose interest in learning what it takes to get to the next level. Get too political with rank and people either get sycophantic, or more commonly, they just get pissed off and leave. Award rank spontaneously, or without common standards, and people are puzzled and left without a definite goal.

Seibukan is both a budo (martial way) and bujutsu (martial science). The three fundamental principles of its philosophy: Awareness, Assessment, and Action, can easily be transferred beyond the dojo and applied in real world settings. It also has a healing art, Seikendo, but most importantly (in my opinion), Seibukan has an excellent method of providing smooth transition between the strong aiki foundations of the kata and free-form application. The kata serve as a repository of knowledge, which preserves the fighting technology for future generations, but unless there’s a delivery system in place to segway between the prearranged and the spontaneous, that transition will be rocky, unless the student is unusually gifted. Sensei came up with an exercise called tai sabaki (body movement) which acts as an intermediate step between kata and henka, and allows students to practice different ways of “finding” their way into various techniques from a series of prearranged attacks. Such logical, organized, and sequential methods allow for clear, distinguishable progress and a feeling of empowerment when students realize that actual improvement has occurred.

Seibukan Jujutsu is an art that can be studied as a physical discipline and/or as an intellectual challenge. It is an attractive option for seasoned martial artists looking for an avenue to cross-train in, since it delivers what they’re looking for without wasting time. Consequently, people have come from all over the world to study at Seibukan dojo, from an array of martial disciplines, looking to add to what they already know in the most efficient way possible. Strikers can combine their expertise with follow-up joint locks and throws; grapplers discover that the same principles that are so effective on the ground can also be applied standing up, possibly eliminating the need to go there; and law enforcement officials find control and arrest techniques compliant to their code of conduct.

Opening the book of knowledge for all to see is also a test, in its own way. Since the “secrets” Sensei learned have now been aired in Seibukan, and the fighting technology is presented in an open fashion, the appeal of the art diminishes for some who longed for the exclusiveness of those “hidden” techniques and the resulting perceived power. The funny thing is, all of that information is still there, except now the veil’s been removed, and students are allowed to see the bride for who she really is, instead of what we’ve imagined her to be. If that’s what you’re looking for, clear techniques based on a solid aiki-jujutsu foundation, presented in an organized manner, with modern-day applications, Seibukan Jujutsu may be for you. If you’re looking for something else, there are a lot of other arts that can probably suit your needs.

Of course, I can only speak for myself, but being an uchideshi and gaining entrance to view the full spectrum of Seibukan, in all its richness and complexity, quelled my fears of an inefficient investment in an art. The time I spent living in the dojo under Sensei’s eye was managed wisely, with a high rate of return, so I can honestly attest that every calorie expended, and every injury endured, was well worth the effort. At least in this area of my life, at least in one area of my life, I have no regrets about the path I picked, or the vehicle I rode along the way.

An Uchideshi Experience: Chapter Five

Leaving This Box

I remember my last judo competition very clearly. There weren’t that many judo practitioners in my weight class in Alaska, so they lumped us all together in an open category. The first match I had was against a guy roughly my weight, and I threw him quickly with an uchimata (inner-thigh throw). The next match pitted me against this big brown belt, a middle-aged guy with a thick beard, weighing about 225 pounds. When we squared off, he got ahold of me and dragged me around the mat like a rag doll. I was about 165 at the time, so I was giving up some weight, but nevertheless, I should have been craftier in my approach and found a way to throw him. But I didn’t, I ended up losing the match, and as competitors know, there’s nothing like a loss to leave a lasting impression. It really made me think, “Man, there’s got to be a better way.”

After all, if I had been in the street, I would have been dead. This guy was a monster, and my technique was not refined enough to overcome that kind of size, weight, and strength disparity. Thus, the search began for a new art to add to what I already knew,

an art that would be able to transcend size and strength through effortless technique. Over time, the research I had done pointed very clearly to the next art for me to study: aikido. But where do you think my initial exposure to aikido came from?

Steven Seagal. Years before I ever thought of training in martial arts, I watched Above the Law with my brother, listening intently as he told me what it was this guy was doing that made him such a bad ass. Mr. Seagal, he patiently explained, practiced aikido, an art developed for close-quarter combat by monks. They lived in very small cubicles, and consequently, their movements were tight and circular. I thought it was incredible that such a mysterious art could have evolved from the cramped solitude of warrior monks, but I bought it since he knew something about which I knew nothing, so by default alone, he obviously knew what he was talking about.

Although my initial exposure to aikido was through Steven Seagal, I realize it’s not fashionable to say so, particularly in aikido circles (“What he does is not aikido” is something I’ve heard from more than one instructor). But let’s be frank, he brought aikido into the spotlight, straight to the masses, and basically showed the world how aiki-techniques would be applied in the street. He’s the real deal, just listen to his Japanese! Watching one of his movies is enough to entice an individual to investigate what appears to be an effective martial art.

So I began to check it out. Solely through book research, I had already “bought” the art in its entirety, hook, line and sinker. I pored over Aikido and the Dynamic Sphere, I read and reread Koichi Tohei’s Ki in Everyday Life, and bought every book I could get my hands on that mentioned aikido. Because I didn’t have any access to instruction in the town of North Bay, my thought was by gathering all the information I could, I’d be ahead of the ball game when I actually began to train under a legitimate instructor. This was true. I thoroughly memorized the biography of Morihei Ueshiba (also known as O’Sensei), his incredible feats of mystical power, and the evolution of Daito-Ryu Aiki-Jujutsu into aikido. Unfortunately, all this reading without a physical reality check cast an aiki spell over me, leaving me unable to retain a sliver of objectivity or skepticism. Ultimately, I believed it all.

A particular passage in Tohei’s book had a very profound effect in shaping my perspective. He recollected an early aikido demonstration in Hawaii, during which he was attacked, somewhat suddenly, by several highly ranked judokas. Of course, he threw them all, quite effortlessly, and noted with amusement how many spectators found it unbelievable that he could throw such large, skilled men with movements that looked like dancing! I was mesmerized by his account. I couldn’t believe I had wasted all that time and effort in judo when an aikido practitioner could put down several players so easily.

Other books only solidified the case that aikido was an invincible art. The story that clinched my devotion was Kenji Tomiki, the noted educator and judo exponent, recalling how even though he had fought almost every good judo and jujutsu man in the world at that time, he was decimated after challenging Morihei Ueshiba. O’Sensei even gave him another chance, and after finding himself mysteriously thrown to the other end of the dojo, Tomiki bowed to Ueshiba and acknowledged that he’d like to become his student.

Testimonials from noted martial artists, the philosophy of nonaggression, the defensive nature of the techniques, the theoretical superiority of the turning movements, and the mystical powers of Morihei Ueshiba, all of these added up to a convincing argument that aikido was the best. The best art for me, the best martial art. I had finally found exactly what I thought a martial art should be, and what I’d been looking for.

Why would I want to study anything else when I’d be able to defeat somebody with his own strength and aggression? The daydream scenarios that stemmed from this idea were intoxicating. Imagine this:

A wild haymaker is thrown by an enraged man, but instead of crudely blocking and counterstriking, I smoothly blend with his attack, throwing him to the ground. His spirit diminished, he continues to lie there, as the realization sinks in that his own aggression has led to his defeat. I stand unscathed, and with a heart heavy for the human condition, walk away into the night (sometimes with a girl in tow, depending on the dream), as the crowd gathered outside of the bar stares in awed silence.

Although it would be impossible to prove, I’d be willing to wager that most aikido students secretly long for an opportunity to see if their stuff “really works.” I’ve seen it written about, I’ve heard it quietly discussed. I’ll freely admit that I was looking forward to the day when I’d turn the corner and have a man run at me, hand raised above his head, cuing me that a shomen strike was on the way. Luckily, the philosophy of aikido keeps most people out of trouble, at least from searching out and picking fights. But even the best philosophy cannot completely quash the ego, destroy the delusional expectations of the practitioners, or monitor the internal itch to elevate practice beyond repetitious physical exercises. That’s when things get dangerous.

Aikido has beautiful, aesthetically pleasing techniques that are a lot of fun to do, practiced in an environment where resistance is discouraged. If a person has no experience in a martial art or athletic activity where resistance is applied, it’s easy to confuse attacks that come at you in the dojo with a real attack in the street. Depending on the crowd you run with, average people may have witnessed one or two real fights in their lives, past the levels of elementary and secondary education. Before the advent of the UFC, how many people had ever seen skilled martial artists or street fighters throw down and really fight?

In my experience, I’ve found that most aikido practitioners are white, middle-aged professionals who don’t witness violence on a regular basis. It’s not in their daily environment, in their neighborhood, or in their jobs. It’s not something they would even consciously address or worry over. Why would it even enter their minds? You’re not going to get mugged in the suburbs, tackled in front of the company water cooler, or jumped watching your kid’s soccer game. Which is good. Nobody wants to live in a risky environment or a bad neighborhood. However, when defenses for attacks aren’t referenced with reality, techniques become more and more removed from combat effectiveness.

Combat effectiveness is one of the major reasons I study martial arts. Some people aren’t, and are interested foremost in Japanese culture, cultivation of mystical powers,

light physical exercise, or social interaction in a clean, healthy environment. That’s great, but there should be some sort of caveat warning them that although the roots of aikido are rooted in war, combat training is generally not what they’re going to receive in many present-day aikido dojos. If I weren’t concerned with effective technique, I’d be doing weightlifting and yoga instead, as they certainly increase longevity and one’s standard of living without many of the injuries and training risks associated with martial arts.

I was stuck on the idea of being able to defeat someone without really fighting, without getting your hands dirty, without having to ever resort to brute force. Such an enticing proposition could be realized and achieved, I firmly believed, through hard, consistent training, training that I would have to endure as an uchideshi, that I somehow knew I wasn’t getting through regular classes, despite maintaining a weekly three to five day training schedule.

Just as neuromuscular memory was achieved in judo through uchikomi, where you would drill the initial movement or phase of a throw until it was an instantaneous reaction, I knew I needed to “drill” the blending movements of aikido. Since I hadn’t found that aikido used highly repetitive drills for specific movements or portions of movements, I figured I would ingrain the aiki movements into my body by simply increasing the volume of training.

That had to be the answer, because so far, things weren’t adding up. It’s a very uncomfortable feeling when your expected effectiveness is incongruous with your actual result. How are you to honestly assess and pinpoint exactly where the problem lies? Do you doubt yourself, doubt the techniques, or doubt the training method? It’s a tough one to figure out on your own, especially if the instruction you’re receiving doesn’t honestly address real-life resistance levels.

While still training in Aikido, I used to get together with a buddy to train in Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu. I can’t think of anything I was able to pull off in sparring that I learned in aikido class, only my judo background saved me from total annihilation. So what was going on here? I chose to doubt the training method and myself. The solution, I thought, was to train more often and with more intensity, that was the secret to making aikido “work.”

Additionally, on the nights Ken would teach aikido, we would do an exercise modeled after henka in Seibukan Jujutsu. Basically, someone would make a strong attack of his choosing, and the defender could use any defense he liked, as long as safety and control were maintained. If the techniques the defender was trying to execute were not immediately effective, the attacker could move into something else.

It seemed to me that as soon as people were given the OK to even mildly resist the techniques, the overcommitted nature of their attacks dried up and what seemed to work consistently were hip throws from judo followed by Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu groundwork. The question is, what would I have done if I hadn’t had a background in other martial arts?

Now I can at least be honest with myself and admit that although I was a dedicated student (bordering on zealous), and had excellent instructors, hardly anything I had

learned would have worked in the street against an experienced fighter. The movements off the line of attack were pretty good, but if some 250-pound construction worker wanted to teach me a lesson, I would have died if I had to depend solely on the physical skills and knowledge I had gained from aikido. Absolutely. Without a doubt.

This is something I had to come to grips with over a long period of time. I’m a believer by nature. I like to check, investigate, analyze, research, and dissect arts and their techniques, but basically, I’m optimistic during the process and I give them the benefit of the doubt. So I believed, and I trained, and what I learned during that time has served me well, but I can’t bring myself to invest any more time in it now that I know the variety of training one must undergo in order to be a complete, well-rounded martial artist.

Had I heard my own arguments a few years ago, I would have simply dismissed them as a bitter rant from an unenlightened, unskilled practitioner. After all, if I were good enough, it would work, just as it worked for Morihei Ueshiba and his top students, including Mochizuki, Tomiki, Shioda, and Tohei. So why did their stuff work while mine didn’t?

I think it comes down to hard training. Hard training in a “hard” style. I mean, O’Sensei didn’t learn aikido, he learned Daito-Ryu Aiki-Jujutsu, and his early students also learned razor-sharp aiki-jujutsu techniques. What I learned was aikido, the end product of a successful experiment where Morihei Ueshiba filtered an old battlefield art into something else, a unique approach that reflected his philosophy, but that wasn’t what I was looking for. I liked the philosophy, but unfortunately, the techniques served as a metaphor for the philosophy, and I didn’t want those techniques. I was looking for aiki-jujutsu; I was looking for the hard training. I wanted to learn what those masters had learned, without it being diluted or removed from its source.

It’s difficult coming from a traditional background, where it’s generally considered impolite to honestly question or probe too deeply without already having a high rank, to then study an art steeped in mysticism, because it can cast a spell over the students and practitioners. This aiki-enchantment can create a quasi, cultlike atmosphere for those who buy into the belief system. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not calling an aikido class a cult, but it is a belief system, and there is certainly a kind of rift between those that believe in it’s magic and those that do not. I’ve felt this division, because I was one of the most faithful disciples of the art.

When I came to study Seibukan Jujutsu, I didn’t really have any expectations. I knew that Sensei would have what I was looking for, after all, he was a Yondan in aikido at the time. I wasn’t exactly sure what he was doing teaching jujutsu, but I knew that because he really understood the art I had fallen in love with, I believed he knew what was best.

I knew we had similar viewpoints about the strict “time in” system of certain martial arts. The aikido association we were affiliated through required a certain number of training hours to be marked down before you were eligible for your next belt, with testing every six months or so. Over the course of two devoted years, I rose only two

ranks, up from sixth kyu to fourth. Believe it or not, this was rapid for my dojo! While the minimum time requirement up to Shodan was five years of consistent training, I simply couldn’t rationalize how the technical skills one would possess after receiving his Shodan could merit a five-year commitment. It ate away at me, but I kept my mouth shut because it wasn’t my place to say anything. After all, I was just a yonkyu. But I saw students who had been training for seven to ten years, and still had not received their Shodan.

Years before I had begun training, Sensei had flown up to Alaska and given an aikido seminar at the dojo. During that weekend, one of the young female students asked Sensei how long it would take him to bring someone up to Shodan. He looked at her calmly and said, “About three months.” Needless to say, everyone was shocked. I’m sure it offended some, and others may have dismissed him, but when I heard that story, I concurred wholeheartedly.

In some arts it does take five to seven years (or more!) of hard consistent training to receive your black belt, but generally those are arts where you test your skills in sparring against uncooperative, equally skilled opponents. Usually, it takes that long to build and combine the attributes and technical proficiency of a “black belt” in a particular system. The ironic thing is, it’s sometimes possible to progress faster in arts like this because you have an opportunity to display your attributes and experience, resulting in rapid promotion if deserved. If you’re a white belt in Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu and are tapping out blue belts, the instructor will note that and get the situation adjusted, instead of forcing you to wait for a mandatory six-month period, X’ing off the boxes next to your name, making sure your hours are counted. You really get a chance to display your skills, instead of having to bite your lip as people who couldn’t survive a bar brawl point out how your technique is incorrect.

But there’s no sparring in aikido, no uncooperative opponents, and little chance to display your attributes. So you put your time in, but I’ve come to think that the whole “time-in” system that can be terribly unfair to those that may deserve more rapid promotion, particularly if they’re hungry, motivated, and/or talented individuals. Look at Jerry Bohlander, he spends six months training at the Lion’s Den, enters the UFC, has a successful outing, and proves that time in, as the lone indicator of proficiency, is a load of crap. Frank Shamrock is another example. In a period of five years, he went from never having studied a martial art to becoming the King of Pancrase and an undisputed Ultimate Fighting Champion. Or, in that same period of time, he could’ve gotten his Shodan in aikido.

Something in me rebels against the “set-in-stone” time on the mat policies of many dojos and martial arts organizations. Saying that it takes seven years to earn your black belt, no exceptions, is a really close-minded, oppressive method more akin to martial incarceration than education. Even our school systems allow the exceptional to be appropriately placed. If it takes 7 to 10 years to develop the skills of black belt, as it does in some arts, that’s great, and you shouldn’t be promoted ahead of time. But not acknowledging physical prowess gained through previous martial experience, drawing out the process simply to keep students in enrollment, or to keep an ego buffer between the rank of the students and sensei is simply wrong.

You better believe if I placed a wager on a fight between your standard martial arts instructor with 10 years of experience, and Jerry Bohlander after two years with the Lion’s Den, I’d be buying Jerry a drink with the quickest money I ever doubled. In a sense, as Sensei likes to remind us, time does not exist, it’s what you make of it. Time is not experience, and its the quality of your martial experience that makes the difference.

He certainly allowed me to make the most of my time as an uchideshi. From the beginning, he sensed that I was in a box, trapped in my own aiki-mentality. But instead of giving unsolicited thoughts and opinions, he preferred to have people form their own opinions and make their own choices. Therefore, he sought to expose me to different aspects of the martial arts, expanding my martial consciousness through an increased knowledge base. He took me to an aiki-jujutsu seminar of Yanagi-Ryu soke Don Angier; I accompanied him several times to the Redwood city dojo of his aikido instructor, Frank Doran; he allowed me to study Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu under Claudio Franca; and he answered all my questions, which were never in short supply.

Sensei had been an uchideshi three different times at aikido’s hombu dojo in Iwama, Japan. As head instructor, Saito Sensei is reputed as being the closest technical representation of Morihei Ueshiba. Through hard years of being both an uchideshi and a teacher, I knew Saito would have to be the one that could make aikido “work,” the way I envisioned it working in a physical confrontation.

So I asked the question I had been dying to know the answer to for years. I had always felt sheepish about asking such things in a really traditional setting, but now that I had a resource who could give me a qualified answer, I couldn’t pass up the opportunity. How would Saito Sensei, arguably the most proficient aikidoka alive, fare in the UFC? Would he, through the severity of his training and years of experience, be able to blend in that imperceptible fraction of a second where his opponent would be off balance? Would he be able to execute ikkyo through yonkyo, an iriminage, or a kotegaeshi?

Sensei’s answer was what I had both waited for and feared. He told me, in no uncertain terms, that Saito would be demolished. It didn’t matter that he was the best in the world at his particular style, when it came to fighting the guys in the UFC, he’d be dead. Then I asked about the mystical Morihei Ueshiba, and whether or not he would fare well. Sensei looked at me and said, “Are you kidding? Against somebody like Kimo? If they fought, Kimo would be the new O’Sensei!”

We laughed, but part of me winced when I heard this, and a little bit of my innocence, the part that wants to believe in magic and miracles, died right then. Really, deep down, I knew the answer before I asked. I was just lying to myself. Or maybe not even lying, but just choosing to not look at what experience had already shown me. Growing up hurts, the truth hurts, but ultimately it serves you better as I knew that I was finally discovering answers to questions I needed to know. It’s hard to let an emotional investment go, but I realized it was better to ride out my disillusionment now than later, or after I had invested a year as an uchideshi in an aikido dojo as I had originally planned.

Although I still agreed with the philosophy of aikido, and I loved the aesthetic beauty of the circular movements, I wasn’t taking martial arts classes to simply look pretty or philosophize. I wanted to learn concrete, physical skills that would serve me if they were ever put to the test. After all, I was 21, a young buck, ready to make the most of the energetic reservoir that can dissipate with age. Carpe diem, I had no time to waste, and I knew that the style I chose had to be efficient. Good techniques, well rounded, to provide both a good base of knowledge and a healthy perspective on martial arts. I thought aikido was what I wanted, but slowly realized that Seibukan was closer to my disposition.

I generally take issue with the aikido I’ve learned, seen, and come in contact with being advertised as self-defense. Although there are aspects and techniques of aikido that I believe can be gleaned and added to your martial arsenal (i.e. footwork for getting off the line, blending with an overcommitted attack, etc.), I could never recommend it to somebody who wanted to learn self-defense. Not only is there too much silence about what works and what doesn’t, the non-competitive training method doesn’t put students in pressure situations similar enough to real confrontations, breeding a false sense of security in students through tacit affirmations such as:

1) It may take 20 years, but this stuff will work if you just keep practicing.

2) Don’t worry about strength, since physical conditioning isn’t that important.

3) These exercises we’re doing are how attacks really are.

4) If it’s not working, you’re not using your center.

5) Keep extending that ki to keep him at bay!

It’s not fair to your students to misrepresent what your art is capable of. If your average aikido student rolled with a judo or Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu player, or got in the ring with a boxer or kickboxer, he wouldn’t know what to do with that kind of intensity. He’d simply be overwhelmed. I’ve seen this point debated through letters to the editor in Aikido Today Magazine, but there’s only one way to find out. Do it. To paraphrase Bruce Lee, you can’t learn to swim unless you get wet, so how can you learn how to fight without fighting?

I remember an aikidoka, who was very good, tell me that he could probably slip any punch thrown at him. At the time, I believed him, but now with more experience, I disagree. He probably could have slipped any punch thrown at him if it was telegraphed, traveled in a straight line, and was done in a method identical to our practice in class. But there are boxers with hands so quick that you’d be in the middle of processing the thought, “I think it’s coming,” and next thing you know, you’re on the floor. And that’s without fakes, mixing levels, or combinations.

Now there are styles that are quite hard, such as Yonshinkan, and instructors who have kept closer to the roots of aikido, where my arguments aren’t really applicable. Aikido is actually a very general word, I’ve come to find out, and there are tons of styles and instructors that are hard, soft, or somewhere in the middle. As Toshishiro

Obata expressed in his book Samurai Aiki-jutsu, he sometimes feels embarrassed watching soft-style aikido demonstrations, and considers it an insult to the legacy of both Sokaku Takeda and Morihei Ueshiba. He is a vocal advocate of aikido and its combat effectiveness, but he practices a hard style derived from hard training as an uchideshi under Gozo Shioda, who in turn studied under O’Sensei during his physical prime. Because of that generational progression, hard training under masters in their prime, the masculine essence of Daito-Ryu Aiki-Jujutsu has been preserved.

Strong, simple, direct, practical. Seagal, Obata, Koga, and plenty of other instructors across the country keep these points in mind, and consequently, their aikido it very applicable to self-defense. But when the emphasis changes from martial to art, then those who are looking for the former and settle for the latter are really shortchanged, and a disservice has been rendered.

In all fairness, modern-day aikido tries to do something different by using the aiki movements as an analogy for conflict resolution and non-violence. It’s a tired argument, but the escalation of interpersonal violence will always end with the guy with a bomb in his backpack. Hand-to-hand combat leads to a stick or knife fight, a stick or knife will lead to guns, guns lead to larger guns, and eventually the guy with the bomb in his backpack who’s going to “get you back,” regardless of the cost, is the ultimate warrior. The terrorist wins if you play that game, but aikido strives for a different path. It’s a martial philosophy that serves both its practitioners and humanity in general, but I feel the message is somehow weakened when the preparation for war that insures the peace is reduced to a shell of what’s actually necessary.

I believe that if the spiritual and mental benefits traditionally derived from training, (increased self-confidence, inner peace, etc…) are over-intellectualized, and the by-products of training become the focal point, you should be taking a self-empowerment seminar instead of a martial art. Focus on the physical, and under the proper instruction, everything will come in time. Over-intellectualization can kill an art.

This is probably disturbing to many readers, particularly if they’re aikido practitioners or instructors. But the truth is, despite all I’ve said, I still love aikido. It’s a beautiful art, it’s lots of fun to train in, I love the people it attracts, and there’s a kind of “aiki-high” that becomes addictive as practitioners take each other’s balance with proper coordination and timing. Besides, some people don’t care if their art is effective or not. It may be fun, it may get them out of the house or provide them with an excuse to meet up with their friends. Whatever the reason, my position is irrelevant to this particular demographic.

So who am I writing this chapter for? I’m writing it for the kid who goes straight to the martial arts section of a bookstore, who shows up early for training and loiters afterward, and is insatiably hungry for knowledge and experience in a way most adults can barely remember. I’m writing it for the kid who’s going to reread this book, in order to bring the documented experiences closer to home. I’m aiming this at the kid I was, because I know he’s out there, and what I’ve written is what I would have liked to have known ahead of time. Stand on my shoulders, as I’ve stood on the shoulders of others, and let my experience save you a couple of steps, putting you a few feet ahead of the learning curve.

For the general reader or martial artist, my aim was to stimulate you into thinking honestly about the art you’re practicing and its limitations. Most instructors, having been in martial arts for years and worked with thousands of bodies, know that some techniques will not work on some people, and you have to be tough to win a fight if your opponent is formidable in the least. Some pass on this information, others keep it quiet. If you were a beginner, what would you want to know?

It wasn’t fun leaving this box, but I’m better for it. Changing from a devout, subjective view to a disillusioned, but more objective perspective on aikido has been one of the most painful experiences I’ve ever had in the martial arts. However, climbing out has made me grow tremendously, and now I’m able to nod, smile, and offer encouragement as the newly initiated proselytize about how karate, ninjitsu, Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu, or tae kwon do is the best.

And they’re 100 percent right. They are the best. The best art for them at that moment because they’re hot on it, enthusiastic, and hungrily determined to succeed. At that point, everybody wins.

Later, the box you’ve chosen to enter may begin closing in on you. Aikido, Seibukan Jujutsu, Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu, the parameters of each art form a box technically in its structure and mentally within its practitioners. As martial artists, we must strive to transcend styles, and overcome our weaknesses. As human beings, we must seek to work through the arbitrary categories that separate us, and our self-imposed limitations. It takes work, and none of this can happen without a certain amount of intrepid analysis, scrutinization, and unbiased reflection. What are you choosing to believe, what are you buying into, what are you suppressing because it may be incongruent with your paradigm of the world?

It’s not easy, but as martial artists, it’s almost our obligation to take an honest look at ourselves, step outside our comfort zone, beyond the world we know, and climb out of the box. Who better to do it than a martial artist? After all, isn’t that what all this warrior training is for?

An Uchideshi Experience: Chapter Six

Iaido

I never really liked iaido, but I did it anyway.

After I received my green belt in Seibukan, Sensei told me I could train in another one of the arts taught at the Academy. Iaido and ninjitsu were my options, and it took some serious mulling over to make a decision.

I didn’t really choose iaido as much as decide against ninjitsu. It seemed to me that ninjitsu had a lot of, for lack of a better term, dark energy surrounding it. Running around in black suits, chucking shurikens (throwing stars), there was a little too much make-believe in it for my taste. Plus, a few of the practitioners I had run into had an ego trip that emanated this message: You don’t know the secrets I know. Mess with

me and I’ll kill you. I am a ninja! I didn’t want to get involved in that. Those guys would hurt me.

That isn’t to say that make believe isn’t also involved in iaido. Nobody walks around with a sword these days, so if the question of practical value pops up, push it back down because it’s really nil. Devotees will attest that much can be learned from the sword. To a certain extent, I can agree. From energy extension, body coordination, and mental focus to simply strengthening up your wrists, the sword can offer much as a training tool, but you have to practice. A lot. Hour after hour must be put in before you can start reaping practical by-products of sword training, and I’d rather spend that time kicking the heavy bag or doing arm bar drills.

Sensei gave me a private introductory lesson on how to use the sword. How to bow in, how to wear it, how to draw it, etc. It was sorely needed. I was pretty dangerous, with the sword falling out of the saya (scabbard) half the time, and the other half spent stabbing myself, trying to put it back in. Even though I had previously declared drawing and sheathing the sword to be physically impossible, after I got better at it, I dropped the idea that this art was a conspiracy against me.

Overall, I must say, it was a good discipline. Wednesdays were my long days at the dojo, starting with the kids’ classes in the afternoon, usually training through the breaks until the seven o’clock class, and after that was finished, iaido until nine thirty at night. I was always fading halfway through iai, hypoglycemia having already set in and my irritability steadily increasing. After class was finished, I would oil Sensei’s sword, the dojo sword I was using, then put them both away. Finally, after swinging for my supper, I allowed myself to eat.

But being able to bear discomfort isn’t the kind of discipline that iaido’s all about. The real work with the sword is being able to honestly assess where you are. I’m not just talking about iai class, I mean in all areas of your life. It starts with the sword, then, if practiced properly, spills over into other activities.

From the outside, iaido seems ridiculously simple. Draw the sword, maybe do a few cuts since it’s out, then put it back. It looks pretty, you can make a cool whooshing sound if you cut the air properly, but it doesn’t seem like the stuff that could make a dent in your daily life. Hey, where’s The Work?

It’s all in the details. Most importantly, iaido’s a solo activity, which means you don’t have to listen to anybody else if you don’t want to. In Jujutsu, a partner can force you to listen to him by physically proving that your technique doesn’t work if practiced incorrectly. In iaido, if you want to draw the sword so fast that you bend it, swing with your arms and not your body, or sheathe the sword as ungloriously as it was freed, you can. Instructors and peers may offer advice, but the onus is on the student to trust in the criticism, then correct and improve. If you want to just let the words go by and hang out in your rut of bad habits, there’s nothing and no one to stop you.

Some methods are better than others, and it may be ugly, but as long as you can yank that thing out and shove it back in, it’s swordsmanship. It may not be good, or as effective as it could be, but it works. That, however, is not iaido. That’s something else entirely.

Iaido is constantly striving to better yourself by monitoring and improving every aspect of drawing, cutting with, and sheathing the sword. It’s hard to do, continually searching for things to improve upon, not allowing yourself to rest on your laurels. Most people don’t consciously believe that they’re choosing to stagnate, but they do, since it’s the default result of not integrating criticism into improvement. There’s always something to work on with the sword, and iaido will train you to look intently for where work is needed. It won’t fix anything by itself, but it may prepare you to look deeper into your own life, and challenge you to examine the most fundamental attitudes you hold. One of the most uncomfortable discoveries I’ve found began with earnestly ironing out physical flaws in my swordwork, then continuing that level of hyper-awareness to question a very personal facet: my own honesty.

I like to think of myself as an honest person, but it’s pretty easy to be honest with others. If you’re not, there are consequences when the lies are cut and the truth is known. What about being honest with yourself? No one can call you on that except you.

I took a look at myself and realized that I lie all the time. Not necessarily in an overt manner, but at the very least by mental omission. Choosing not to think of my mess-ups, the trouble I’ve caused others, things I’ve said that should have never left my lips, awkward moments and segments of my life; in short, all the things that I gloss over because they’re uncomfortable to think about. I’m not recommending that you dwell on the past, but I think it’s necessary to fully glean the lessons from the moments you enjoy least, so the fear of bringing up the past won’t hold you from progressing in the future.

It’s agonizingly simple: Can you be honest with yourself? Are you willing to listen to criticism and acknowledge those problem areas? Are you able to honestly assess where you’re at and work through your problems, instead of burying them or running away? Can you acknowledge things from your past that you thought you’d left behind, or hoped you wouldn’t ever have to dredge up again?

I’d like to look away during those moments of discomfort, but I know that’s not going to serve me in the long run. I think those key seconds of acknowledgement or dismissal can define who you are as an individual. Which path will you travel by? Can you eat bitter now and trust in the sweet?

If you can, I believe you will grow, improve, excel, and transcend. If you can’t, you will remain, cajoling yourself, resting on a plateau. So as much as I dislike iaido, I must admit, it helps you do The Work. It may not be easy, but I don’t think internal evaluations can ever be. I’m trying to eat bitter, be honest, and to do the right thing, but it’s seldom the easy option. I don’t even like doing it, but I know I’ll be better off down the road.

I guess I’ll do it anyway.

An Uchideshi Experience: Chapter Seven

Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu, Non-Attachment, and Losing toward Humility

My first exposure to Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu was probably the same as most people in the country: watching Royce Gracie demolish the competition in UFC 2.

With my judo experience, I was familiar with the armbars and chokes he applied, and I was fascinated with his strategy as questions about different martial arts were being visually answered. My friends basically said, “Oh my God,” and sat there, dumbfounded at the reality of it all.

They had thought it was going to look like a choreographed fight scene from a movie, and to some extent, so had I. What we’re exposed to is what we expect, and movies can certainly shape expectations in the minds of the uninitiated. Now, with mixed martial art competitions booming and exposure increasing, people may expect a fight to be like a UFC match, but will again be surprised at what a street fight is really like. Friends, boots, weapons, asphalt, bottles, teeth, the element of surprise, and savage brutality are some of the variables that make street fights as eye-opening as the UFC was to movie magic.

Still, it answered a lot of questions for me. As a teenager, I had originally bought into the appearance of martial demonstrations as combat reality. I had witnessed some counter-indications to these well-crafted illusions, but wasn’t entirely sure of where to place them or how they fit into my mystical martial arts paradigm. I certainly better understand how it fits together now, but then, with little or no guidance, I could only file the experiences away.

While living in Canada, I taught a basic self-defense class with a friend after school. He passed on information from years of karate, and I taught basic judo throws. One day I found myself sparring in the class, point karate style, with a guy who was stronger, more experienced, much more aggressive, and generally a tough SOB. I was not winning.

Knowing something had to change, I just dove in, grabbed his gi, and did a quick hip throw to take him to the ground. I remember thinking, “God, he’s like a fish out of water.” This guy who was a stud on his feet was suddenly very easy to control, with only the most basic ground skills in my repertoire. I internalized that experience and filed it in the back of my mind.

Later that year a teacher at the school approached me and mentioned he had seen us working out with our gis. He asked if it would it be OK to join us for judo, and mentioned that he already had some experience. “Sure,” I said, and that afternoon we worked out for the first time. He dressed out in an unbleached gi and a yellow belt he’d dyed himself, and we began, beginning with stretching, moving into uchikomi (partial, repetitive throwing motions), and proceeded to randori (sparring).

Well, when it came to randori, he was impossible to throw, and he easily tossed me around. He also surprised me by employing more than orthodox judo techniques. Granted, he was bigger and stronger, but it was such a surprise to be manhandled so skillfully by this stranger. I asked him about his past, and he told me how he wrestled all the way through high school, college, and then in international competition. We trained more sessions and got along well.

In particular, one thing we discussed was the striker versus the grappler. “Yah,” he said, “he may be able to get me with a punch, but he better make it good because as soon as I get a hold of him, it’s over.” I also found this curious, but again, could only file it away, because I didn’t really understand how to categorize the information that had just been given. I was, however, getting an inkling of how important ground skills were.

Again, this happened before my exposure to the UFC, and before the importance of ground grappling was widely believed or supported. Now, of course, cross-training and ground grappling are viewed as mandatory for serious martial artists. Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu was a wake-up call to the martial arts community, and my physical introduction to the art was equally shocking, beginning with a chance encounter on the Internet.

I was cruising the Net, and went to one of my bookmarked sites, Tim Mousel’s Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu discussion forum. Glancing at the posts, I saw one requesting a training partner in Anchorage, Alaska. I hadn’t ever seen anything like this before in my neck of the woods, so I e-mailed him immediately and told him what my martial arts background was. He wrote back, satisfied I wasn’t a mindless bruiser, and excited about the possibility of a new training partner. Apparently, his instructor had been a local character and Gracie Jiu-Jitsu fanatic who had gone around to local dojos offering unsolicited challenges. It’s still unclear whether or not Felix had ever trained with the Gracies, or any other instructor.

Felix once came into Aikido North and told me after observing a class, “You know this stuff doesn’t work. All you need is grappling and boxing.” I smiled and nodded, but was aghast at the nerve of him actually coming into a dojo and insulting the art. He was waiting for Ken to finish teaching the class so he could roll around with him. I told Felix that Ken was good, and he agreed. “Yes, Ken is good, but I am better now.” He went on, confident his new techniques would give him the winning edge.

Ken was never against playing with guys from different arts, and consequently had to field challenges from time to time. But on this night, Ken couldn’t play because strict instructions had been left by our head instructor to not have people on the mat who weren’t affiliated with the dojo, instructions specifically tailored for our friend. So Felix left disappointed, with no one to play with that night.

Nor could Felix train with Eric, my new friend via the net. Initially, he taught Eric and awarded him his blue belt, but apparently didn’t handle it well when Eric began tapping him out. As Eric put it, Felix had not yet learned the “humble spirit,” so Eric left, scrounging training partners wherever he could, whether through work, friends, or advertisement.

Eric’s last training partner, an old friend, reacted poorly to a rear naked choke. Sinking the choke and expecting a tap, he instead felt fists on his face as his friend, in a mix of anger and desperation, mightily swung backwards. Eric, realizing that 1) this was not a tap, and 2) this was not the time for him to release his position, sat back and relaxed. His friend eventually calmed down, but clearly, this was the last training session.

Now he had a new training partner: me. We set up a time to get together on a Sunday after the open mat training session at Aikido North. I was really excited about being able to spar and hopefully make a new friend in the process, but that morning as I shared my enthusiasm with my fellow aikido students, describing how I met this guy over the Internet, I watched their faces change. They felt differently than I did. Nevertheless, they wished me the best of luck and told me to give them a report on how it went.

Eric and I met at a public recreational center on the other side of town that Sunday afternoon. He stood 5 feet 10 inches at 160 pounds, with dirty blond hair, but you could tell he was a wrestler by his sinewy, muscular frame. We paid the fee at the front desk and went upstairs to lay down the mats. Getting dressed, we both put on gis, he with a blue belt, I with my white.

There was some preliminary warming up, stretching and the like, then he went over some basic positions: the guard, mount, sidemount. Thus, having gone through the obligatory preparations, we were ready to spar.

Eric had mentioned that he liked to go at near maximum exertion levels during his training, to keep the realism high. He also conceded that this probably contributed to the high burnout rate of his training partners. I knew that this would be pretty intense, but we were itching to “get it on,” in the words of Big John McCarthy.

We began at opposite ends of the mat, with our stylistic differences classically exemplified. He adopted a wrestler’s crouch, elbows in, with rounded back; I remained upright, arms open, the natural posture of Kodokan Judo. We circled, not quite close enough for me to grab his gi, and eyed each other warily. Suddenly, he shot in, and although I tried to sprawl, it was incomplete. With a fistful of my gi pant (as I hopped to retain my balance), Eric tenaciously fought for the other leg and took me to the ground.

Immediately I went to the guard, but he easily passed it, achieved sidemount, and was on his way to mounting me. Logically, I knew that you should NEVER give your opponent your back, but for some reason, in a combination of habit and instinct, I rolled over to my elbows and knees.

Turtled up in this position, the limbs are kept in to protect against joint locks, chin tucked down and hands crossed, palms pressed out around my neck to prevent chokes. This is usually a good position in competition judo, where if you can guard against a strong attack unlikely to end in a quick submission, the referee will stand you up. There are a bunch of other defenses from this position, but that’s only if your opponent’s objective is to put your back on the ground for the pin or immobilization.

But on this day, there was no time limits, referee, or objective to pin. Eric felt me roll over, put the hooks in, and pushing his hips forward to arch my back, exposed my neck for a moment. He quickly filled the gap between my chin and chest with the crook of his elbow, and the choke was sunk. Valiantly, I tapped.

That first match took less than 30 seconds. Although the rest of the matches that day would often last longer, the positions of tapper and tappee would remain consistent. I

did lots of things that make me cringe when I think about them now: giving my back, not realizing the importance of snaking my hips, and trying to choke while I was within Eric’s guard. Although I did get him in one armbar (a moral victory, if nothing else), I must have tapped more than 20 times that day, to the point of mutual exhaustion. We promised to train the next week, same time, same place, with the six days in-between sessions needed to heal my wounds.

I went over to a friend’s house afterward, and after taking one look at me, he asked, “What happened? It looks like you got your ass kicked!” I smiled, and told him where I’d been, though the scratches, scrapes, and abrasions suffered during training probably looked worse than they felt. In particular, the left side of my face had a huge raspberry; another wound impossible to pinpoint from the chaos of exertion. As for the people at Aikido North, they just shook their heads in disbelief.

We continued to train for months, and I ended up getting Chris involved, but unfortunately the other training partners we tried to recruit would either be inconsistent or, more commonly, simply no shows. No matter, we trained on, with the submission ratio balancing over time, yet still in Eric’s favor.

Eric lost this training partner when I moved down to Monterey to become an uchideshi, and I didn’t think I would have a chance at all to wrestle around since I was living in a classical jujutsu dojo. But, as fate would have it, I was sweeping the mat before class (not an unusual activity for one in my position), and struck up a conversation with the woman pushing a broom next to me.

At that time, I still didn’t know more than a handful of people in the dojo. Carolynn, as she introduced herself to me, began talking about the no-holds-barred event Extreme Fighting III, which she had just seen that weekend at her friend’s house. Hearing this, and having resigned myself to be out of the no-holds-barred fighting loop, with little or no access to that kind of information, I was ecstatic.

I peppered her with questions, most of which she couldn’t give answers to, as she was helping out in the kitchen for most of the show. I started naming off different fighters she probably saw, and she did remember that Conan Silviera had lost to a black kickboxer, later revealed to be Maurice Smith. Flabbergasted, I begged her to get a copy of the tape, which she promised she would.

Later, as Carolynn and I developed our friendship, she told me of her martial arts history, which included two black belts in different forms of Hapkido, and of her training in Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu under Claudio Franca, a four-time state, three-time Brazilian, and two-time Pan-American champion.

We set up a training time after class where she taught me the basics of BJJ as she had learned them, and then had her friend Michael come to the dojo and give me a lesson, which included sparring. Michael, a hulking 230 pounds on a 6 foot frame, was an old training partner of Caroline’s in Hapkido, and they met up once again at Claudio’s. He was an enormous BJJ fan, having spent time training in Torrance under the Gracies, and was the only other person I had met that was as captivated by the UFC and no-holds-barred fighting events as I was. We trained that day and I was

once again annihilated. He did, however, think I’d enjoy training at Claudio’s, and recommended beginning if I had the opportunity.

Carolynn had told me, quite explicitly, that if I were to study the art, it shouldn’t be under anyone other than Claudio, because he was one of the few authentic BJJ instructors around in our area. In this day of increasingly easy access to information, large numbers of armchair warriors are cropping up, advertising for seminars with inauthentic credentials, with little more than a couple of slick techniques garnered from a set of videos. She wanted me to meet him, and we drove up to Santa Cruz on Friday night (the only night during the week I wasn’t obligated to train) and participated in a class.

Claudio was 173 pounds and six feet tall, with a muscular physique, devoid of any visible fat. A heavy Portuguese accent and a firm handshake warmly greeted me, “Hoy, my friend, how are you?” Claudio made sure I lived through the first class (at that time, the warm-ups were Olympian), and let me roll with Garth Taylor, his top American student. Overall, I enjoyed it thoroughly, and believed my exposure to Claudio’s dojo was no accident.

I was anxious to begin training, but first had to secure permission from Sensei. Friday night is the time he taught ninjitsu at the dojo, and was generally a day of rest for me. I was willing to give up that day to augment my training with ground grappling once a week, but had no idea whether Sensei would agree to this.

I knew it wouldn’t distract me from my regular training (which was in no short supply), and I felt both safe in Claudio’s dojo and comfortable under his instruction. If there had been any usual or particularly unsettling vibes, I wouldn’t have even entertained the thought.

Sensei himself, with his ranks in aikido, jujutsu, ninjitsu, and karate, obviously believed in cross-training and in being a martial artist, rather than a particular stylist. On the other hand, I had committed myself to a year focusing exclusively on Seibukan, so I could understand if he believed it would take away focus from the main art, and he certainly didn’t want me getting hurt at an unfamiliar dojo.

I consulted others on what approach I should take. I plotted hypothetical dialogues and prepared persuasive arguments. Some suggested that since I was a green belt at the time, I should center my pitch on having access to all the principles for the level of Shodan, or on the fact that it wouldn’t be an entirely new activity, but rather a continuation of my Alaskan randori with Eric.

Finally, I shelved all the approaches, and just told him straight out that I wanted to supplement my training by going to Santa Cruz on Friday nights. I also told him that although I felt that this would be a positive experience, whatever he said, yes or no, I would not protest his decision. I knew that Sensei, being responsible for all aspects of my training, was sincerely looking out for my best interests. He listened to me, very carefully, and said he would have an answer next Thursday, exactly one week away.

Well, that Thursday came and went with no answer. Sensei probably had an answer, but I knew deep down that if I bugged him, I would probably ruin it. I just kept my mouth shut and waited for him to offer his decision.

Another week went by and I was dying inside, I really wanted to know what he thought about it, but something inside told me, “Well Roy, here’s your chance to practice non-attachment and letting go.”

I thought that non-attachment had always been a strong suit of mine. There aren’t that many things in my life that really inspire passionate devotion: Martial arts, the UFC, music. Women are in there, too. But overall, I’m pretty even keeled.

The problem was, I was learning how difficult the whole concept of non-attachment is to practice when it’s something you really, really, really want. Here I was, having a problem just keeping my mouth shut and letting Sensei make the first move.

Finally, the next week, I was talking to him in the tatami room, and he said he had an answer. This took me totally by surprise as the conversation wasn’t related. He began:

“I’ve given it a lot of thought, and traditionally, an uchideshi is forbidden to engage in training outside of the dojo, because the objective is to focus on the understanding of one art under the guidance of a master.”

I nodded, understanding how he arrived at his decision, and a bit relieved for finally receiving an answer, even though it wasn’t the one I wanted. Then he continued:

“But I’m into breaking tradition. So this will be an experiment and we’ll see how it goes. I don’t know, you may have come down from Alaska to make a connection with this teacher, just as you’ve made this connection with me, and I want to help guide you. So yes, you can go to Santa Cruz and study Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu.”

I was happy. Very, very, very happy. Either way would have been fine, but I’ll be honest: I like it when things go my way. And even though I didn’t learn the hard lesson this time, I learned about letting go of outcomes in situations that I have very little or no control over.

Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu has helped me in Seibukan, and Seibukan has assisted me in learning BJJ. First off, there is an emphasis in Seibukan on principles, rather than on techniques, which allows a more thorough understanding of what makes the techniques work. A thorough understanding of principles gives students the opportunity to be creative and look for new or innovative ways of entering techniques, keeping an art fresh.

I believe in classical training, because many of the requirements and exercises in these older arts can help further the range and skills of a martial artist, even if they aren’t directly applicable to winning a fight. I see this in a variety of subtle ways, but ukemi springs to mind as a good example. I’ve found that it’s more often practiced , and more heavily stressed, in older judo and jujutsu traditions, and I haven’t seen this kind of time devotion and emphasis in their modern derivations, such as BJJ. Why? One

reason is that in a competition, no one’s going to tap to good ukemi, no matter how polished or practical it may be. Still, there are benefits in it, ranging from real-life falling skills to enhanced kinesthetic awareness.

So, the benefits of these specialized skills may often be masked or unseen in a martial arena, but other art forms make it easier to realize the benefits of traditional training. Whether it’s exhibited in an electric guitar solo or modern dance performance, the advantage of a classical base can often be spotted through the precision of technique in both music and dance, because of the specific physical demands inherent in classical guitar lessons or the discipline of ballet. Also, Chopin and Paganini may not be dominating the current music marketplace, but that doesn’t mean there’s no worth in what they’ve created. Studying, practicing, and finally understanding this music can give a student a tremendous amount of perspective on more contemporary creations, in addition to expanding and improving technical ability. An understanding of what has gone before can deepen the comprehension why the old was altered to form what’s now the new.

BJJ has helped my classical training as well. Seibukan is a highly technical art, but the more time that’s spent on learning and perfecting new techniques, the less time there is for developing the attributes that make techniques effective. I remember doing knuckle push-ups in Tae Kwon Do class thinking,“What the hell are we doing? I didn’t come here for this!” I went there for technical instruction in kicking, not upper-body conditioning, so I can partially agree that the emphasis should be on martial techniques, not on attribute development, when I go to class. If I wanted to get stronger, I can do that on my own time, and often do.

However, there is something in the group dynamic of mass calisthenics that pushes you a lot farther than doing them at home in front of the tube. Also, not everybody works out on his own, so sometimes the only chance a person may have to develop speed and strength is at the dojo during a few weekly training hours. But that’s the nature of Seibukan. The techniques are there, but it’s up to you to bring them to life through individualized attribute training.

In addition, sparring is consistently a large part of a BJJ class. In Seibukan, of course, there is no sparring, only henka. Henka is an exercise to improve coordination, timing, matching energy, and spontaneity, as two ukes do random attacks, and variations on previously learned techniques are used to defend. But the level of resistance is never the same, and not intended to be the same, as a skilled opponent trying to submit you and you doing the same to them.

The ability to remain mentally calm during sparring in BJJ or Judo while expending great amounts of energy is a martial virtue developed through practice. Sparring, at its roughest, is still only 85 to 90 percent of the adrenalized frenzy experienced in a street fight, but pushing that window of familiar exertion does something very practical and necessary. It expands the practitioner’s range and ability to “turn it on” and increase the intensity; or “tone it down,” and simply match the energy level of the attack.

As my old judo coach told me, “Once you’ve been tortured by masters, nothing else phases you anymore.” I agree. After you’ve been choked mercilessly, had your joints

locked out at full speed and power, been smothered, suffocated, and generally maligned, the tendency to panic as people are rushing in to grab or strike you diminishes. Consequently, control during exercises such as henka and tai sabaki increases in relation to your ability to keep cool.

Finally, BJJ keeps you humble. Classical jujutsu and aiki-jujutsu systems can give a person a false sense of security when technical knowledge is amassed without the necessary attributes to bring it all together. Sparring would alert people to this by revealing their weaknesses, but the nature of submissions on the body’s smaller joints doesn’t lend itself very well to sparring. Chokes and armbars can be resisted, and there is a very short but definite time when the person defending feels the transition from a good defense to a good time to tap.

Take a cross-body armlock, as a typical example. The attacker is already in perpendicular position to his opponent; he’s just trying to wrench the arm free from the defender, who’s grabbing his own forearm to block the submission. The attacker kicks the hand grabbing the forearm away; the defender’s arm unfurls and is quickly extended into lockout. The arc the defenders arm travels from curled defense to extended submission takes a certain amount of time, let’s say for hypothetical purposes, one second on a limb this large.

Then you take a wrist, with a very small range of motion, and only a fraction of a second is required to travel the arc from defense to injury. There simply isn’t enough time to properly assess when control has been lost and it would be prudent to tap. Either you go with it and take the appropriate ukemi, resist and succeed in retaining control, or resist and get a broken wrist. The nature of the technique dictates the method of practice, and unfortunately, I still don’t see how classical jujutsu can be practiced in the dojo with the intensity it was intended for in self-defense situations.

But because you can be very physical, put up maximal resistance, and wait to tap until you have ABSOLUTELY no choice in BJJ, loss in a sparring match is very definite and real. There is a profound impact on the psyche when you know and feel that despite trying your absolute best to survive, you are being massacred. You tap out, smile, shake hands and start again. The guy who just dominated you doesn’t let it feed his ego, as he has been in your position many times before, and still finds himself there when dealing with higher ranks and more skilled practitioners. The model of humility is there in front of you to emulate.

I generally disagree that martial arts promote humility. Ego is bred through the self-confidence of mastering physical techniques within a martial art. Humility is handed to you after a practitioner realizes there are beings of greater skill and mastery in their discipline, yet many of them are devoid of the arrogance often found in the inexperienced. It’s hard to have a huge ego when the person who just trounced you has been around the block a few times and realizes his own place in the scheme of things.

So whenever I see a person with an ego out of control in the world of martial arts, I just know he hasn’t been lucky enough to have the opportunity of losing with any kind of regularity or consistency.

I’ve lost so many times. You don’t even know.

But it’s nothing personal. It’s just training.

And we should all get a taste of that truth.

An Uchideshi Experience: Chapter Eight

Sports and the Religious Experience of the UFC

I was still going to high school in Canada when my friend Aaron casually mentioned that there was going to be some kind of fighting event on pay-per-view. I asked what kind of fighting would be in this competition, and he told me, “Every kind. It’s going to be karate vs. tae kwon do, judo vs. savate, jiu-jitsu vs. something. It’s going to be everything vs. everything.”

The first thing out of my mouth was, “Are they going to have aikido in there?”

“I don’t think so,” he said, “I looked, but I didn’t see anything.”

Well, somehow or another, I thought Aaron was going to record it. I remember him saying he was going to record it, but when I asked how the show was the next Monday at school, he said he didn’t know. This was not what I wanted to hear.

“What do you mean you don’t know? Weren’t you supposed to record it?”

“Yah, but I didn’t have any money.”

I was a disappointed, but it wasn’t a huge deal since I didn’t know what I was missing out on. I did hear what happened, though. Aaron and I were at the gym and one of the regulars there had seen it. He explained how it worked: it was a tournament; you had to fight twice to get to the finals, and it had been a pretty good show. I asked him who won, and he said,

“This little guy from Brazil. He did jiu-jitsu. He was really sneaky, you know. Someone would try to punch him, he’d duck and get behind and choke ‘em, or put them in some kind of joint-lock.”

That’s pretty smart, I thought to myself. “Do you remember his name?”

He thought about it for a minute, “It was, uh, God, it was something like… Man, I thought I had it there. Sorry.”

Other guys in the gym were listening to the conversation, and they piped in their opinions. “Hey, you know who I really want to see in there? Chuck Norris. Yah, either that or Steven Seagal. I’d love to see those guys kick ass.”

That was basically the consensus. They wanted to see some of the movie stars get in there and mix it up. Not to see if they could really do it, that thought didn’t even enter

into the picture. These guys wanted to see the moves done in movies actually executed at full speed, with full contact. Now that’s entertainment!

Somebody’s recollection of a fight is a poor substitute to actually seeing it, so I was very pleased to see ads come up for another tournament a few months later. And this time, I wasn’t going to take any chances with Aaron being low on funds. I went through the necessary steps of going to the cable company, getting a pay-per-view box, slapping down the deposit, setting it up, and having my two buddies over for the fight. Such things should not be subject to chance.

I was really curious what it was going to be like. I’ll admit that I thought it would be a lot more like the movies. Lots of fancy spinning, jumping, flying high kicks, an occasional throw, maybe a little stuff on the ground before they scrambled back up to their feet to punch and kick again. But I wasn’t expecting what I saw.

UFC II is the most brutal of them all, but also the most illuminating to the classical martial artist. Inoki Ichihara, an incredible karate practitioner from Japan, was easily taken out of his element by Royce Gracie, that “sneaky” Brazilian, and choked into submission. Pat Smith took on Scott Morris, a ninjitsu stylist, and elbowed him into both semi-consciousness and reconstructive surgery. And Johnny Rhodes fought Fred Ettish, in an infamous bout that I remember as the epitome of a martial artist meeting a street fighter.

As I watched, my heart actually went out to Fred. Here he was, a small, wiry guy, probably pretty strong for his size, walking into a mixed martial arts competition with a traditional karate mentality. Even though he stated that he had ultimate faith in both his style and his sensei, I don’t really think he understood that this was an entirely different game, that this was not sparring as he knew it.

When he squared off against Johnny Rhodes, he assumed an orthodox karate posture, and fired a crisp front snap kick far away from his target. Basically, all it took was one good overhand right from Johnny (who had been around the block a few times, you could tell), and Fred Ettish fell to the ground, a big gash above his eye, not knowing what to do, but realizing that he was losing very, very badly. I’ve got to give him credit, his heart allowed him to hang on, and consequently, he took quite a beating.

By the end of the show, it had all been laid out in front of us. Royce Gracie (people were starting to remember his name at this point), had easily rolled through another tournament. The wind had been knocked out of the sails of the classical camp, and illusions of stylistic invincibility were gone. Well, except for maybe Gracie Jiu-Jitsu.

In its place, a new sport was born. Sure, it was a little rough around the edges, not terribly graceful, and it shamelessly played up the possibility of catastrophic injuries through the “no rules” slant (which it would later regret). But at least it had begun with a bang.

I’d never really liked sports before. Whether they were individual or team, it didn’t matter. My parents never pushed it and since it was up to me, I didn’t get involved in

traditional youth activities (football, baseball, basketball, or hockey in Alaska) because I didn’t have any interest.

I tried a few things in high school, but it all seemed pretty pointless. If you devoted your life to getting ahead in competitive athletics, you might win a scholarship to a college where you could continue to compete. Then, if you were in an elite minority, you could turn pro after school. That is, if there were professional organizations in your particular sport. If you were a wrestler, you could go to the Olympics, but then what? Coach? Same thing for cross-country skiing, gymnastics, diving, whatever. It just didn’t click with me. Why would I want to play football when I, most likely, wouldn’t ever play again after high school? I wanted something that could serve me in the long run.

Then martial arts came into the picture. They were a sport, a discipline, an art, and a means of social interaction that I could continue for the rest of my life. Plus, let’s not forget, I’d learn martial skill.

But they didn’t have trading cards, pennant races, huge stadiums packed with fans, national news coverage, or multi-million dollar contracts for their stars. Being an action hero is the closest you can come to that kind of payoff, and that’s different from being a pure martial artist.

I never followed football, baseball, or hockey. I thought they were boring. I probably would have enjoyed, or at least appreciated those sports, had I played. But this was something I did play, something that I could follow, something I could lose myself in by merely watching.

Maybe there’s something that I missed along the way. Whether it’s simple idolatry, a vicarious extension past your athletic limits, or just a way for a boy to dream, I think following your favorite sport is important. Although Noam Chomsky may analyze it down to a distraction for the masses, keeping our attention diverted from things that really affect our lives, like political policies, I still think it’s important. It adds a little drama to our day; it may inspire us, or inform us of the struggles and triumphs of others on a stage for all to see. At the very least, it gives us a little extra impetus to roll out of bed in the morning because we have something to look forward to.

So finally, after years of watching major sporting events apathetically, I realized what the magic of sports was all about through the UFC. Finally, a sport that I practiced, understood, and personally identified with had come into existence, and I was hooked. It took everything: boxing, kickboxing, judo, jiu-jitsu, karate, tae kwon do, wrestling, and whatever else you want to throw into the mix; combined it, and allowed me to witness with my own eyes answers to martial questions I had been struggling with for years. All done in a format that, to me at least, was undeniably real.

For others however, it’s not quite as convincing. I’m not talking about the close-minded, uneducated conservatives who think it’s human cockfighting and are determined to ban it. I’m talking about our own brothers in the martial arts community! They refuse to listen to the Word, to the Truth, to the Light of the UFC.

I find it difficult to believe that they would rather close their eyes and damn themselves than be born again under a new baptism.

There’s not much I can do other than shake my head. You can try to spread the Word, but you have to be very subtle because, by and large, people don’t want to hear it. They get very defensive very quickly if they feel you’re insinuating that their art is ineffective.

I should know. I did, and I still do from time to time when people tell me the arts I’ve studied don’t work. Judo, jujutsu, aikido, iaido, Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu; all have come under attack at one time or another by other martial artists. I take it all in stride, and try to see their points from their perspective.

Others don’t. They wear blinders or simply write off what they see. When I was taking tae kwon do, our assistant instructor was a freshly minted black belt, which translated to cocksure invincibility. This guy was no specimen, mind you. He was actually kind of chubby, and around 19 or 20 years old, but he had these freakishly flexible hips that allowed him to throw kicks in amazing directions. I have to say he was good at tae kwon do, but still not awe inspiring. When I asked him about the UFC, he immediately revealed his deeply rooted misunderstanding of the reality of combat.

“The UFC? Yah, I’ve seen that. Those guys, ahh, they’re not really good. I’ve seen them. They’re really slow, and some of the guys are pretty sloppy. If someone tried to shoot in on me, I’d kick their head off.”

I’d like to hear him say that while Ken Shamrock or Royce Gracie are in the room, but talk is cheap. Lots of people talk, lots of people talk about fighting, lots of people talk about fighting in the UFC. Few actually do it. Anyone who has the balls to walk through that crowd, step into the octagon, and throw down with everything he’s got has earned my respect, even if he loses terribly. It takes a lot of courage, and to actually be selected to compete (the caliber of fighters chosen has risen dramatically over the past few years), speaks volumes for a fighter’s physical prowess, dedication, and mental toughness to endure the training necessary to become a world-class mixed martial arts fighter.

You have to be able to put your ego aside and overcome your weaknesses, which usually entails some degree of starting over. If you’re a great grappler, and can’t humble yourself into seeking out a boxing coach and take a few shots learning to survive on your feet, you won’t survive in the UFC. It’s the same for a lot of strikers who need to learn grappling. You have to be able to become that empty cup that many martial artists wax on about, but haven’t actually checked for awhile. It’s survival of the fittest, plain and simple.

Which is why I think a lot of people simply ignore the UFC. Maybe it will just go away and they can go back to teaching tae kwon do (or whatever) in isolation, without having to have this constant visual reminder that not only have traditional arts failed to do well, but so have one-dimensional fighters. Who really wants to be reminded that an art they’ve labored in for years, and which has enriched their lives immeasurably, does very poorly against a skilled opponent?

It’s a tough one to swallow, I’ll admit, particularly if you’re an instructor and teaching that art is your livelihood. But, that’s the evolution of things, and I believe cross-training is where it’s at. On the flip side, since the instructor would already have a strong suit, it’s pretty easy to add to his knowledge, since fighting technology has never been more readily available or easily accessible.

Think about it. Fifty years ago, if you knew any martial art, and went against Joe Dirt in an alley, chances are you would have done really well. Why? Because Joe had probably had never seen anything other than boxing and wrestling before you threw that Thai kick, tossed him with a tai otoshi, or put that wrist-lock on. Taking someone by surprise through an unorthodox approach gives you a tremendous advantage.

But today? Just look in the phone book, and you can study tae kwon do, karate, kung fu, judo, jujutsu, aikido, sambo, pa kua, tai chi, boxing, kickboxing, silat, or a dozen different arts from all corners of the globe. Since the advent of the VCR, and through modern telecommunications systems such as the Internet and satellite TV, you don’t even have to live in a town with martial arts instructors to receive exposure to the latest fighting technology. Watch the UFC on a satellite dish, order a bunch of exotic martial arts videos through a magazine or the Internet, and a wealth of information will be beamed or delivered right to your door.

Ten years ago, grappling was massively underestimated by most martial artists. But today, most practitioners will now acknowledge the importance of grappling, largely because the fighting technology held by families such as the Gracies has been given public exposure through vale tudo style events.

The Gracies could have continued to convert people slowly to the effectiveness of their system; student by student, through challenge matches and Gracie in Action videotapes. Even then, some people would find it difficult to completely change their beliefs because the general consensus of the martial arts community remained the same: one punch or one kick and you’re dead.

By organizing and demonstrating the effectiveness of Gracie Jiu-Jitsu in the UFC, it forced a paradigm shift in the martial arts community at large. People being people, once the majority had acknowledged the effectiveness of grappling, a huge new market was opened with high demand, and the Gracies were there to fill it. But the technology they innovated and refined was out of their hands at that point. People saw, people studied, and people trained. Now it’s only a matter of time before the rest of the world catches up. It may take generations, but I believe it will happen.

So the cat is out of the bag, and now that it’s free, nobody knows where it’s going. It shot out like a bullet and never stopped to look back, just like the fighters who are adopting these techniques and expanding their horizons. In the few years the UFC has been around, the quality of the fighters has risen exponentially, and everybody’s learned the game. Boxing combinations, Thai kicks, double-leg takedowns, the guard, armbars, knee bars, chokes, shoulder locks, ankle locks, heel hooks, defensive footwork and octagon tactics are not simply known by an elite minority; almost every fighter entering the UFC is either highly skilled in, or at the very least familiar with, execution of all those techniques.

It’s exciting, isn’t it? Both martial arts and martial consciousness are evolving at a rate never before seen, thanks largely to the martial testing ground the UFC has provided. But, I must admit, the UFC is not the be all and end all of fighting. Actually, despite the fact that they’re really fighting, the UFC can be terribly unrealistic.

Let’s start with clothes. Most competitors in the UFC reduce clothing to a pair of tight-fitting shorts, generally unacceptable for public outings. And the he kind of clothes you’re wearing can make a large difference in a fight.

Things would be a lot different if everyone were forced to wear a gi. Not only would judo and jiu-jitsu players do a lot better because many of the techniques in their arsenal are gi dependent, but they’re also highly skilled at limiting an opponent’s mobility solely through how they grasp their clothing. Without clothing, watching two evenly matched opponents grapple can be like watching snakes: slipping, sliding, constantly reversing techniques and positions. With clothes, things are much slower, and if your opponent knows how to effectively manipulate you with what you’re wearing, you can feel pretty helpless. Believe me, I know.

Don’t forget about footwear. A lot of those foot and leg locks are much harder for opponents to wiggle out of if they’re wearing shoes. But that risk would be offset by the huge power increase generated for kicking by a pair of steel-toed boots. Can you imagine a savate champion in the UFC with a pair of cowboy boots? He may not win, but it could be a Phyrric victory for his opponent if he managed to get some shots in.

Next, let’s have the fighters begin standing face to face, with no more than a foot between them. That’s how a lot of fights start in a bar, with no Big John McCarthy asking them if they’re ready before they “get it on.” Or, if that still seems too even, flip a coin, and have the loser of the toss stand with his back to his opponent, so he can get jumped. You know, add that element of surprise.

I could go on and on with other ways the UFC could change its format to more closely approximate the conditions of a street fight. Friends, weapons, alcohol, light conditions, even the surface you’re on would change the tactics you adopt. I think you’d agree that the UFC would be much different if everyone were required to wear a T-shirt, denim jacket, a pair of jeans and steel-toed boots, then squared off in an asphalt octagon.

But it’s not like that, which in a way, gives it a kind of nobility. It’s purified combat, taking place in an environment where advantages are evened and variables minimized. It allows technique, strategy, and athleticism to shine, maximizing the safety of the competitors while still demanding them to give it their all. It is a highly controlled arena, but within the wide parameters of combat that have been established in the UFC and MMA competition, a tremendous amount of martial freedom and technical creativity is allowed.

Some martial artists I know criticize the rules established by the UFC. No biting, no eye gouging, no fishhooking, no small joint manipulation, no pressure points, and a few others that have been put in place mainly to appease the incredibly hypocritical cable companies.

Let’s go over some of these rules. As Iron Mike has shown us, biting is a savage act that may inflict permanent damage, but will not, by itself, incapacitate an opponent.

No fishooking is a good one, because if somebody sticks their finger in their opponent’s mouth, they’re taking the risk of being bitten, so it goes hand in hand with the no-biting rule.

Eye gouging may incapacitate some, but if they’re still ticking after you’ve done it, all you’ve really done is piss them off to the point where now they’re going to really hurt you.

No small joint manipulation is intended to keep people from breaking fingers and toes. But fighters are tough, and they’re able to eat that pain, especially if they have a more substantial submission nearly in place.

Overall, by entering the UFC and adhering to the rules, you’re not really giving up all that much, but some people still insist that they’re so unfairly hampered by the restrictions that they can’t really show what their arts are capable of.

My take on it is this. Yes, these can be effective techniques for primal, animalistic defense, but if you don’t have the ability to fight without your beloved eye gouge or the freedom to bite you’re severely deficient in martial ability. Using whatever it takes to survive is OK in a life or death situation, but the UFC is a method of testing martial prowess, and if you don’t want to test yourself because you believe the conditions are unfair, then when will you test yourself? When you get jumped in the street?

If that’s the only time you elect to spar, you’re not going to do very well, because you haven’t developed the attributes or timing necessary to activate your techniques or the ability to stay calm in high-pressure situations. Don’t depend on the dirty stuff, thinking it will all be over when you jab him in the eye. You may get lucky, but I wouldn’t count on it, especially with vital areas and pressure points. Pressure points work, but not under all conditions, and some people are insensitive to them. You’ve got to have a backup.

You may think the rules are limiting, but actually, it’s your limited skills that will come back to haunt you in permanently impairing somebody’s vision or biting a chunk out of a leg. Haven’t you ever lost your temper? Haven’t you ever made a mistake? Putting somebody in an immobilization or submission technique will allow time for both of you to calm down, and act as a buffer before actions are committed that may corner you into a lifetime of regret. Plus, isn’t it more admirable to be able to effectively control or subdue an attacker while injuring him as little as possible?

I think so. After all, the only time a lot of people actually get to use their martial training is holding down a drunken friend. You don’t want to hurt him, you just need him to calm down. That’s real skill and compassion, and it’s real life.

In a way, the UFC is a little bit beyond most hobby martial artists. It’s the bigtime, it’s going to “the show.” Most people are not born with the genetics of Mark Kerr, have access to the mentorship and experience of Carlson Gracie, or have the ability to

devote themselves to full-time training as they do at the Lion’s Den. The ranks of professional fighters are growing, and because of the severity of their training, they are distancing themselves from your average martial arts practitioner. But that’s okay, it’s just the evolution of things.

The modern era has provided us access to the best hand to hand combat techniques from every corner of the globe, refined over centuries of experimentation. Couple this with advances in sports physiology and scientific training methods, and it should be no surprise that these fighters are the greatest martial athletes the world has ever known. Weight training, whey protein, nutritional analysis, anabolic steroids, supplementation, PNF stretching, visualization, biofeedback, target heart rates; all of these have propelled the modern athlete to push the envelope of human capability.

Which is why I don’t buy it when your average martial artist starts ragging on the realism of the UFC simply because they don’t allow things like biting and eye gouging. Even worse are those that dismiss the fighters offhand because- well, I’ll put it in their words:

“Yah, I think my sensei could take Mark Coleman or Rickson Gracie.”

I couldn’t believe my ears. “Are you serious? You really think he could beat them?”

“Of course. Those guys train for competition, and competitions have rules. They don’t train for combat. So they’re going to be limited in a real fight.”

Sometimes, I fear these people cannot be helped. Maybe they forget that their ace in the hole, the dirty stuff, can also be used by their opponent who’s developed his attributes, put in his time sparring, and knows how to be overwhelmingly aggressive. UFC fighters may not know weapon defenses, or tactics for multiple assailants, but I’ll put my money on almost any of them over a local bar tough if it’s simply fisticuffs. As an uninitiated observer of the UFC once noted, “Geez, the toughest guy on your block loses in 20 seconds!”

That’s the reality of it, and I think that’s one of the reasons why it excites me so much. There’s unpredictability in a fight, and the skill level these competitors operate at turns the martial into art. It’s breathtaking to watch two martial athletes at the top of their games square off in a contest that exemplifies the crux of the human condition. Skill, strategy, discipline, honor, respect, passion and pain intertwine momentarily in an expression of total energy and emotion. It is all beauty, it is all passion, it is all heart.

It hits me at a primal level. My heart races, appetite disappears, and pupils dilate. The UFC is my drug of choice. If they had it on as often as football or baseball, I don’t think I’d ever leave the house.

Religion must have seized people this way in the past, inspiring this kind of passionate devotion. Once the UFC is on, I’m no longer in control. The only way I can explain it is to say I am in rapture. With the light.

I couldn’t sit still during the famous Oleg Taktarov/Tank Abbot final of UFC 6, so I nervously paced in front of the television, arms folded across my chest, one hand on my chin. After Oleg finally won, I quietly pondered if God was keeping tabs on all of these quid pro quo UFC debts. I hope not. The afterlife isn’t going to be pretty if these promises actually count.

But this sport, which has revolutionized the world of martial arts, and further provided me with a wealth of information, entertainment value, and the occasional spiritual epiphany, is in danger. Some, without ever seeing the purity, skill, and athleticism of mixed martial arts competition, have consciously chosen to restrict access to viewing such events. Many of the major cable companies, hearing that it might be a political hot potato, dropped the UFC and MMA competitions from its pay-per-view service.

This is unfair on many levels. In the sport of boxing, people have died, suffered permanent brain damage, and had their ears bitten off. This is far worse than injuries competitors receive in the UFC, since most victories come through submission techniques. Unlike in the aforementioned events, MMA competitors may submit at anytime, without injury or shame, and without having to endure round after round of punishing blows to the head.

Additionally, with fewer homes to purchase the event, the economic losses of the company trickle down to the fighters. Even top-ranked fighters receive paltry sums in relation to their skills. They are professional athletes, and deserve to be compensated as their counterparts in football, baseball, and basketball are. Eventually, I believe the market will bear these salaries, but only if the events these athletes participate in are allowed to be seen by the general public. For now, they continue to do it for the love of the sport, not the lure of a big paycheck.

Whether it’s the modern continuation of combatic traditions, or the infectious passion of an emerging sport, I feel that the UFC has a lot to offer, not just to martial artists, but to everyone with an open mind. It is a microcosm, playing upon one of the most fundamental dilemmas in our existence: the uncomfortable tension of facing another person in one-on-one opposition. Yet that very confrontation has the power to enlighten us, since nothing makes you feel more alive than imminent conflict or an unavoidable fight. Our evolution and assimilation into the information age has not been without repercussions, so the UFC is simply reclaiming a vital part of our past, celebrating the human experience in greater totality.

It may not be me fighting out there in the octagon, but in a way, it is. I’m right there, every time, taking notes and inspiration from the competitors. I feel I’ve learned a lot, and realize that far beyond the biomechanics of executing techniques lie much deeper truths: Preparation is everything; there are many ways to win a fight; class is more endearing than victory; and a loss may cause a man to leave, but the fighter still remains.

These are lessons for us all, I think, and I look forward to learning more of them in the years to come, as I watch the UFC alone, quietly hoping God’s lost track of my promises…

An Uchideshi Experience: Chapter Nine

The Uninvited

Sensei was out of town, and I had just finished teaching the Wednesday night class when a blond guy in his early twenties strolled into the dojo. Immediately I bowed off the mat, made a beeline to him, and shook his left hand. I had to head him off at the pass because it was immediately clear that this individual was a little altered, if you know what I mean. Barefoot in jeans and a woolen pullover (not to mention the fluorescent green boomerang sticking out the back of his collar), he was a little bit dirty, and very wide-eyed.

I asked if I could help him and answer any questions he might have. He asked a few coherent questions before going off about how he loved the dojo and how he’d like his house in Japan to look just like it. He also thought that it was refreshing to see how clean the walls were, because as he explained, when the Japanese came to this country, “they took their ninja swords and covered the walls of their dojos with the blood of Americans.” This, of course, was before he revealed that he had been buried in ink up to his chest for the past seven lifetimes. He dug me, loved my explanations, and I shook his right hand before amicably parting. Out the door, he headed into the night. Apparently, it was good acid.

He was relatively harmless, but hanging around a dojo, you get an opportunity to see a variety of people come in and out, some invited, some not. Monterey is a pretty nice area, so there aren’t a lot of thugs coming in off the street, trying to test their stuff. But it does happen.

One time I can recall, a huge man stumbled in after class, very drunk from the bar next door, and asked Sensei if he thought he could flip him around like he saw the students being thrown. He was about six feet tall, and at least two hundred and fifty pounds, so it certainly would have been a challenge to get this guy airborne. I didn’t catch what Sensei said to him at first, but the guy was kind of puzzled by what he had heard, and changed his question to “So if I went one (left jab)/two (right cross slowly thrown toward Sensei’s head), you still think you can do it?”

Sensei’s reply shocked him even more than the first. “You don’t understand. There would be no one/two. There would be only one, and it would be over. There wouldn’t even be a two.”

“You really think so?”

“I don’t think so, I know so. There are people who look like they can really do things, and there are people who can really do things. I am one of the people who can.”

Sensei said it with such assurance that you could see it take the fight out our large friend, and finally, seeking confirmation on the secret of Sensei’s confidence, he asked, “You use angles, don’t you?”

“Yes,” Sensei answered, “you are very intelligent. We use angles and leverage.” And with that, they shook hands and the drunken challenger headed out the door.

That’s one way to handle challenges, taking the fight out of a person through psychological or situational manipulation. This, I believe, is a large part of aiki-jujutsu as I’ve come to find out, which was different from my original view.

After putting on a children’s martial arts camp, Sensei, Sheila, and I were on a long drive back to Monterey when I asked him for his explanation of the difference between jujutsu and aiki-jujutsu. Was it simply that aiki-jujutsu used an opponent’s momentum more efficiently than jujutsu, and depended on that commitment to a larger degree as an integral part of the technique? He said that was partially correct, but there was more to it than that. It took me a while to really digest what he said, but I think I’ve got it now.

Psychological distractions, fake-outs, knockout blows through pressure points, switching an attacker’s target to track your hand instead of your face; all of these are tricks and strategies of aiki-jujutsu. But do they work? Well. . . yes and no.

“The more aiki-jujutsu something is, the more bullshit it is,” Sensei explained, “which doesn’t mean it doesn’t work, it just means you have to create an environment or set up the right situation for it to happen.”

Then he went on about knockout blows. Occasionally, he’ll knock out a trusted student at the dojo for a demonstration, but he warned me that if someone is tense or expecting a blow to come, it’s not going to work. You have to create the circumstance, maybe talk to them, calm them down, cajole them, then when the timing’s right, deliver the strike unexpectedly.

It’s really no different than boxing, wrestling, judo, jiu-jitsu, or any other sport. Your competition knows what you’re up to and is generally familiar with the attacks in your arsenal. You have to use combinations of techniques to set your opponent up, or nothing’s going to work for you. To throw an experienced judo player in a tournament without some kind of feint or set-up is nearly impossible. These things don’t just happen; they must be made to happen.

Which is one reason why you don’t learn many of the tricks of aiki-jujutsu before the upper levels of Seibukan. Strategies using real-world variables can fail, and you better have a strong base of concrete physical skills to serve as a backup plan. But it’s good to remember that there are more strategies and options available to a person than they might initially imagine. In the movie Pumping Iron, Arnold Schwarzenegger explained how he could talk opponents into losing before ever stepping foot on the stage of Mr. Olympia, and advocated using methods outside the arena of competition to sway fortune your way. Life is full of variables, why not be creative and use them in your favor?

So what do you when somebody walks in the dojo and wants to prove how tough he is or how “real” the training isn’t? I don’t know. Some people field challenges, some invite them to join the class and feel the training for themselves; others get a large student to act as an escort, guiding them to their next stop. It’s a recurring problem

that will never go away, so new solutions must be constantly sought. One instructor I knew had the answer for his school. If someone came to issue a challenge, he’d walk to the back of the dojo, get his 9 mm pistol, calmly show it to them, and ask, “Alright, just how real do you want to get?”

Good question. Do you just want to disprove a particular technique or make it open hand-to-hand combat? Are the challengers aware that the instructor they chose may intend to use weapons, or feel that anything goes, including bites, groin shots, and eye-gouges? A challenge means a tapout to some and a life-or-death struggle to others. Most people don’t want to acknowledge that kind of gravity, but an animalistic, primal response to what a person perceives to be a life-or -death situation is a reality. I don’t think anybody would want to really push the envelope on the question of how real they’d like to get because so few could stomach the truth.

A good friend of mine from Indonesia brought it all into focus as we drove to Santa Cruz to train at Claudio’s. We were jabbering away about different styles, combat effectiveness, the truth in martial arts; in other words, the usual topics for two martial addicts. Then he blew me away by saying, “You know, it’s all bullshit anyway. It doesn’t matter if you know Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu or JKD concepts. In my country, if you speak out against the government, you’ll be floating face down in a river the next day, and it doesn’t matter how much you know, there’s nothing you can do to stop it.”

That is far more real than I’d ever like to get. Makes the drunk guy throwing out a challenge seem pretty inconsequential, and an overall waste of time. It puts things in perspective, for me at least. It may be tempting to showcase your skills on the street, but consider this: After the fight is over, can the barely victorious really be considered “the winner”? Does the thrill of victory last longer than its legal ramifications, or the healing time of a fractured hand? Think about it.

We’re all role-playing in martial arts, taking our turns in the game, so when challenges arise, I think it’s best to handle them peacefully and continue on. If you choose otherwise, be sure to pick your fights carefully, since the one you waste may be your last.

An Uchideshi Experience: Chapter Ten

Martial Artists, Bare Bones, and the Big Lie

Coming from a background in classical martial arts, I found it difficult to reconcile the disparities noted in martial artists, their arts, and their ranks in those respective arts. Initially, I thought that if you had a black belt, in anything, you were a killer. A person with a black belt was not somebody you wanted to mess with. After all, if they knew karate, all they’d have to do is hit you once and it would be over. A tae kwon do stylist could kill you with his feet, and an aikido practitioner would break your wrist into a hundred irreparable shards. The ancient knowledge and anatomical secrets that had been passed on were enough to dissuade me from ever tangling with black belt martial artist. I was just happy their code of ethics restrained them in exercising those powers.

But as I spent time training, I was disappointed to realize my pre-conceived notions were far off. For the longest time I tried to force the experiential data I had gathered into an ill-fitted paradigm of what I believed martial arts should be, instead of what they actually were. Only near the end of my uchideshi commitment did I toss it all out and come up with a new model that I now believe is more accurate- though certainly not definitive.

I love martial arts. I’m an addicted martial artist through and through. Identifying myself as such, the integrity of what a martial artist is couldn’t be compromised in my mind, yet I saw things that didn’t add up everywhere I trained.

It was really difficult for me to try and make sense of it all. Beginners don’t have the kind of perspective and experience that many martial veterans take for granted. Consequently, they “buy” into an art, investing themselves physically in training, intellectually in theory, and emotionally in their loyalty to their chosen art, frequently coming to its defense with a terse dismissal of criticism.

It’s only natural this would happen, but later on, if they end up studying another art, then some reconciliation must take place. Tae kwon do and jujutsu can’t both be the “ultimate” art, just as aikido, silat, judo, karate, shootfighting, and others fail to be “the best.” Some are better than others, depending on what you’re looking for, and some may not be for you.

Before I actually began training, I thought they’d all make you equally lethal, with the more esoteric doctrines holding the most appeal, since they probably contained some of the “secrets” I wanted to get my paws on. Then after I trained a few years, I realized that effectiveness relies heavily on both the technical syllabus of a system and the method of training. Some systems have more subtle and varied techniques than others do, and some make their practitioners tougher through attribute development. This creates a stronger, faster fighter who’s more resilient to pain, and more instictive through conditioning, repetitive drills, and sparring.

That’s the easy part to reconcile. All it took was a little bit of analytical skill and an awareness of how good martial artists are developed. The next step was a little trickier.

One of the most common questions posed to me regarding martial arts would come from friends unexposed to that particular arena. They’d come in and observe a class, or maybe just hang out waiting for me. Then after we left, they’d get to the crux of the dilemma. It was always a variation on this basic question:

“So Roy, tell me something. That thin little guy in the class. You know, the one with...yah...that one. He’s a higher rank than you are? He is? So if you guys got in a fight, he’d kick your ass? You know, in a streetfight or say you’re in a bar, if you guys got into it, he’d be able to do that thing you guys practice, Jukwondo or whatever you call it. Then why is he a higher rank? Doesn’t that mean he’s better than you?”

It’s a good question. It was tough for me to answer without going into a long tirade, and most people aren’t looking for a defensive justification of an art through technical

proficiency vs. real life effectiveness. All they want to know is, “Can he kick ass or not?”

Once I stepped away, removed myself from stylistic biases and was really honest with myself, I had to admit it. Most martial artists I’ve come across in my life cannot kick ass, and are delusional about their abilities.

Don’t get me wrong. There are absolute killers out there in the world of martial arts, guys you should never mess with in a million years, guys that would end the fight before you even knew what happened. But that’s not most people. That’s the tough minority. Many martial artists, unfortunately, don’t realize there are people off the street with no refined technical skill, have never stepped foot in a dojo, but will out muscle and overwhelm you with such relentless fury that you won’t even know which way is up. Unless your technique is really good, and your body has been trained to respond to that kind of intensity, as much as I hate to admit it- weight, strength, and savagery will win. Shoot a little adrenaline in a person’s system, and you’ll be amazed at how an untrained, ordinary person becomes an unorthodox nightmare of toughness and fear.

So how can people receive a black belt and not able to defend themselves against an angry construction worker? This was another paradox that struck me, trying to have it make some sense without having to conclude that martial arts were bullshit, because I knew they weren’t. They just weren’t consistent. I stewed on this for a long time, mulling over a few of the inconsistencies I’d come across.

What do you do with the elderly gentleman who generously devotes time to an art, is knowledgeable about it history, knows all the requirements for black belt, but has difficulty with the physical execution of techniques because his body is a wreck? Doesn’t he deserve a black belt? What about the young hotshot wrestler who, on the street, could decimate everyone in the dojo, including the instructors, but is stuck as a green belt? What should his rank be? What do you do with the guy who may not know karate, but he knows karazy, and would prevail in a fight on heart, intensity, and wild fury? Isn’t it all about who’s the best fighter?

I thought it was, but experience and a combination of the characters I’ve encountered over the years have forced me to categorize martial arts participants in a different way than I would’ve originally believed. Under the blanket label of “martial artists,” I have subsectioned them into three divisions: fighters, philosophers, and athletes. Of course, this kind of categorization requires that characteristics of vast numbers of individuals be generalized, but bear with me and imagine where people you’ve run across over the years drop into these divisions.

Fighters are primarily concerned with what works, regardless of how it looks or other stylistic considerations. Rank is not as much of an issue with this group, comparatively speaking. The need for a well-rounded martial education is of utmost importance in order to prepare them for whatever may come their way, since applicable street defense is always in the back of their minds. Weapons defenses, ground fighting, standup skills, control and arrest techniques- all are valued and practiced with equal fervor. Unfortunately, during exercises of lower practical value or a more esoteric nature, they often feel they’re wasting time, and are not shy in

voicing complaints. They aren’t afraid to bring up “What if...” scenarios, or ask direct questions to the teacher during demonstrations, where others would wait. The desire to turn up the intensity during class, occasionally to an unexpected or inappropriate level, can give them a reputation for being rough or uncooperative. Many times they test out the techniques in real life conditions (a.k.a. bar fight), and feel good about it, since they feel that everything they’re learning is meant to be used when the time comes.

Philosophers are looking for the beauty of the movements and the integration of martial philosophy into their daily life. Rank may or may not be much of an issue, but in disseminating constructive criticism to lower ranks, they’re able to delve far deeper than the biomechanics of body positioning, and encourage the student to monitor more subtle arenas such as posture, intent, and presence on the mat. They may identify very strongly with the ethical code of warriors past. Meditation is valued. Cultivation and manipulation of internal energy is desired. They would rather wait with a question and ask after class than put the instructor in a potentially embarrassing situation. The history, tradition, and lore of their particular martial discipline is studied and cherished. Martial arts are seen as occupying a higher stratum and social function than merely sport or exercise. Aesthetics are observed with great sensitivity in all areas: dojo and uniform appearance, cleanliness, etiquette, adherence to foreign terms and traditions, et cetera. Devoted and knowledgeable, they are often excellent ambassadors of an art.

Athletes enjoy the rigors of competition and celebrate the improvement it creates within individuals. Attribute development for speed, power, endurance, flexibility and aggressiveness is encouraged and applauded. Athletes would rather test their techniques on the mat than on the street, and often have a strong bond with their team members. Strategy and innovation are appreciated, as they can give a competitor the upper hand through unpredictability and surprise within the confines of the rules governing their sport. Some athletes may not look on their discipline as being anything more than a workout, and a training session without sparring is incomplete. Athletes like to do, rather than talk about doing, or analyze the spiritual ramifications and conceptual basis of doing. They like to sweat, and can expend tremendous amounts of energy in a single training session. Because of the intensity of their training, they can eat pain and bear discomfort well. They love the game, and are concerned with what works for them in that game. The drilling of basics makes them lightning quick. If a beginner were to step into their arena, they’d feel helpless against a seasoned competitor. This kind of disparity can make it all seem effortless.

A well-rounded martial artist, in the fullest sense of the word, should be a strong combination of fighter, philosopher, and athlete. Most people are already a combination, but are unevenly weighted in one category or another. Long-term training and exposure to a variety of participants will tend to even out practitioners, but unless they’re aware that they need to become more athletic, more streetwise, or see the bigger picture of their art’s social function, they will remain lopsided.

Athletes are probably the safest group in remaining lopsided. All their attribute development pays heavy dividends in a street fight or crisis situation, as they can often overwhelm their opponents, ending the fight before it really begins. That’s why my gut belief is that you have to be a martial athlete before you can be an effective

martial artist. Once you have the attributes, you can manufacture yourself into a formidable mix of fighter and philosopher, since the raw materials are already at your disposal.

Philosophers are probably the most difficult to convince that they need to become more well rounded, since many believe the work they’re doing is transcendent of violence and competition, leaving them the least safe on the street. The philosopher will project into the nether and leave the body behind, while the transcendence they’re looking for is right there in front of them, but must be achieved through the body, not ahead of it.

That’s what makes martial arts such a fantastic medium for self-empowerment. You only have one body, and you have to take full responsibility for its training and conditioning. As much as you might like to, you can’t delegate it out to another body, you can’t escape the pain, the humiliation, the exhaustion, and the effort required on a day-to-day basis. If you are able to eat bitter and dedicate yourself, you see improvement and results. It’s very simple: you get out what you put in, but there are no shortcuts. You can’t intellectualize it away- you have to actually feel it. Some things must be endured.

Fighters may be drawn to martial arts because of the techniques, but it’s not really an efficient way for them to learn to bare bones of self-defense. That’s why I’ve found that most of them don’t stick around in traditional arts. Those who do stick around are eventually evened out in the aforementioned categories, and become refreshingly open and pragmatic martial artists.

But the dissatisfied fighter who bounces from art to art, picking up techniques here and there leads to a fundamental question for all martial artists. What does it really take to protect yourself? Nothing fancy, nothing stylized, just the most necessary tools for bare bones street defense.

A longtime martial arts practitioner I know asked one of his private students what he wanted to learn. Did he want to know how to simply win a street fight, or did he want to learn some cool moves he could show to his friends that were also fun to practice? The student wanted a little of both, which which my friend happily complied, but if he’d only wanted street tactics, I asked myself, what would he have taught and how long would it have taken?

A Thai kick, jab/cross punch combination, and a rear naked choke. I think if those basic techniques were diligently practiced under proper supervision, with real time drills, you’d be better prepared for a street conflict in a few months than most traditional practitioners after years of practice. The list of techniques is almost arbitrary, and could just as easily be a sidekick, straight blast, and an osoto-gari. What really matters is the practice, getting it to the point where intelligent, scientific movements are instinctive.

A female Japanese martial artist once explained that the ultimate goal of physical training is perfection, but the definition of perfection must be clearly understood. Westerners tend to think of perfection as an unreachable goal where techniques cannot be performed any better. The Japanese view perfection as an achievable point

in training where your body reacts without conscious thought. That makes a lot of sense to me, from a martial perspective. After all, in a crisis situation, you’ll never rise to your level of expectation, you only sink to your level of training. But when you get the opportunity to meet master martial artists with a lifetime of training, the instantaneous and precise nature of their techniques can seem to approximate “perfection”, in the Japanese sense of the word.

Mike Swain, arguably the greatest judoka the United States has ever produced, was a guest instructor at Seikishin Dojo, a jujutsu school founded by Senseis Rowdy and Margarita Jimenez Hall. Rowdy is a San Jose police officer, and exactly the kind of person you don’t want to pick a fight with. He’s got all the qualifications: military history, police officer, a fourth-degree blackbelt in Seibukan, and a fifth-degree black belt in Kempo Karate. Strong, fast, aggressive, and experienced, hypothetical strategies of fighting Rowdy quickly degenerate into decisions about caliber of ammunition, not hand-to-hand techniques.

On the wall of my old judo dojo was a poster of Mike Swain leaving the mat after winning the world championships. I thought that was the closest I’d ever get to meeting him, but knowing my background in judo, and realizing how much it would mean to me, Rowdy allowed me to be Mike’s uke for the seminar. It was quite an experience. Just having him get ahold of my gi was enough to let me know that this was not a normal man. It’s difficult to put it into words, but there’s something unique about physical contact with a high-level martial artist. I’m not talking about them working techniques; I’m just talking about touching them. I’ve felt it with Sensei, Claudio Franca, Mike Swain, and few others. It’s an underlying solidity or density to their physique that stems from years and years of consistent training. Perhaps it’s the same things students of Morihei Ueshiba described when they said that grabbing his arm was like touching steel wrapped in cotton. I don’t know, but it’s definitely different.

I’ve had several judo masters toss me around before, but none gave me the same feeling of effortlessness that Mike Swain did. He was like a machine. Pop, pop, pop, his body sprang into place perfectly poised and balanced, ready to explode, all done in the fraction of a second I was off-balanced by him snapping his wrists on my gi. His footsweeps were equally unbelievable. Impeccable timing and proper body alignment added up to technique so clean it made me giddy just receiving it. It must be magic, right? No. Some sort of esoteric secret he picked up training with the Japanese? Hardly.

Actually, it’s very simple. Speed x technique = power was the efficiency formula he gave us, and hearing that really hit home with me. Being in the right place at the right time, using the momentum of a properly aligned and balanced body in motion is what gives you that illusion of effortlessness, since the strain we recognize as using strength comes from segmented, partially committed attempts at techniques. The almost gymnastic, acrobatic nature of turning your body into a dynamic weapon through total commitment to a strike or throw takes faith earned through hard training.

But the Big Lie perpetrated in martial arts is that techniques are effortless, instead of feeling effortless (in the case of mastery or specific conditions), and strength isn’t

necessary in order to be effective. In fact, nothing could be further from the truth.

In all the hours I’ve ever been on the mat, I’ve experienced the illusion of effortlessness only twice. In one of those instances, I was playing judo, my partner zigged when I happened to zag, and popping into position, I hefted him over my hip and on to the ground. The technique was so devastating he had to leave the mat. I remember having him up on my hip and thinking to myself in the middle of the throw, “Man, he’s so light.” Could I do it again? Never, at least not like that. I’d never be able to achieve the same effect with such minimal energy input. I was lucky enough to be in the right place at the right time, that’s all.

Now, training had enabled me to quickly put myself in the proper position, but even more importantly, circumstances aligned where my partner committed to a movement complimentary to mine, and voilà! I was able to execute a technique that was at an extreme of what I call the power spectrum, or strength/technique continuum.

Think of a line, with 100 percent strength on the far left, and 100 percent technique on the far right. Both ends of the spectrum are theoretical voids; neither can really exist. Every technique, no matter how clean, requires strength from the body’s musculature, and pure power is an equal impossibility because some degree of angles and leverage must be employed for one physical body to affect another. Nevertheless, work with me here…

Strength and technique work hand in hand, and are both necessary in the creation of power, which is what martial arts is all about. It sounds like heresy, but that’s really the aim of martial arts: learning how to focus your energy and cunningly overpower your opponent at their weakest point. If you’re strong enough, there’s no need to train, aside from personal enrichment. The principles of distraction, angles, and leverage are designed to magnify the power of individuals whose physical strength is inferior to that of their opponents. As far as effectiveness goes, it doesn’t matter where the power comes from. An equal amount of power can come from a disproportionate amount of brute strength or refined technique, but both are capable of doing the same amount of work.

As martial artists, all we’re doing is adjusting the ratio of strength to technique, aiming to permanently settle in at the technical side of the continuum. But when technique isn’t quite right or angles are a little off, strength can make up the difference. It is, in a sense, the lubricant of technique, smoothing out the rough spots until your body develops the speed and intuitive feel to match energy and exploit opportunities along the path of least resistance.

Ideally, very little strength is used in a properly executed technique, but this is very different from saying strength isn’t necessary. I understand, of course, that sometimes extolling the position that strength doesn’t matter or isn’t necessary is necessary to get it through the heads of dojo brutes. It’s a pleasure to tap to technique, and a terrible thing indeed to be mauled into submission, so lofting the ideal of effortlessness is an excellent strategy to jump-start students down the road toward clean, technical training.

But some people get frustrated when the words they hear (“strength doesn’t matter”)

are continuously disproved in physical reality. I think frustration levels would drop and morale would rise in beginning students if a slight modification were offered: Strength matters less the better your technique is, but some amount of strength is continuously required. Whether that strength is required for speed in order to execute a throw while your opponent is off balance, generating maximum velocity of a strike, or molding your body around a limb in order to go for a submission lock, it doesn’t matter. Strength will always be necessary. The need for strength may diminish (and if you’re training properly, it should), but it will never disappear completely.

Aspiring martial artists should be warned that it takes a lot of exhaustive effort and persistence to do the hard training required to develop crisp techniques with sharp timing. It really is paradoxical: you have to be tough and strong to get to a point where you only have to use a little energy to get the job done. I sometimes wonder if instructors forget this, because all too often they execute clean techniques ingrained over years and years of experience, not realizing that if they happen to get caught in a situation where a little extra strength is needed, it’s easily summoned from reserves, since they’ve already been through the process.

It isn’t strength vs. technique; it’s strength working with technique in the creation of power, or the ability to do work. It’s all about power, it always has been. Martials arts, foreign policy, interpersonal relationships, everything in our lives revolves around power. Power gets things done, but contrary to popular belief, knowledge isn’t power, in and of itself.

Martial knowledge, alone, is nothing more than a theoretical exercise in physics and physiology. You can know how to do a thousand techniques, but unless you’re actually able to perform and apply them in a moment of crisis, all you’ve acquired will have been rendered useless. No, knowledge is power only when applied, and the power of martial techniques can only be applied through the process of training. You can only know a technique if you do the technique, and you have to practice doing, all the time, for actual proficiency. Otherwise, forget about it. True power, true effectiveness, only comes through constant application.

It’s this constant application that keeps us grounded and real. Gaining strength anchors you to reality by forcing you to push your limits through muscular exertion, and apply a maximum effort to the point of failure. While strength may not be an end in itself, distancing yourself from the dirty hands and daily toil of strength cultivation is a dangerous proposition, since it serves as a reminder of how hard it is to overcome variables that might obstruct your efforts in this imperfect world.

The “effortless” techniques displayed by masters cannot be shortcut to solely by a conceptual understanding of an art; it is arrived at over a lifetime of training, shifting the ratio of strength to technique by constantly refining sensitivity, position, and timing. Strive for technique but back it with strength. Hopefully, you’ll never need it, but it’s good to know it’s there. It’s a terrible feeling to come up short in any situation, and if your life is dependent on that debt, serious preparation is necessary. Keep a little extra in your strength account, and you’ll never have to know what it’s like to find yourself in the red, with no one to bail you out.

An Uchideshi Experience: Chapter Eleven

Martial Arts, Wholesale Frauds, and Occasional Shams

The world of martial arts is a very small one, especially once you’ve been inside of it for a while. It’s a family, a brethren, a belief system, a social arena, a physical activity, a creative outlet, at best a means of moral education, at worst a ladder for political positioning.

When a person first enters, everything seems magical. The desire to work hard and be disciplined is often strong during the first few months, and progress quite rapid in learning the basic warm-ups, rolls, falls, kicks, punches, throws, locks, or whatever is included in the syllabus of that particular martial art.

But the three-to-six month fizzle will eventually set in, when students realize that their initial, invincible enthusiasm must give way to a lifestyle accommodation. It’s simply necessary in order for long-term progress to be made in an art.

Martial arts in this sense, engrained in a lifestyle over a long period of time, have the ability to even tempers, shape fundamental attitudes toward life, and act as an extended family, aside from the host of physical gains readily available.

After several years, many people acknowledge that they probably couldn’t stop training if they tried, or when a layoff is forced (an injury, for example), some wonder what they ever did with those blocks of time before martial arts came into their lives.

Certainly, this kind of extended commitment will give your techniques a maturity and refinement that comes only through experience, but long-term training doesn’t necessarily equal perfection.

When confronted with the all too common question of how long it would be before a student’s techniques were “perfect”, a noted aikido instructor asked the student if he had ever found the perfect way to, ahem, tend to his bodily functions. The student, not expecting such a personal example to be drawn, was a bit puzzled until the master explained that long-term training is not about perfection, it’s about just doing it and moving on. Just put on your hakama and train. Some days will be better than others, that’s just the way it works, and doing your best with the necessary task at hand is all you can expect to do. Isn’t that how everything gets done?

When martial arts are a priority in life, a significant amount of time, muscular effort, mental energy, and monetary resources are given for technical knowledge, experience, aches, and bruises. It’s almost masochistic, and far too often, in an outsider’s perspective, absolutely detrimental to your well-being. “Why would you pay to be thrown around and beaten up?” Of course, they’ll never understand unless they do it, and even when some people try it out, it simply isn’t for them. That’s understandable. I’m sure that rugby is a hell of a sport, a fun workout and all that, but watching rugby players hurl themselves at one another without pads seems like brutality, plain and simple. Not only do I fail to feel the faintest twinge of excitement toward rugby, if I were to step on the field, I would feel a very real sense of terror and fear the imminent injuries. On the other hand, watching people on TV getting choked out or their joints locked gets me all worked up. What’s wrong here?

We all have our specific interests, and we can’t expect everyone to like what we like. I’ve had a lot of friends and acquaintances over the years who I feel would have really benefited from the martial arts. Whether those benefits would’ve been physical, emotional, social, or a combination is pretty much moot. They didn’t want to study. I threw out some pretty persuasive arguments, but none of them bit. They just weren’t into it, and I had to respect that.

You can’t force anybody to come and train, but I feel as martial artists, we do have a responsibility to give accurate information, encourage those interested in training, and warmly welcome them when they arrive. Nobody wants to cast themselves in a poor light, so going into an unfamiliar environment like a martial arts studio (possibly without previous exposure to the customs and traditions) is really going out on a limb for a lot of people. If we could just ease that transition from speculator to observer, then from observer to participant, it would be good for the martial arts community as a whole and society in general.

I would have loved to been able to receive an introduction like that back in junior high. Instead, I ended up getting snowed by who guy that sat next to me in Spanish class. He told me about taking something called tae kwon do, and not knowing anything about anything at that age, I asked why he wasn’t taking karate instead. “No way man, tae kwon do beats karate. Karate is how to hit ‘em, tae kwon do is how to hit ‘em where it hurts.”

What can I say? I bought it, and the sad thing is, I still recall the scene after 10 years, because I was so happy to have somebody who had some experience, who obviously knew what he was talking about, tell me how it really was in the world of martial arts, a mysterious world I thought was “cool.”

For those who do make that leap and start learning, the reasons for doing so are as varied as the practitioners. Some people do it to keep in shape, others for a family activity. Many begin as method of learning self-defense, over time it may function more as a social club, frustration vent, focus center, or safe haven for simply getting away from their spouse (though few are honest enough to admit to it!). Whether reasons are sympathetic or esoteric, it doesn’t matter. All individuals, friends, and family are welcomed to the Brotherhood.

From an outsider’s perspective, it can all seem very strange, almost cultish. In a broad view, the martial arts community acts as a network of ritual centers around the world. How “American” is it to have foreign, often mystically tied traditions and customs, subservient behavior, and movements drilled to the point of robotic response being celebrated by society?

The goal? Automatic action without any kind of intellectual analysis. Why? Hesitation may occur, and from that, crucial opportunities may be lost. We train to act first, think later, etching the movements into our neuromuscular memory and letting our minds clear; struggling to become empty, entirely devoid of thought.

Some very conservative fundamentalist religions don’t like all the bowing and “mystical mumbo-jumbo” of some martial arts. Some involved in those organizations

find a way to train anyway, perhaps shaking hands instead of bowing, or keeping the whole thing under wraps. The others? Well, they just miss out.

Like in any religion, belief system, or political movement, there are always leaders and there are always followers. A lot of people really like their respective positions, leaders usually like being leaders, students like being students, and many students don’t really want to graduate to becoming teachers themselves. A few do, but many don’t because there’s a tremendous amount of responsibility that goes along with such a position

Unfortunately, some people put their faith in charismatic individuals who may not actually be reputable. They may appear to be reputable, with lists of credentials, but who really takes the time to check them out? If you’re just getting started in martial arts, it’s hard to even know who to begin to contact in order to investigate somebody.

If you’re a person who’s looking hard for something, and you want to believe, you may wind up taking classes from the David Koresh of karate. I’m serious, if people want to believe, there are individuals out there willing to take your faith and manipulate it for their own ends.

Every so often in the news we see religious cult leaders abusing their power, usually when the ramifications of their teachings spill into the public arena. They do it through different methods of psychological manipulation, from playing on the follower’s fears, guilt, and faith in God to outright brainwashing and isolation. All of this is usually accomplished without any physical abuse or threat of physical abuse. Unless they’re really far gone, most people would realize they’re in the wrong place if they’ve just taken a beating from their religious leader.

I doubt the disciples of Jim Jones feared his physical prowess, but martial arts students have to contend with that extra variable. Some martial arts teachers have managed to manipulate their students with a simple recipe: a slab of low-key physical intimidation, marinating in sweet reverence and trust, then sprinkled with mysticism to keep it all unattainable. If your instructor is skilled at mixing these ingredients, the end result can be intoxicating.

The physical power these people possess, coupled with the height of the pedestal students place them on makes it very difficult for curious individuals to honestly probe the validity of their instructor. A friend of mine, Michael, did investigate his teacher, and was horrified at what he discovered. When he told me, I was also surprised, since I had bought into this man’s projected image, beginning with a movie based on his participation in a secret martial arts tournament, then buying his book, which chronicled his never-before-told stories as a spy for the CIA.

I thought it best to let Michael tell his story, in his own words, and although some names have been changed or omitted, I have fought to keep this interview verbatim and free from reinterpretation. Keep in mind that Michael is a former police officer, a black belt in Hapkido, and a certified G.R.A.P.L.E. instructor under the Gracies. Let’s listen to what he has to say:

So how did you start training under The Instructor?

“My best friend Brian began training and asked me to come and check out the classes he was really enjoying, so I went down and he was in North Hollywood. He was only, I don’t know, 8, 10, or 12 blocks from the high school I went to, and so I started taking lessons there with him.”

Was it expensive?

“No, it was reasonable, I mean, no more, no less than the average martial art [in the] area. The Instructor was really, really, really a good people person. He knew how to elicit information from people; he knew how to find out what really motivated you. Whether it was the secret part of his training, or whether it was the discipline, or whether it was the self defense; he’d lock on what was of greatest interest to you and made sure he spent one or two minutes every day when he saw you talking about whatever it was that pushed your buttons.”

“You know, at the time of course, I didn’t know this, but after investigating found out that he had either a bachelor of science or some sort of degree from a local college in psychology. So he was certainly putting that to good use. He would never admit that to anybody that he had a degree in psychology, but I listened to him talk to other students who were primarily interested in money, and he’d talk to them about expanding the martial arts studios into franchise and how they could run one of them, or be his business manager. Whatever it took to convince somebody to stick around and put money into his organization, he’d do.”

“There’s no question that I learned a lot of valuable things. His boxing, what he taught, the basic boxing skills were, you know, legitimate boxing skills. But the longer and longer I stayed with him, the more and more I became suspect of his roots.”

“One of the instances was the first time he had a test, where my Dad and Mom came down and watched. He was showing one of his magic ninja death touch secrets, where he set a number of clay, not bricks, but I guess tiles, and how he’d break only this center tile with his dim mak death touch that he mastered, and told us how he could strike somebody leaving no mark whatsoever, yet totally destroy the inside of their body and kill them without any indication or proof whatsoever that he did it.”

“And my dad went home that night, and with a little bit of… like two minutes of practice, replicated the exact same thing. But my dad said basically it was kind of a physics thing, if you put the things and the right pieces, and hit it right, it’d break right in the middle and leave some of the other stuff intact, and he did it. And when my dad showed me that, I went back to class with a lot more of a critical eye.”

“And so, as I became more in his inner circle, because we’d go there at lunch time and practice, and we’d go there four or five days a week and practice, you know, we were there quite a bit, the more I became part of his inner circle and was in his office and stuff, the more I began seeing things that were totally unethical, bordering illegal.”

“Eventually he got to the point where he asked my friend Brian and myself to sign documents, an affidavit basically stating that he had very, very expensive martial arts swords that had been stolen during a robbery.”

“I was there when the swords arrived, you know, months earlier from Asian World of Martial Arts, they were probably the expensive… they weren’t the $79, probably the $99 Asian World of Martial Arts swords that were sharpened, and they looked pretty and I liked them. Being a teenager in high school, I was impressed, but when he claimed that they were, you know, 19 or 20 thousand dollars or whatever he claimed that they were and they were stolen and wanted insurance coverage and us to sign the affidavit, I just simply said that, you know at the time I wasn’t going to challenge him being as young as I was, but I just told him I wasn’t prepared to sign it, I didn’t know enough about the swords, and he’d have to look elsewhere. And you know, he found somebody who would sign it, and he probably got some kind of insurance settlement out of that.”

“He also firebombed his own car. I don’t know if the insurance company actually paid him out, but he made sure there was nobody around and ended up firebombing his own car for insurance purposes.”

How do you know that?

“From about four or five people who knew about it, I guess one person who actually saw it and helped him participate...”

Oh no! (laughter)

“...in the firebombing (laughter). I don’t know if he was ever prosecuted for that. I don’t even know if he got any money from the insurance company in the end, I think some kind of investigation was started.”

“The other thing that really surprised me was he was very, very abusive to his girlfriend. I mean, he’s a big powerful guy anyway, he had this little 105-pound blond girlfriend, and he used to abuse her pretty bad mentally, physically, emotionally, I mean just about every way. And she’d come to me a lot and tell me about the stunts he’d do and how he would be so physically abusive. You know, that just didn’t jive with somebody who was enlightened, and someone who’s a legitimate master and teacher.”

“I also remember going to a party at his home once, and I had to go to the bathroom real bad. You know, we were told to stay downstairs, use the downstairs bathroom, but someone was in that bathroom and I just couldn’t wait, so I zipped upstairs, ran into his bedroom area where the bathroom was and went in there.”

“You know, closed the door, and [was] using the restroom, sitting there, looked down and I think it was “Tao of Jeet Kun Do,” Bruce Lee’s book, and I kind of popped that thing open and started looking and, there were these - not yellow post it notes at the time- but they were some other little markers in there. I looked and they just happened to be everything we had learned for the last three or four weeks.”

“He basically was looking through and that was like his lesson plan. He sat on the toilet and would decide “OK, look this is this week’s,” then I looked over and I started going through a little basket of books. There were more books from Benny the Jet Urquidez, and other people who were legitimate martial artists, and he had marked, actually what week of training this would be, and I’d look through, and lo and behold, I looked through and what we had learned a month and a half ago Benny the Jet had on page 67 of his book (laughter). Which was...which was really funny.”

“The other thing that really, also, once my eyes were opened, was we’d be sitting in class and he’d have a bunch of kids there. White belts, people who had just started class, and he’d be teaching them how to create botulism in things like ice cream, and how to kill people without having people being able to prove that you’re the one who did it. I know that he was trying to keep his students and fascinate his students and all that, but teaching teenagers who’ve been in the art for a couple of weeks how to make botulism, in my eyes seemed pretty inappropriate (laughter)… to say the least.”

“Then he got to the point where he started breaking out his purple hearts, and his other Congressional Medal of Honor trophies and stuff. And the military is pretty open when it comes to verifying things, so I, and my friend Brian, and a couple other people began looking into it.”

“The Instructor was not in the Special Forces; he wasn’t injured in a Special Forces operation when a hand grenade went off and where he tried to save his friend. He was a painter in the Army, and he fell off the back of the paint truck one day, and hurt his back pretty badly, and was discharged because of that.”

“And that was just one more fabrication. The other thing that was really funny which I didn’t learn until years later was he kept telling us about his trainer, his ninja master trainer, I guess his shidoshi, and he was Tiger Tanaka. I can’t remember, I think it was the Koga Ryu of Ninjitsu.”

“I was watching a James Bond movie, and I can’t remember which one it is, but it was one with Roger Moore where there were ninjas. As I was watching, I heard somebody say Tiger Tanaka, and I stopped the tape. After about sixty seconds I said “Wait did I hear that?” and stopped the tape, and I rewound it, played it again, stopped the tape, rewound it, played it again maybe six or eight times, and that’s where he got the name Tiger Tanaka, it was from a James Bond movie. It was the ninja master in that James Bond movie! (laughter)”

“So once again, The Instructor had taken, you know, something from the real world, even though this was a movie which is all fiction, and kind of absorbed it into his own world. Like I said, he was just a wholesale fraud, absolutely, from one extreme to another.”

“Another trick he loved to do and fascinate people with was he’d put a blindfold on and then tell us he could sense and feel the heat of people’s bodies and tell people who was who when they were standing around him in the class, and there were exercises where he’d do it this. Well, if you know The Instructor, you know he’s got a really big nose and I started thinking to myself, “How is he doing this?” and realized that, you know, there were two fairly large gaps just to the edge or side of his nostrils

where he put that blindfold on because he did have a big nose. If you know him, you know he’s got a huge nose, unless he’s had it fixed recently.”

“So what I did was, when we were doing the exercise, all he was doing was memorizing people’s feet or their, you know, what the bottom of their feet looked like before class, and I’d started watching him before he asked to do these exercises and he was looking down at peoples feet. Well, I… we started doing the exercise and I let my gi down and then once we started doing it I kind of pulled away and rolled my gi up.”

“I don’t know, there was some sort of mark or something on my gi, blood or whatever, and when I rolled it up and I got back into the group, he kept skipping me over and over and over and over. And of course it was because, my gi wasn’t down and he didn’t know who this new person was. And that was just, you know, one more thing that verified the fact that this guy was a big fraud.”

“I guess a couple years, or however many years after I had taken classes from him, I went to the premiere of [his movie] and [a famous Belgian actor] was there signing posters and talking to people, and once it got quiet, where people were shuffling out of the theater, I began talking to [the actor] and started asking him how much he knew about The Instructor, and all that. He said, ‘Look this is movie, it’s fictionalized, it’s based very loosely on a story, and I’ve had many, many, many people come up to me and tell me this Instructor is nothing at all like what is portrayed in the story.’ And of course, you know, I also confirmed the fact that it ... it was an awfully big fraud.”

“There no question he had kind of a cruel side to him. We’d go into to class and he’d take his, his bamboo...”

Shinai?

“Yah, and we’d be practicing and he’d, on his senior students, he’d just literally whip the shit out of them. I’d go home and just have bruises going up and down my arms and legs - it looked like I was coming out of some POW camp in Vietnam. I just was bruised from head to toe, except for my face (laughter), everything else was covered. but you know, at the time I thought, you know, I was bad, and I was learning how take pain and take good training and all that other stuff, but the guy was simply a sadist. I mean, he enjoyed hurting people. When I learned about his girlfriend that he was hurting on a regular basis, there was just no question he was… he’s a bully, basically.”

“Like I said, the more and more and more I saw of this, the more I finally just kind of dismissed myself from the whole experience. I’m glad I took martial arts and I’m glad that I learned the boxing skills that I did, and all the other skills that I did, but it certainly woke me up when it comes to being very critical about a teacher’s credentials, always questioning, always wondering, never taking anything for face value, never taking somebody’s word just for their word. I mean, do research, look into it, ask people their credentials. Ask people where they’ve trained, you know, follow up and verify. Especially now with the Internet, you know, you should be able to contact almost anywhere around the world, and get additional information.”

“The thing that really surprised me the very most was his book, [book title], because, once again, everything is based on his relationship with the late [CIA administrator], and [that man] is dead. So you know, I could tell you right now that I was an undercover agent for Richard Nixon, I was actually the one (laughter, from me) who put the tapes and the recording devices in the Democratic National Committee. You know, I could write a whole book on this, telling you that it was me, even though I don’t know how old I was at that time, I was probably...under ten years old, but it was me who did it. Anyways, that’s basically exactly what The Instructor did. He based this whole persona and whole character… it is nothing but a work of fiction”.

“Fortunately, Robert Brown, the publisher of Soldier of Fortune, published a great article- in fact he’s published two articles. One exclusively on The Instructor, and the other one on all the people who claim they’re Navy SEALS, and included a splurge on The Instructor again, you know, explaining and claiming he was a complete and total fraud.”

“If The Instructor wasn’t a complete and total fraud, he would’ve sued Robert Brown and others for libel and slander, and the rest. Because all you have to do in libel and slander cases is prove, you know, that you were intentionally libeled or slandered. But the defense to that is the truth. The defense to that kind of case is the truth. So if you go into court and you prove that what you’ve said is true, the case is thrown out of court, of course, so just like Bill Clinton, The Instructor isn’t about to challenge what people are saying ... because, when it comes right down to it (laughter)… it’s all true.”

“And it’s just too bad that he’s been able to hoodwink so many people for so long, and like I said, I learned some valuable lessons. But if anything, I hope I can ... I hope the message other people can learn from my mistakes was: Verify people’s credentials, look into their past, talk to their former students, you know, talk to people that are respected in the martial arts community, and just be critical because there are frauds out there, there are phonies out there, and they are very creative, and really know how to manipulate you. Because so many of the students of the martial arts are younger, they often, very successfully, do manipulate you.”

So there’s one example. But there are lots of “teachers” who pass themselves off as something they’re not. We even had one, I believe, come into Seibukan dojo as a guest instructor. His rank, his affiliations, even his knowledge base, these I felt were legitimate. But when it came down to his esoteric claims, I just couldn’t believe what this guy had to say.

He was a Korean martial arts stylist who had been blind for years from chemical burns to his eyes, who claimed to be able to “see” your aura, or the electromagnetic energy emanating from your body. This marvelous ability of his was uncannily accurate. If you got up and walked away, he could follow your movement with his head, almost as a reflex. This is believable, since the sound of your clothes ruffling or footsteps planting could cue him to your location. But when he stood in front of an entire class seated before him, he was able to discern individuals raising their hands, and point directly at them! It seemed a bit much for me.

When he first arrived in the dojo, he and his wife had a long conversation with Sensei and Sheila, doing some general catching up. As an uchideshi, I was introduced, and sat in for much of the discussion. One thing in particular that he said set off some of my internal alarm system, something I had a very difficult time buying, no matter how much I wanted to.

He described to Sensei how a black belt in Gracie Jiu-Jitsu came into his training center, decried the existence of ki, and challenged our blind friend. Somehow or another (he didn’t get into specifics about this part), he knocked out the jiu-jitsu man and “refused to let him come back into his body” until he felt he had learned his lesson. When Sensei pressed him for specifics about how he had knocked him out, he pointed to a small area on his chest, and said he had hit this spot “lovingly and with compassion,” then quickly changed the subject.

Later, in private conversation, Sensei acknowledged that was one of the knockout points he knew of, but in order to be effective, it had to be used in conjunction with other pressure points on the body. Maybe our friend didn’t want to give Sensei the secret of his success, or have the impressionable ears of young uchideshi picking up ancient secrets, and for that reason, changed the subject. That’s certainly possible.

There aren’t that many Gracie Jiu-Jitsu black belts in the country, so his challenger could have been some idiot claiming a rank, it could have been a legitimate Gracie student, or it could have never happened. I don’t know the truth, and there were many dubious factors, but I certainly have my suspicions.

After the seminar, a friend of the dojo named Peter took in our blind instructor and his wife, opening up his parent’s unoccupied home in Carmel Valley. They stayed for a number of days, while Peter arranged for a variety of distinguished medical experts to come in and witness the amazing sensitivity displayed by this master martial artist. When the day came for the demonstration, and the doctors were en route to Carmel, our blind friend was gone. Where’d he go? He skipped town, of course. This only confirmed for Peter that the man he had opened his parent’s house to was not who he claimed to be. Earlier, Peter had “caught” him holding objects, including text, up to his face. When he asked him what he was doing, all our blind friend said was “Oh…nothing. I was just playing,” and removed the newspaper from his nose.

Again, I have my suspicions. He may have had some sight regeneration over the years since his accident, and hasn’t wanted to mention it, for fear of losing his niche. After all, the blind martial artist who reads energy is an awfully good seminar draw, with little likelihood of a challenge in a traditional dojo.

Losing his sight years ago had been a major obstacle in his life, and he had recently injured his knee in a fall, possibly ending his martial arts career. Down on his luck, I think he was just trying to hack out a living in a world that kept dealing him difficult hands. He wasn’t trying to hurt anybody, and I think that’s an important point to remember. We’re only human, and we’re all trying to make it in competitive society that can drive a person to bend the rules or adopt a façade of something he’s not.

Remember compassion. Remember forgiveness. If the frauds didn’t feel they had to bolster their image with false claims, I’m sure they wouldn’t voluntarily put

themselves into that trap. I’m not calling for tolerance or acceptance. I can’t stand liars, especially when they pollute and endanger the world inhabited by legitimate martial artists who’ve devoted themselves to a cause they feel is noble: the moral, physical, and spiritual education of society through mutual benefit, empowerment, and hard work. The hucksters ruin the environment by taking advantage of the uninformed, so arm yourself well through researched decision making and healthy skepticism. If at all possible, enlist the aid of experienced martial artists to offer guidance and company while observing classes or demonstrations.

Don’t be afraid to ask questions, even if you think they put you in a bad light. Don’t believe your questions are a burden; it is our responsibility to disseminate accurate information. Express an interest, and we will answer every question, address every concern, and do our best to position you at the most advantageous point to start your journey, where we now wish we had begun. If you’re still too uncomfortable joining by yourself, get a friend and join together. Make an adventure out of it.

So if you want to get started, or ever secretly harbored the idea of practicing martial arts, take a chance.

You never know, it may turn out to be the best decision you’ve ever made.

An Uchideshi Experience: Chapter Twelve

The English Patient

Sensei was out of town again, so Sheila was in charge. After teaching a long string of classes, she was too tired to talk in an indirect manner. Instead, she cut right to the chase.

“Roy, you see that woman sitting in the chair?” We both looked over to the visitors viewing area, where an attractive, dark-haired woman in her early thirties was waiting. “Well, she’s going to have to stay here tonight, because if she doesn’t, she’s going to end up in a park or sleeping outside somewhere. And…” she hesitated for second, weighing the conflict between additional information and confidentiality, “and that’s all I can tell you right now,” she shrugged, with a hint of exasperation in her voice.

“No problem. I totally understand,” I replied, before reassuring her that I would do everything I could to offer assistance. Obviously, the first thought to enter my mind was that this woman was the victim of domestic violence. It seemed logical that she would seek the sanctuary of a martial arts school, especially one with such a warm, family atmosphere, where she knew she’d be protected. I’d have probably done the same thing had I been in her position.

She seemed nice enough, this pretty woman with an English accent, so whether it was sharing food or lending her clothes, I did whatever I could to offer aid and support. She stayed in the tatami room, which in comparison to the loft, is the crème de la crème of dojo life.

It’s not really surprising, but one night turned into a couple of days, and a couple of days turned into a few weeks. She couldn’t go back to England because there was threat of bodily harm revolving around a mysterious lawsuit, and she couldn’t work, because she didn’t have a green card. It should go without saying that she didn’t have any money, so she was just hanging out at the dojo, trying to extend her holiday in America, or whatever it was she was up to.

It only took few days to get wise to her, and I was forthright in expressing my distrust to Sheila. Sheila felt obligated to give her the benefit of the doubt, which I understood, but continued to keep her eyes and ears open as well.

Francesca was a true dichotomy. She had a face that made you want to believe, and a mouth that spewed lies you just couldn’t. Having seen for myself her utter lack of athletic ability and coordination, I had a hard time buying her tale of surviving an assault by two men in an alley, much less catching the weapon one was wielding in mid-strike with her hands. To be fair, this was back when she was “working undercover in a Belgian strip club,” so I assume her femme fatale skills were current at that time.

Her covert–op training was paying heavy dividends in her current situation, as she displayed her mastery of psychological warfare. Francesca was heading up a disturbing disinformation campaign; tarring my name with the wickedest deeds.

Francesca would pull students aside at the dojo and described the unspeakable: I would rise in the dead of night, go out on the deck, and with malicious conviction, I would crush snails under my feet. Yes, under cover of blackness, I would lord my dominance over the lesser beings, stomping my weight on their thin shells. Apparently I enjoyed it, too.

Several students approached me about this and similar assertions, and I loathed her more and more. Nevertheless, I was told to give her private lessons in order to get her up to speed, so she could join the uchideshi program. If she was going to be living in the dojo, she had to train, and given her current level of skill and coordination, she’d never make it through the regular classes.

I was less than thrilled about this forced interaction. Despite doing my best to remain cordial and offer concise, efficient instruction, I can’t deny that the thought of snapping her little wrists like the shell of a snail seemed appealing. She was putting an earnest effort out there to learn what I was offering, though, and by the end of my tutorial, she could approximate the strikes, but still never really got the hang of the rolls. Close enough for me.

Sensei came back into town and was briefed on the situation. Instructing class that night, he had us running through our usual warm-up sequence, including extended rolls. Francesca usually sat out for this portion of the warm-up, but on that particular night, she ran toward the pad everyone had been jumping over, halted just before hitting it, and looked directly at Sensei. Sensei immediately told her to do it, to roll over the pad, and she launched herself into the air, actually completing a partial rotation, before landing squarely on her head. Everyone’s heart skipped a beat as we watched her literally bounce off her skull and then stumble to her feet.

That could have been it right there. Not only was that the kind of fall that could have left her paralyzed, but had she been injured, she could have sued the dojo and that could have been the end of Seibukan Jujutsu. I’m certain she hadn’t signed any kind of liability release, and I know for a fact that she never paid a dime for her uniform, lessons, or accommodations. Maybe she could have added another lawsuit to her collection and gone international.

Luckily she was unharmed, and before long, as the vibe in the dojo turned against her, she found her next meal ticket and moved on. She preyed upon one of the nicest students at the dojo, probably worked her undercover Belgian strip club charms, and accepted his invitation to move in. What happened after that, I don’t know, but it was well over a year before I ever saw him again. I never talked to him about Francesca. I’m sure his memories of her are even more painful than mine.

There’s something about a dojo, especially Seibukan, which makes it easy to spot scammers, egos, and the like. I think it’s the white mat, clear open spaces, and minimalist approach of Japanese design that serves as an easy base for contrast, because unlike the outside world, there aren’t a million distractions diminishing your sensitivity. Dirt’s hard to see on a sidewalk, but easily spotted in a clean room. Without obstruction in an open dojo, energy is allowed to reverberate freely, so on a nonverbal, intuitive level, you can subtly feel when someone has a hidden agenda, massive ego, or is just a little bit off. You know something’s wrong. It’s definitely there, even if you can’t put your finger on it.

Even though the dojo may make it easier to discern the wicked and the weird, that doesn’t mean they aren’t welcomed or given an opportunity. A dojo will never be a perfect place because it’s constantly giving students the benefit of the doubt, allowing all to try and improve themselves through the discipline of martial arts. If you’re there for the wrong reason, just know that it’s readily apparent. If you start with the wrong reason for joining a dojo, but stay with it long enough, you may be surprised how your original focus will have shifted to something more substantial, and ultimately, more beneficial. Maybe all Francesca needed to do was stick with it and continue training. I’m sure it would have ironed out a few issues on some level, but if she doesn’t want to train, then that’s fine too. I have no qualms about that. Whatever she wants, man… just keep her away from me.

An Uchideshi Experience: Chapter Thirteen

Ki, Chris, and Kundalini

One of the books that solidified my quest to become an uchideshi was Path Notes of an American Ninja Master by Glenn Morris. When I first spied that Ken Blaylock owned a copy, I didn’t ask to borrow it, since I was sure it wouldn’t have had anything of interest to me. After all, I wasn’t a big ninjitsu fan.

But after seeing it lie there, week after week, in the dressing room of Aikido North, I read the back cover and was intrigued by the variety of topics, including seeing auras, kundalini, and meditation exercises toward enlightenment. This was right up my alley, and I devoured the book in a few sittings.

What really struck me was the way Morris described “enlightenment” as a concrete physiological process rather than a spiritual epiphany. This gave me hope. I had assumed that enlightenment could only be achieved through many arduous years in a Zen monastery, reflecting on koens and seeking the elusive “thought that isn’t thought.” Although enlightenment was certainly penciled in as a lifetime goal, I didn’t think I’d ever really enter a monastery and sit in front of a wall for eight hours a day. Eight hours is a long time.

While in Japan, I was once required to sit motionless on a wooden floor while observing a ceremony. It wasn’t much more than three hours, but it will always be catalogued as a painful experience. My back had spasmed, my bottom gone numb, and the mental anguish of knowing, “I’m not moving anytime soon,” only magnified the discomfort. Though I’m sure the body would learn to relax in long meditation sessions, it was a bit much. Reaching for nirvana didn’t seem like a good time.

But Morris’ description of enlightenment put it back within reach. It was a refinement of the nervous system and rejuvenation of the hormonal system achieved through Chi Kung meditations. This provided the enlightened with lower respiration and heart rates, accelerated healing, unsuspected strength, increased fluidity of motion, greater pain tolerance, heightened sensitivity, greater creativity, and much, much more.

Who wouldn’t want this? You may not be Superman, but you’re certainly a step ahead of most mortal men with those additional tools at your disposal. I’ve always held out hope for a higher level in martial arts, one that transcends age, strength, and size. Morihei Ueshiba, the founder of aikido, certainly represents this kind of transcendence, as he was reportedly invincible from the time of his enlightenment until his death. Was this possible to attain? I hoped so, since it would certainly give me an edge in martial arts, not to mention life itself.

Morris’ own description of his expanded senses and capabilities wowed me, but he warned it wasn’t easy, and he had paid some very heavy dues, including one marriage and a host of physical problems. In the end, though, it was worth it for him, and I knew that it would be worth it to me, regardless of the costs. I wanted that higher state of mind, and yearned to release the energetic potential lying dormant in my body.

All of this, of course, was taken on faith, as I had never had any firsthand experience with energetic phenomena. I had read an awful lot about it, but never really was able to experience something that I could put stock in, that I would swear was ki (vital energy), and not my imagination.

Long after I had read the book, and a few months before I actually left Alaska for Monterey, I had an interesting experience that tilted the scale of belief toward the existence of ki. I was training with Ken at Aikido North, and I persuaded him to do a quick adjustment on my back. Ken could crack my back better than anyone else I knew at the time, and on that night, he followed it up with a little shiatsu. I sat on my knees, and following his directions, extended my arms out and breathed deeply as he probed my back. He noted that a particular point on my left side was “blocked”,

worked on it for a minute or two, then let me up. I felt the normal relief of an adjustment, and went to the dressing room to change.

Ken and I sat there in the dressing room for a few minutes, chatting it up, when something very definite happened that I wasn’t expecting. All of a sudden, I looked down at my hands and shouted, “What the hell?” as a wave of heat flooded them. I held them up, turned them over, and couldn’t believe what I was feeling. My hands felt warm, instantly, with a pin-prick sensation I can only approximate to falling asleep on your arm and letting the blood flow return. The “prickling,” however, was more lightly distributed than a numb limb returning to life, and this heat rush lasted several minutes. Ken looked amused at my wide-eyed wonder, and simply said, “You’re welcome.”

Finally, firsthand evidence that indicated to me that energetic phenomena were as real as Dr. Morris described them. It was a validation, a step in the right direction (I felt), and I wanted to share my experience with some of my friends who had similar interests. I eventually passed on my copy of Path Notes to my Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu training partners Eric and Chris.

Eric was already fairly well versed in the field of transpersonal psychology, with years of experience doing meditations and introspective analysis. Chris had little experience, but we had discussed the possibility of energetic phenomena and he seemed open minded.

I left my copy with them and left for Monterey, hoping somehow that this uchideshi experience would assist me in the mind/body/spirit integration I had been striving for. I meditated occasionally at the dojo, but usually found myself too tired after training to augment it with anything, even sitting still.

I kept in touch with Eric, and tried to keep in touch with Chris, but he was a harder to track down. I spoke to him a few days after seeing the Ultimate Ultimate II, and we had a great talk about how strong Ken Shamrock looked, the girl he was dating, what he was up to, etc. One thing he mentioned that really stuck with me was his enjoyment of Path Notes, and the excitement of actual results gained from the meditations. He said, “Yah, I can really feel my chi moving around,” and talked about how he could focus it into his hands. I thought that was great, he was certainly a lot further along than I was. We had a nice conversation, and it was good to get back in touch.

A few days after, I mentioned Chris’ progress to Carolynn, and she was a little bit concerned about him focusing his energy into his hands. The monks at the Buddhist temple she attended had instructed her that moving energy around your body was OK as long as it was done in a circle, but keeping it in one place created an unhealthy energetic imbalance. I tried to call Chris later and mention it, but couldn’t get ahold of him.

All of this took place in the month of December, near my birthday. As a present to myself, I asked Sheila about embarking on some sort of shamanistic journey. I was pretty open to a variety of possibilities: hypnosis, past life regression, induced out-of-body experiences, vision quests, sweat lodges, whatever you call it, as long as it

shifted my perspective, that’s what I wanted. What I was looking for was a definite, real, and dramatic experience to expand my consciousness, under the safe supervision of an experienced guide. This kind of stuff is really popular in Northern California, so I was confident that Sheila would be able to hook me up with the proper people,

Sheila gave me a few names and numbers to call, but expressed regret that she didn’t know about any Holotropic Breathwork sessions coming up in the near future. She thought it would be exactly what I was looking for.

“Holowhat?” I asked. I had never heard of such a thing. My next question was if it was “real,” in the sense that it produced a profound transformation in my thought processes, not easily written off as mere imagination. She promised me that her experience with it was very real, which Sensei confirmed, as he had participated in a session himself. I thought it was unfortunate that they didn’t know where I could contact people doing that kind of work, but dialed the other numbers Sheila had given me and tried to organize my “trip.”

A few weeks later, a flyer came to the dojo through the mail, billed as “The Adventure of Self-Discovery.” It was a notification of a Holotropic Breathwork seminar conducted by the man himself, Stanislav Grof.

Stanislav Grof, M.D., is a former professor at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine and former Chief of Psychiatric Research at the Maryland Psychiatric Research Center. While enrolled in medical school in Prague, he volunteered to be an experimental subject for the drug LSD-25. Profoundly moved by the experience, he later conducted LSD research, convinced of the enormous healing potential of non-ordinary states of consciousness, especially over traditional methods such as psychoanalysis, which had shown very poor clinical results. Later, he developed a drug-free method of inducing non-ordinary states of consciousness known as Holotropic Breathwork, using evocative music, altered breathing patterns, and bodywork. Grof is considered one of the most brilliant minds in psychology today, and I was excited at this opportunity to engage in a clinically verified and scientifically directed spiritual awakening.

Carolynn was just as intrigued as I was by the seminar, and promptly bought his book, The Holotropic Mind to better understand the philosophy behind the breathwork technique we’d be employing. After she was finished, she loaned it to me, expecting me to read it. Actually, I expected to read it too, but didn’t get a chance to before the seminar.

Carolynn and I drove through a torrential rainstorm to San Raphael in late January to take part in the seminar. It was held in a hotel designed for modestly sized conventions, and we checked in on Friday afternoon, early enough to rest up before Stan’s evening lecture.

Smart move. To hear such an erudite, learned man succinctly explain and clearly describe the often inaccessible subject of non-ordinary states of consciousness was impressive by itself, even more so since English is his third language. We had a giant in our midst, and the audience at large revered his insight and experience.

After the lecture, the room was divided into several groups, each one circled in a different area of the room, composed of 20 to 25 members. All introduced themselves and explained why they were participating in the course. Each group also had a few facilitators experienced with the Holotropic Breathwork method, ready to answer questions or provide assistance when necessary. One of the softer male facilitators extended an open invitation to “come by room 206 if you have any other questions ... or just need to talk.” Thanks anyway.

Carolynn and I retired early, waking up the next morning in time for a leisurely breakfast, provided by the hotel. The day was split into two breathwork sessions, one in the morning, one in the afternoon. Carolynn decided she would go first, as the breather, while I would act as the sitter, attentive to and responsible for her needs. That was fine with me, since unleashing my subconscious this early was always unpredictable.

We had been instructed to bring whatever we felt would be necessary to make our session more comfortable. Some brought sleeping bags and pillows, and we borrowed some sofa cushions and blankets from the hotel room and laid them down, claiming space in the crowded convention room. We were definitely not alone. At least a hundred other participants were present, half of them preparing their beds for their imminent departure, the other half standing by as the breathers’ babysitters. Finally, the time had come.

Over the cushions and under the blankets, Carolynn lay down and tried to relax. The lights were deeply dimmed, Stan gave some final remarks before bidding us to “have a nice trip,” then turned the music up. The Scandinavian group Hedningarna blasted from the speakers, and across the floor, chests heavily heaved in and out, up and down.

I had expected that the breathing cadence required to achieve an altered state of consciousness would be far more complex, similar to kundalini yoga or other tantric traditions. You know, timed inhalations, drawing breath through a specific nostril, holding it for certain counts, etc. None of that was necessary. Stan simply told us to breathe a little more deeply and a little more rapidly than usual, and continue for the desired duration of the experience. This, coupled with foreign music, is what launched the breather into psychedelic nether, since the mind is never given the opportunity to latch on to an English word and the breathing is paced to the music’s beat.

As I looked around the room, bellies heaving with audible exhalations, I thought that it would probably be awhile before people started to feel the effects of their altered respiration rates. I couldn’t have been more wrong. In under 40 seconds, people moaned and their bodies began twitching. In less than five minutes, men and women were screaming at the top of their lungs while facilitators restrained participants who were thrashing around or partially convulsing.

I couldn’t believe it. Initially, I thought to myself, ‘No way. These people have got to be faking it,’ but it didn’t matter if they were or not: they weren’t stopping and certainly weren’t shutting up. You’d think people were being tortured by their screams. That’s right, screams. Social conventions had no sway on this group.

Bodies writhing in agony or ecstasy, strewn haphazardly in a crowded room, with attendants hovering over them; the whole scene was reminiscent of nurses trying to ease the pain of fallen soldiers after battle. It was disturbing, and I could completely understand why Carolynn had a difficult time feeling safe enough to really let go and push the experience to its potential. How could you when you’re stuck in a room full of random people, psychic energy bouncing off the walls, while their current problems and past life baggage is immediately brought to the forefront of their consciousness?

In short, Carolynn was frustrated with the experience and I don’t blame her. She felt an overwhelming sense of sorrow during the two and a half hour session, largely due, I feel, to the setting.

Who wants to pay $225 for an experience so depressing that it lingers for days? Not me. I can feel bad in the privacy of my own home for much less.

After a light lunch, it was my turn, and I didn’t know what to expect. I had tried to achieve out-of-body experiences in the past, but never got very far. I was looking forward to exploring alternate dimensions, but no matter how many books I read or exercises I tried, I couldn’t separate an inch from my body. I was a transpersonal failure and I knew it. I secretly wondered if I’d get anything out of this seminar at all, seeing how my expectations and desires probably hindered past progress. I hoped for the best, but what else could I do?

I lay down on the cushions, under the blankets, with a towel over my eyes to block out the light. Carolynn was at my side as the music began. In, out, in out, my lungs forcefully expanded and contracted at a constant rate, slightly faster and deeper than normal respiration. Less than a minute into it, much to my chagrin, I felt something in the palm of my right hand.

It was a tingling sensation, but one more akin to an electric current than a pinprick. I continued breathing, and the energy engulfed my forearm and hand. This was unbelievable, and I thought to myself, “Yah, man...this is it!” I barked some orders at Carolynn to grab my hand and feel how hot it was. She complied, but contrary to my expectation, she reported that my hand felt clammy. Strange, it felt tangibly hot to me.

Beginning in the palm of my hand, the energy continued up my limb, worked its way across my chest, and dropped down the left arm. Over the next hour and a half, it slowly spread from my torso down my hips, to my legs, all the way to my toes. Every part of my body that conducted this energetic phenomenon felt exceedingly warm, and I swore every cell in those areas was vibrating robustly, like magnified Brownian motion.

Based on previous reading, I thought I would have felt the energy surge from the base of my spine through the chakras. Honestly, I didn’t feel any energy, in any way, emanating directly from that point, but don’t mistake that for disappointment. What I was feeling was as real as any armbar or choke I’ve ever tapped to, which was far more real than I thought it would be. My imagination wasn’t involved in the slightest; this was purely physical.

My body-at-large was brimming with a force I couldn’t fully control, and from the beginning I had assumed the position of a crucified man. My arms were held out at my sides, not as an arbitrary decision or Catholic tribute, but out of physical necessity. I felt best in this position, because my mobility was so stifled by this energy coursing through my body.

Now, if I concentrated my attention and really, really tried, I could move. But this took considerable effort on my part, and besides, there was no reason to. I was savoring every moment of this, since I knew it might never happen again. I’ve tried to find a good analogy to convey what I was feeling, and the best one I can come up with is the hackneyed guideline used by aikidoists for the unbendable arm exercise.

You know, imagine your arm is like a firehose, with torrents of water flowing through it toward a distant point. The hose can’t bend until the internal pressure drops, just as I found it difficult to bend my arms as my extension was energetically supported from the inside out.

I should mention that the experience was not entirely painless. Early on in the session, as the energy surged down my left arm, I felt a searing pain in my left wrist. Months earlier, I suffered an injury from a lightning fast kotegaeshi, and my tendons were still recovering from that technique. I don’t know if my damaged paw was merely an energetic obstacle that needed to be burned through, or the energy was working to heal it, but I know that it hurt, and I had to ask Carolynn to fetch a facilitator to work on it for a while. They massaged it and it definitely felt better, but still wasn’t good as new.

As the session wore on, through a combination of visualization and willpower, I tried to move this energy up my body, up my spine, and shoot it through the top of my head. My thinking was, “Well, since I’m having a kundalini experience, I might as well go for the bigtime.”

But the thing was, I couldn’t do it. The best that I could do was make my neck and jowls tingle, but that’s where it stopped. Shortly thereafter, the friendly facilitator from room 206 lay down next to me, propped his head on his hand, and instructed me to begin slowing down, since the session would be finishing soon. I complied and returned to breathing normally, as I felt this internal, vibratory power recede to an imperceptible level.

The facilitator stopped me way too early, I realize now that I look back on it, as others continued to scream for at least another half an hour. I think he just wanted to chat, since he continued to loiter as I returned to semi-normal consciousness. Carolynn didn’t like him hanging around, and she was in a far better position than I to see things as they really were.

My body settled, I removed the towel from over my eyes, opened them, and saw Carolynn’s face hovering above me. I had never been more thankful to see anyone in my life, and an overwhelming sense of safety, peace, and acceptance flooded through me. I wish I felt that way every time I woke up. I lay there for a few more minutes, and when I thought I was ready, I bent at my waist and tried to sit up.

Bad move. I fell back down instantly, with little muscular resistance slowing me. I was surprised at my own lack of strength and balance, so I waited a bit longer, maybe five minutes, and tried it again. This time, I succeeded at sitting up, and paused for a moment at the top, steeling myself for the next risky maneuver. When I felt I was ready, I spun out on to my knees and tried to stand. Instead, I fell down face first back into the sofa cushions. I stayed there, celebrating my decision to rest.

Eventually I got up and we left the room, heading for our next activity: drawing mandalas. I wasn’t really into it, nor was I into showing those mandalas before we shared our experiences in a debriefing session with our original group members. The meeting was well intentioned, and I must admit, it was interesting to hear the vast array of experiences possible with the Holotropic Breathwork method.

Two other people in our group also had energetic phenomena surface in their bodies, so I realized my experience wasn’t that unusual. Overall, I was pleased with my session, feeling some sort of confirmation had taken place that I wasn’t the transpersonal failure I once thought I was. One reason I may have been successful was my relatively low expectations, with only the most basic understanding of the method. I’ll have to remember that next time: Don’t read the book.

On the other hand, a number of people had delved into unpleasant realms of their psyche, and were uncertain if this was good for them at all. One woman met up with her long dead, heavily despised mother-in-law, and feared going back home to her husband since she knew that his mother’s spirit was hanging around, watching them, and rooting for disaster. Another man, an experienced Breathwork veteran, choked back the tears long enough to tell us of his abduction by aliens, that this was by far the worst experience of his life, and his vow to never do anything like it again. And to think that he paid $225. He should have come over to my place.

Carolynn and I returned to Monterey, and I shared my story with a few friends that I knew would appreciate it. Sheila and her mother Martha, also an energy worker, both thought it fortunate that I wasn’t successful in shooting the energy through my skull. They explained why, and although I was already familiar with the lore, I absorbed a few more horror stories of a premature kundalini awakening and its resulting problems, ranging from long-term insomnia to hallucinogenic psychosis.

I called Eric in Alaska to share my experience, since he was already familiar with the subject, and just as I thought, he found it just as interesting as I would have had the roles been reversed. We continued to keep in touch over the year, and he continued to keep me up to date with what was happening with Chris, whom I could never manage to contact directly.

Over a period of months, as Eric gave me pieces of information, the following scenario took form: Chris was having difficulty holding down a job, so Eric gave him one at his embroidery shop. Everything went well at first, but within a few weeks a change occurred in Chris, which Eric relayed to me as: “It was almost as if his personality fragmented,” and “He couldn’t hold his attention on anything for more than two minutes a time.” Eric even described him babbling, almost uncontrollably, and when he inquired what the problem was, Chris replied with equal concern, “I don’t know. I . . . I can’t help it.”

Things weren’t working out at the shop, so regrettably, Eric let Chris go, and he made his way back to live with his mother in Virginia, hoping he’d do better there.

Before I left Alaska, I made Chris promise to look out for an old girlfriend of mine named Melissa. Ironically, it was Melissa who kept me informed on what was happening with Chris, as he returned to Alaska to sling bags one more summer in my favorite job. She told me he just didn’t look the same and generally seemed pretty down. She said he brightened when she suggested he give me a call, but he never did. Elusive once again, I assumed he returned to Virginia after the summer.

The next word I received about Chris was several months later, after I had moved out of the dojo. I was relaxing at home with my roommates when the phone rang. I picked it up, and realized it was Eric calling from Alaska. I was happy to hear from him and in good spirits when he gravely asked, “Did you hear?”

“Hear about what?” I responded.

“Oh, I guess not.” He paused. “It’s about Chris.”

“What about him?” I asked, but it had already hit me. I already knew.

“He’s dead.”

On January 23, 1998, Chris died at 22 years of age. No cause of death is listed on the obituary; it simply states he died in his home. I don’t think it’s necessary to probe for exactly how he died. It’s not hard to figure out where the signs point.

I don’t think the meditations he engaged in hurt him in any way, but coupled with other factors in his life, I don’t feel they helped him at the stage where he was at. Chris liked to party, he had a stressful relationship with his girlfriend, financial strains to remain independent, and the additional challenges life threw at him as a young male establishing his identity in this society.

I don’t know what to think, and I don’t know what to say, but some things pop up unconsciously. Bright. Charismatic. Witty. Refined. Those are the words that come to mind when I think of him. Chris had an insight and appreciation for life that struck something in me, and with that, established an immediate bond between us.

It’s rare, but when it does happen, I look at those people as kindred spirits. There aren’t that many that come your way. Once you’ve made that contact, you realize what you have and hate to see them go.

I think of the last time I saw him, dropping him off at his house after a sparring session. I was leaving the next day, and we both expressed remorse that circumstance had only allowed us to spend this finite time together. We shook hands, said goodbye, and climbing out of the car, Chris got ready to close the door. But instead of shutting it, he leaned across the seats, stuck his hand out again, and said, “Hey… one more good-bye.” I wish I could give him another one now.

Maybe I’ll see him the next time around, and the moment we cross paths again, that

bond will reconnect despite lifetimes of distance. In that moment, we may realize that no time has passed at all.

I look forward to that day, Chris, and hope to see you soon.

An Uchideshi Experience: Chapter Fourteen

Instructors, Brothers, and Blackbelts

My brother was in trouble, and needed some help.

Rod was five years older than I was and had been living in Las Vegas for the past four years. He moved there with a girlfriend, but after some difficulty holding down a job, and a hard breakup he didn’t see coming, Rod slipped into a depression. No one in the family knew what to do.

While living in Alaska, I volunteered to go to Las Vegas and check out the situation. I was prepared to move him if necessary. Where I didn’t know, but anywhere else had to be better than where he was at. I flew down and we spent some time together. I met his friends, and came away with the impression that things were on the upswing. But after moving to Monterey, I was informed that his situation had gotten worse.

Sensei and I had a tight relationship, and this was of great concern to me, so I kept him abreast of all the events as they occurred. Finally, I asked him for a favor. Could Rod come to Monterey and also become an uchideshi? If so, everything would work out in my mind. How could you not turn your life around in a dojo full of positive people, with required training to keep you in check? Beats Prozac in my opinion.

And, I owed him. He was popular guy in high school, I really admired him growing up, and he graciously suffered me bothering him and his friends. He babysat my little high school parties I threw at the house, and looking close to identical, gave me his ID for my sixteenth birthday.

Sensei agreed to give Rod a chance, and I relayed that message to my brother. It took a month or two for Rod to tie up loose ends and finally leave Las Vegas, but he did it, arriving at the dojo on a Sunday in April.

Carolynn and I were hanging out in the loft when we heard a knock at the front door. Peering through the loft window out front, I spied my brother standing on the sidewalk. He didn’t look healthy. At all. As Sensei later told him, “Rod, when I saw you for the first time, I saw death.”

But this was a new beginning, and after we embraced, I introduced him to Carolynn, unloaded his stuff, and got him settled in. Carolynn and I thought it would be a good idea if we showed him some techniques, you know, gave him an idea of what Seibukan Jujutsu was like. We thought kihon waza, the basic techniques of the Shodan level, would be the most logical place to start.

Carolynn and I dressed out, bowed to each other, and went through all 19 techniques at a moderate pace, while Rod watched from a chair. We bowed again after finishing, looked over at him, and saw what I can only describe as a scared individual. I think he was expecting a punching and kicking demonstration, and consequently, didn’t understand the grabs, pins, rolls and throws he was seeing. No matter, he’d understand soon enough. The next day, he was in regular classes, thrown into the mix, doing his best.

He hadn’t exercised in years. He hadn’t stretched for an even longer period of time. He was stiff and a little uncoordinated at first, but his body gradually awoke and remembered what it was like to be athletic. Rod was a seasoned basketball player and even competed at the Junior National level in volleyball, but that was years ago, back in high school.

Sensei met Rod briefly the next day before having to leave town. He may have been going to Japan, I’m not sure, but since he’d be gone for a number of weeks, instruction was turned over to several members of the staff.

Some of the more astute and sensitive staff members recognized the need for flexibility and patience when dealing with Rod because of his conditioning. If his punches and kicks lacked finesse, or his rolls were angular and rocky, they cut him some slack, since he was doing well by just keeping up in this accelerated learning program. They knew things would smooth out over time, most likely a short time because of the rapid progress uchideshi training had provided students in the past.

There was one exception to the roster of staff members, an instructor who didn’t cut him any slack at all. He’d be teaching class, leading the warm-up and rolling exercises, then after spotting Rod doing something “incorrectly,” the Instructor would single him out.

There’s no doubt that individualized attention is great, but not when you stop the class to explain for all ears what this person is doing wrong, then add the additional pressure of performance anxiety on a beginning student, who’s now forced to correct his mistake in front of everybody. Poor Rod was just trying to get through the class, and doing pretty well, all things considered. Living in the dojo, I’d seen a lot of beginners come and go, and seen much greater errors receive far less attention in my time. Consequently, I couldn’t believe he was isolating him like this.

Singling him out once or twice would have been helping him. Doing it every single class is humiliation under the thin guise of technical clarification. Clearly this was more for the benefit of the Instructor’s ego, since he now had an excuse to exhibit for the class his vast wealth of knowledge.

If he had done this to me, it would have been OK. I can take it, but seeing it done to somebody else, especially my brother, was almost unbearable. I boiled. The Instructor had done a lot of egotistical things in the past, but I bit my tongue and rode them out. This, on the other hand, really tested me. I thought I was going to explode in every class he taught, but somehow managed to keep it under wraps.

His past behaviors should have clued me in to his teaching style.

During the warm-ups of a Saturday morning class he was leading, while most people are still in the process of waking up, the Instructor decided our rolls weren’t quiet enough. Therefore, to really show us how tough his martial standards were, he took the class outside and had us do our entire ukemi sequence on the wooden deck.

Forward rolls, backward rolls, forward into backward rolls, forward sutemi (slapping with your hand at the bottom of a roll to absorb shock and shave speed), and backward sutemi were all dutifully executed. Luckily, the Instructor had enough sense to not have us do jumping rolls on the deck. It would have been certain death, especially since there were beginners in the class.

Aside from the bumps and bruises obviously incurred from this “exercise,” more than one student bled from deck splinters (one of the blackbelts got a large one in his ankle, which was brutal), and everybody’s white gi was soiled with black residue lifted from the wood. One student had just bought a new gi, and wore it for the first time that morning. Poor timing, brother. Poor timing.

Coming back inside the dojo, the Instructor continued to teach class. Having moved this black residue from the deck to our gis, we then transferred it from our uniforms to the main white mat. Class ran overtime by twenty or thirty minutes since we were scrubbing the mat on our hands and knees, trying to get it reasonably clean, as the Instructor supervised our efforts. Soon after, the Instructor took off, leaving behind the entire mess of buckets, mops, and towels.

And rightfully so. After all, that’s the kind of training we were paying good money for: to pick up after other people’s messes and tend to the wounds of their victims. To top it off, the Instructor bragged about the whole thing. Unbelievable.

Another incident involved a pretty girl who came to the dojo to observe a class. Shortly after she sat down, he set the class up with a technique from the kihon waza, and bowed off the mat to talk with her. Ten minutes went by, we were still doing the same damn technique, and the Instructor was long gone, captivated by his own conversation with this girl. After doing mae zemi dori thirty or forty times, students were conferring on changing techniques and whether or not the Instructor was ever coming back to us.

But he did. Twitterpated by the female presence, he clapped his hands and halted our progress in completing the basic 19 techniques. Usually we go all the way through, but there had been a sudden change of plans. Sending us back to the side, he left no doubt that it was now showtime. He demonstrated a few flashy techniques, which we worked on for a while, then in the last 10 minutes of class, he unveiled the showstopper.

He sat the class down and launched into a lecture on how ancient Ninjas would dress as beggars and “accidentally” bump into samurai. Crunching vital areas while falling on their targets, the assassins would inflict lethal wounds before stumbling away, leading onlookers to believe the samurai had just taken a tumble and died. Then, ending the suspense, he demonstrated the technique a couple of times before ending class.

Truly one of the worst things I’d ever sat through. Aside from the fact that this was a jujutsu class and he was disseminating ninjitsu propaganda, all students had to bear witness to his attempt at impressing this girl. Painfully egoic, obvious, awkward, and sad.

Carolynn and I talked to her after class, and she ended up joining the dojo. Of course, the Instructor was all over her after that, conning her into private lessons, and hounding her with puppy dog devotion. She wasn’t interested.

I was not alone in my observations or frustrations with the Instructor. Class after class, students would commiserate: “You know, after last time [the Instructor] taught, I didn’t think things could get worse. I was wrong.” One visiting uchideshi was subjected to such demeaning condescension during a one-on-one session that he finally thought to himself,

“That’s it. I’m going to have to break this guy’s arm. That’s the only way he’s going to respect me.”

He could have, too. That uchideshi had more belts, mat time, and fighting experience than the Instructor could ever imagine. Seems to be true whom God looks out for…

You might be wondering why Sensei was willing to put up with all this. First of all, from a physical standpoint, the Instructor was good. I have to say, he put his time in on the mat and was a very solid practitioner. Second, it was his dream to be a martial arts instructor, and Sensei was working with him on achieving that goal. Third, most of his ego trips were pulled while Sensei was out of town, so the only way Sensei would have known what was going on was feedback from students. But believe me, he got it.

I was getting ready for my Shodan test at the time Rod came into the dojo. There was a lot of pressure in this, much of it self-induced. First of all, I wanted to do a fantastic job, something I would be proud of, something indicative of the years I had spent in martial arts and my dedication as an uchideshi. Next, being the first long-term resident uchideshi of the system and Sensei’s pet project, I felt an outside expectation from those training at the dojo that this demonstration would be a very pure representation of what Seibukan Jujutsu was. I felt the onus was on me to fully exemplify what this art was capable of at the Shodan level.

Before any demonstration of a rank is performed, a pretest must be given by Sensei, a staff member, or senior yudansha (person with black belt rank). The pretest is really the test, allowing the student and teacher to fully pore over the requirements, without worrying about time restrictions, in a fairly relaxed atmosphere. The demonstration, what most people think of as the test, is really a public celebration of your skills as a martial artist. It is more rigidly structured, formalized, and intense from an emotional and physical perspective, because of the nerve-racking nature of public performance.

The pretest for my Shodan exam was a little unusual. Instead of just picking a night and spending a few hours going straight through the requirements, Sensei broke the pretest up into small sections over three intermittent nights, using whoever happened

to be loitering after class as ukes. It was very informal, I passed everything, and the stage seemed set for a fun demonstration.

Later, Sensei informed me that there was some drama going on behind the scenes that I hadn’t been aware of. Apparently, the Instructor had a real problem with not being invited to the pretest. Never mind the fact that there was no official pretest done at a specified time, or that no one else had actually received a formal invitation. As he told Sensei in private meetings, he felt that he had given me more than anyone else, and basically, it was a slap in the face to not be invited.

In a way, I could understand his position, because he had helped me out by training with me when I first arrived at the dojo. But a lot of people trained with me, offered instruction, and helped me out, so what was with the possessiveness? I think it was his ego acting out again.

I could be wrong, but my impression was that in his mind, since he had helped me early on, that I was somehow “his,” somehow obligated to become the Instructor’s protégé, because of that early shot of instruction. But I wasn’t his, I was Sensei’s. I was his compatriot, not his student. I mean, I did come to Monterey to study under Sensei Toribio, and was living, eating, sleeping, and training in his dojo. I think that says something about where my loyalties were and should have been.

Of course the Instructor had a role in training me, but there were other staff members and training partners who had given me just as much, if not more, technical instruction. Sensei told him to talk to me about how he felt after my demonstration, not wanting to compound my stress level with yet another variable.

There’s another thing about going for the level of Shodan. Once you hit your Ikkyu, the rank immediately before, it’s customary to give something up, preferably something dear, as a sacrifice, a sign of renouncement. Some people give up drinking, smoking, caffeine, coffee, or another vice of their choice. I chose to give up my hair to fully realize the kind of asceticism I desired in this uchideshi experience.

Besides, I had wanted to do it for the last couple of years, but never found a good opportunity to do so. Working for the government, winter in Alaska, trying to get a girlfriend, all of these were handy excuses for not shaving it off. But now, living in a dojo, doing it as a symbol of devotion toward my goal, the timing was perfect. I had Sensei shave it with some clippers at his house. Later that night, I took off the final layer with a razor.

You might think, as I did, that having no hair would be a low-maintenance affair. You would be wrong, as I was. I went through a lot of razors and a lot of shaving cream trying to stay bald. Not having hot water at the dojo made things a little more difficult, but I managed to shave my scalp every other day. As a matter of fact, on the day of my Shodan test, during my lunch break, I was in the middle of maintaining my new style when something unexpected occurred.

I heard someone open the front door of the dojo, and some undistinguished, yet vaguely familiar voices drifted back into the bathroom. I decided to check it out.

Try to imagine it: I’m walking across the mat, barechested, one half of my head cleanly shaven while the other was covered in cream. Looking out on the visitors who had just walked in, I see my brother standing there with my Mom and Dad, flown in from Alaska.

This new image of mine didn’t match their last recollection. Mildly shocked, they hugged me. They had to. It’s a parent’s job to be mildly shocked and love you anyway.

A few weeks earlier, Rod had seen another member of the dojo do his Nidan demonstration, and my brother couldn’t believe how many friends and family members came out of the woodwork to support the student. He realized that demonstrations for dan rankings were really a big deal, and promptly got in touch with our parents to see if they could make it down. Obviously, they did, but to tell you the truth, I had mixed feelings about seeing them. Sure, I loved my parents, and realized this was a rare opportunity to share a very meaningful aspect of my life with them, but having them there stressed me out, and I was already stressed enough. They’re parents, that’s what they do: they stress you out. That’s part of their job, too.

Just lying in bed and visualizing different aspects of the demonstration got the butterflies going and my nervous system antsy. It was nothing more than a mental construct, but I knew that if I was getting this worked up just thinking about the demo, I was going to be in quite a state before the event. Nidan was going to be another year of hard work away; it was imperative that I do well, for my own sake. I wanted to step up to the plate when all eyes were on me and expectations were high. I knew if I could suck it up despite all the distractions and stresses in this microcosmic demonstration, I’d be able to use this time as a touchstone for coming through moments of crisis for the rest of my life. This was going to be my personal rite of passage, and I wanted to be at my best.

I did the regular routine for a demonstration: buying flowers for the shomen, doing a thorough misogi (cleansing) of the dojo, then scrubbing and bleaching the mat. I participated in all the regular classes that Thursday, then, during the black belt class, my initiation into the Seibukan dan rankings began.

A formal Seibukan Jujutsu demonstration is one of the most powerful vehicles of self-expression I have ever seen, in or out of the realm of martial arts. It recreates all the pressure and anxiety of competition, without an external rivalry. You’re facing yourself, and by putting yourself in the limelight, you’re choosing to test and discover who you really are under duress. Those that are on the mat participating in the test, under Sensei’s direction, will push you to your limits, but only in the spirit of support.

The first few demonstrations I witnessed blew me away in their emotional intensity. I’ve always been a sucker for man at his best, and these demonstrations have often spurred individuals to break previously impenetrable barriers, and in a sense, forced people to extend beyond themselves, adding a new dimension to their identity.

Each demonstration begins the same. Sensei claps his hands twice, signaling that it’s time to stop milling around and for students to take their respective positions

according to rank, in a formal line at the edge of the mat. Sensei assumes his place at the head of the line, slightly offset, and barks, “Mokuso!” instantly quieting murmurs as students seated in seiza (kneeling position) engage in a silent meditation. After a minute or so, Sensei claps his hands, walks to the middle of the mat directly in line with the shomen, kneels, and leads us in bowing twice, clapping twice in unison, then bowing again. Sensei then turns to us and bows as we bow toward him, walks over to the side of the mat, and requests the assistance of the yudansha.

One by one, in quick succession, the yudansha stand and join Sensei at the side of the mat, leaving the testee alone. The demonstrator then knee-walks to the center of the mat, bows toward the shomen, turns, bows toward Sensei, turns, and bows to the yudansha on the mat. With a strong “Onegaishimasu (lit. please be kind to me),” the yudansha give their final blessing before the individual begins to demonstrate the physical requirements of that level.

The initiation has begun. At this point, the student is asked to start with ukemi, to illustrate his protective skills as a martial artist. Forward rolls, backward rolls, forward into backward rolls, sutemi, ushiro sutemi, extended rolls (jumping over three people), and ending with highfalls from a variety of techniques Sensei chooses to toss you with. The first highfall is usually from an explosive kotegaeshi off a straight punch, then a nihonage shoulder throw from a side strike, followed by the ancient Daito-Ryu technique of yama-arashi (mountain storm), made famous by Shiro Saigo while defending the honor of the Kodokan. Sensei may end it there or toss you again, but I’ve never seen him throw anybody more than four times for a demonstration. He may not even use any of the techniques I just mentioned, and do something totally unexpected. He’s like that. He reserves the right to surprise you.

After ukemi, the student and Sensei kneel, bow together, then kata is demonstrated. The kihon waza of the system, or 19 basic techniques, is the kata of the Shodan level. While I was performing the techniques, only one thought went through my mind, “God, he’s going hard.” The attacks were in such rapid succession, one quickly supplanted by another, that my mind shut off and my body automatically responded on its own. There was no time to ask what came next or to analyze the last technique. There was only that moment to respond with the appropriate answer to his attack, a physical payoff for the hours of kata practice on the mat.

Tai sabaki is the next activity. Sensei will call up a yudansha he feels will serve as an appropriate uke, and commands him to attack. The attacks come in a pattern, so the student should be prepared with an appropriate response. All too often, in the heat of the moment, memory fails and improvisation comes into play during sticky situations, which is fine. As long as he demonstrates the ability to end his techniques in a principle within the parameters of his level, and the opening movement off the line is appropriate to the attack, the student passes this section of the demonstration.

Reversals, knife, gun, and jo defenses, a 12-bokken suburi, 40-movement jo kata, katana waza (sword hilt defenses) and katana goshin jitsu (sword takeaways), all of these areas must be executed effectively under the duress of the demonstration. Like all weapons in the Shodan level, a set of basic attacks and defenses is learned, but during the demo, you don’t know how you’re going to be attacked. Plus, they use show blades, which nudges the experience closer to an actual assault. The knife is

real, but not very sharp, except near the tip. The katana is really an iaito, with an aluminum blade instead of steel. Again, it’s not sharp along the edge (you can cut vegetables with them, but you’d really have to hack at an arm), but the tip is something to be wary of, since people have bled in demonstrations from both weapons.

Sensei is usually the one attacking with the sword, and when he gets that thing in his hand, watch out. Never trust Sensei with a weapon, never turn your back, and always be on guard, since the energy he projects at this time is dark and serious. He wants you to realize that this is not a game, and feel the pressure of facing a person with malevolent intentions. Fortunately for us, his control is excellent, and he is able to push the student into matching his intensity. I’ve held my breath more than once while he attacked other students, and thought for sure one guy was going to lose his eye during his Shodan demo with a sharp thrust from a pair of garden shears. Somehow though, under Sensei’s direction, it remains safe.

The final taijitsu hurdle, henka, awaits the student after the aforementioned sections have been completed. Two yudansha are called up, one strikes, the other one grabs, and they attack the demonstrator, who’s usually winded by now. After the student successfully defends himself he drops to his knees, two new attackers are chosen, and the demonstrator must execute techniques from that position, known as hantachi (half-standing) waza. After that’s done, a chair is brought out onto the mat, two new attackers step up to the plate, and the student defends himself while seated. Finally, only one section remains to be completed to end a Shodan demonstration: the secret weapon.

The secret weapon can be anything: a chain, hammer, butcher knife, whatever. Sensei is particularly fond of gardening implements, and has used a variety of them in the past. The rationale behind this section of the test is to instill in the student a lesson that no matter how well you may have prepared, you’ll still have to deal with the unexpected. It’s a carryover from his Ranger training, where the ability to improvise can mean the difference between life and death, for you and for others.

There was so much stress, expectation, drama, and exertion during my demonstration that it became a kind of transpersonal experience. Because I was on the spot, with only enough time to react to the attacks that were coming in, the “I” part of my psyche got lost for a while since I didn’t have time for self-analysis, critique or congratulations. A shodan demonstration is continuous crisis management: a flurry of activity you cope with to the best of your ability. At the same time, if the observers know who you are, and are familiar with the art, they can see the clear connections between your personality characteristics and how they manifest as physical techniques. It’s all there, if you know what to look for, and it’s fascinating how this kind of activity can put you in a space where you’re not “thinking,” which allows the real “you” to emerge.

I laid it all out on the line that night, and was satisfied with the effort. After I bowed out to the shomen, I kneeled before the line of yudansha and waited for each of them to say a few words and offer some feedback, as is customary. At the end of the line was my brother, the new uchideshi, kneeling in his yellow belt. Mudansha (non-black-belt ranks) do not usually speak at the demonstrations, but because this was a

special case, Sensei allowed it. Rod bowed to me and tried to say something, but was overcome with emotion. Instead, he simply bowed again, which really said it all. Everyone responded to that. It was a heavy experience, but a pretty good night.

A couple of days after my demonstration, I had a breakfast meeting with the Instructor, at a restaurant close to the dojo, in response to his invitation. We engaged in a little chitchat before he stated his position: He thought I was a good martial artist, and wanted to apologize for whatever he had done wrong. I accepted his apology but told him that there was nothing to apologize for. He went on to say that he must have done something wrong, even though he didn’t know what it was, for me to not have invited him to my pre-test. I told him, quite frankly, that the thought of inviting him never came across my mind, just as I didn’t invite anyone else. He contested this, counting out the number of days I was able to tell him that something was going to go on, and so forth.

No real progress was being made here, so after a while, I told him that one of the reasons we hadn’t been getting along was the way he had treated my brother: repeatedly singling him out in class and demeaning him. The instructor contested this as well, stating that he was really only looking out for Rod’s interests as an uchideshi, blah, blah, blah. Eventually, I put it to him another way, although I really tried to phrase it as gently as I could. I told him that it could be construed that he was teaching classes out of ego, instead of the interests of the students, and he might want to take a look at that.

Although his expression didn’t outwardly change, I could see a steel wall drop internally, blocking out anything further I might say. Breakfast was essentially over at that point, so we paid the bill. Before we went our separate ways, he offered me a ride to the dojo. I thanked him but told him I’d walk. It was only three blocks away.

Although the story of the Instructor ends there, Rod’s saga went on. He continued to train after I left the dojo, and one year after he arrived in Monterey from Las Vegas, he tested for his Shodan. Mom and Dad flew down from Alaska, and there was a big turnout that night to support him. It was a good test, and I was strangely unemotional through the whole thing. Maybe it’s because, as an uchideshi, you’re so overprepared for these things that I didn’t fear for him. Later on it hit me, realizing what an accomplishment it was to have come from a place in his life like he did, and achieve a goal that was neither easy nor certain. He even outdid me, living in the dojo 16 months.

Even though he’s not as addicted or obsessive as I am when it comes to martial arts, the year he spent as an uchideshi has given him a strong base of martial skills that will serve him for the rest of his life. But that’s not the real gift Sensei gave him by offering the opportunity to come and live in Monterey. The real gift granted was that now my brother and I can communicate in a different way, in another language, a language based on energy, motion, position, and timing. We have another common interest to increase our interactions, and another forum in which we can formulate goals and celebrate accomplishments.

Maybe this is what it’s all about. Maybe martial arts are really about bringing people together, instead of learning how to fight. Maybe. I’m not sure if the aim of martial

arts should be forming friends and linking families instead of learning techniques, but I can’t deny it’s a worthy goal. It brought my family together, if only for a while, and that’s a technique I have yet to learn.

An Uchideshi Experience: Chapter Fifteen

Someone Watching Over

It was another crowded Thursday night class, Sensei was teaching, and he showed a technique I had seen only once before in my life. It really surprised me.

Because I had been studying both Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu and Seibukan at the same time, knowledge was being amassed at both ends, and I’d often try to combine elements from each to find new techniques, or at least different ways of getting into them. Such was the case here. It was an armbar formed by triangling the legs, something I had never seen before, something that had just come to me in a dream the night before.

So there it was, the triangled leg armbar I had never seen in real life, demonstrated for the class. Now it was our turn. I grabbed a good friend as a training partner, and tried it out. We did it a few times, and since I knew him, I decided to share my little precognitive shocker. By his lack of response, I made an assumption he was unimpressed, and we continued to train in a lighthearted manner.

At work the next day, that friend called me up and asked if I had a minute, since he had something to tell me. He mentioned that he’d appreciate it if I didn’t speak about this to anyone else, since they might not react to it favorably. You see, he had a long history of psychic occurrences stemming back from childhood, but rarely mentioned them to anyone other than close friends for fear it would affect his business. “Hey Roy, do you remember when we were in the room at the back of the house?” He was referring to a small office that had been built behind his main house, where we had been gabbing through the evening, about nothing in particular.

“Yeah, of course.”

“Well,” he continued, “since you had mentioned you had dreamt that technique Sensei was showing, I kind of took that as a sign that I should share this with you. I wasn’t going to mention it before, but I think you should know. There was somebody in the room with us that night.”

“Are you serious? What do you mean?”

“I’m totally serious. Just to the left of you, when you were sitting in that chair, I saw a woman staring right at me. It wasn’t all of her, it was just the top portion… you know, just the chest and head.”‘

I was flabbergasted. This was not a man who would make something like this up, have anything to gain by telling me, or (for those of you who are wondering) ingest hallucinogenic substances. He was a straight-arrow, professional family man,

describing something he felt was very real, and taking a chance by sharing information that others would ridicule.

I had to know more. “So you could really see her, clearly, and she was real, I mean, she wasn’t just…?”

“I could see her just as clearly as I could see you,” he assured me. Then he went on to describe her. She was a small woman, about five feet four, 70 to 75 years old, with strong Mexican or Italian features, and old-age spots on her skin. She had long, straight, coarse hair, black giving way to gray, and she was emanating a message to my friend. Unmistakably, it came through to him as this: “We are watching over.”

Is there someone watching over? I hope so. Sometimes I need somebody to keep me from going over the line: serving martial arts instead of having them serve me. Originally, I set out to invest myself fully in martial arts as simply a means to an end: achieving a higher state of consciousness and reaping physical benefits along the way. But more and more often, as I trek down this path, I find myself distracted by delving into deeper realms, and paying heavy tolls for the distances I’ve traveled.

At times my training has eclipsed far more pressing priorities, which begs the question “Who is serving whom?” Whether it’s born from insecurity or compulsion, this urge to train has to have some sort of check to achieve a sense of balance. For me, I’m discovering that my body is the ultimate limiting factor. I pop and crack a lot for someone who’s 24. At some point, I’m going to have to take a long break. Maybe that’s part of the discipline, too.

People who knew me supported my ambition because they realized my passion, even if they secretly feared for me. My boss at the NTSB gave his own brand of tacit approval by barking commands at me in the office: “Royboy…CREAN DOJO! My parents supported my goals, even if they didn’t fully understand them, and my family of training partners at Aikido North encouraged me to take a chance. But like almost every position in life, support was not universal.

When I explained to acquaintances, or to my friends’ parents, my plan to live as an uchideshi, the first question I always received was, “Oh, and what are you going to do with that?” Then, after the inquisition, came the mourning. “God, and what about your music? You’re giving it up for that?” I understood their lament, but doesn’t sacrificing something dear to you make martial arts mean that much more? I think so.

I started out with a pretty mystical take on martial arts, but ended up as a pragmatist. The underlying secret of martial arts I wanted to know is the one I knew all along. It’s training. Mat time. All things come through this. Ki, energy extension, whatever you want to call it, does exist, and plays a part in technique, but as far as I can tell, it’s icing on the cake. Maybe ki is like talent. It’s present in everyone, some people have more it than others, and you really can cultivate it, but don’t ever, ever rely on it. If you do, sooner or later, you’ll pay a price you can’t afford.

On the other hand, in his book Drifted in a Deeper Land, spiritual teacher Adi Da brings to light an interesting point through his washing machine analogy. He

discusses how consumed and distracted we are by our “washing machines,” something we should have only so much interest in, because it’s easy to get lost and overlook the fact that the electricity is the source of what makes the machine work; that’s the juice we should focus on. A good point, but you’ll never be able to utilize that energy if your machine is broken, or as is more often the case, was never programmed how to operate.

Is there someone watching over? I’d like to think that there is. I feel that I took a blind leap of faith, pursuing some archaic ideal as an adventure, stepping out into the unknown on an unhacked path. Miraculously, I came to the right place, under the right instructor, who had more than just a school and a need for another body willing to undergo hard training. It wasn’t merely his technical knowledge, ranks, physical prowess, or students that made this the right place. All of that played a part, of course, but there’s more.

It was his honesty, openness, and willingness to experiment. I mean, how many instructors would have let me study under another teacher while I was living in their dojo?

Not many, but every time he let me go, he won me back again.

The most important thing though, all things considered, was his positive intention. He gave me an opportunity to have the uchideshi experience he wished he’d had, in a system he designed and would have liked to have studied at my age. He genuinely wanted me to get the most out of my year, his heart was in it, and that made the difference. Technique without heart is hollow, and so is instruction.

What I’ve written is a collection of experiences, incomplete in its reenactments even as a finished product. It’s difficult to remember a year in its entirety, and there was more that happened in my time as an uchideshi than I covered in these chapters: I walked on fire, saw U2 in concert, and flew to Ft. Lauderdale during spring break, only to see the cruise ship I intended to board pull away from the dock, overbooked with passengers. There were definitely disappointments, but these were largely offset by physical progress and the achievement of my goals: I was training, I was learning, and I was getting better.

But every so often, in the thick of this physical training, something very subtle would occur. Unintentionally, I would stumble into what I’ve called an open moment. It’s difficult to describe, but in the middle of whatever I was doing, something came over me that made me think, “Hey, this is it.”

There’s wasn’t any reason to look beyond where I was. My mind wasn’t jumping ahead to the next step, but at the same time, I didn’t slow down. I was just half a step ahead of the cadence and everything suddenly fell into sync as the moment began to expand. At best, it’s a fleeting state of mind, but things like that remind me that the discipline of martial arts has a lot going on beneath the surface of fighting techniques.

Is there someone watching over? I hope so. After all, we’re just a minute of hypoxia from anarchy and chaos. Without some sort of guidance from above, I wonder if people would be able to find the right teacher who can give them what they need.

Perhaps, but it’s a big world, which leaves a lot of space to miss making vital connections. As for my experience, although it would be impossible to prove, I’m starting to suspect that someone may have had a hand in it. Of course I’ll never know, but it all worked out. Maybe that’s proof enough.

The Bend Bulletin: Ground Advantage

By Mark Morical

(This article originally appeared in The Bend Bulletin)

Roy Dean grabs Rick Ellis and flips him over his shoulder like a scene from a Steven Seagal movie. Later, while on the mat beneath Ellis, Dean swivels his body and uses his hips and legs to choke Ellis until he “taps out.” The “fight” is staged and performed slowly, so onlookers can follow the movements. But watching the two grappling men, the effectiveness of Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu is hard to ignore.

The discipline is related to other martial arts, but Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu focuses on ground techniques and how to gain an advantage once on the floor.

“It’s a body-movement art,” says Dean, who moved to Central Oregon recently to open a Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu academy in Bend. “It’s a way of moving your body on the ground that enables you to be very fluid and eventually dominate your opponent or stop your attacker.

“You learn to use your legs just like your hands and arms. If you’re in a disadvantaged position, you can use your entire body against one of your opponent’s body parts.”

Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu has increased in popularity along with the Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC), an international mixed martial arts association whose fighting events include jiu-jitsu, judo, karate, boxing, kickboxing, wrestling and other disciplines.

“Many people are attracted (to Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu) because it’s such a large component of ultimate fighting,” Dean says. “UFC’s first champion did this art specifically. It’s a requirement and a fundamental discipline for ultimate fighting.”

Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu is a descendant of judo, a Japanese martial art that centers on throws from a standing position. The sport of jiu-jitsu was brought to Brazil in the early 1900s by a judoka (judo expert) and then evolved through the Gracie family of Brazil.

Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu was not actually introduced to the American public until the early 1990s, when ultimate fighting first came onto the martial-arts scene, according to Dean. A small Brazilian fighter named Royce (pronounced Hoyce) Gracie used jiu-jitsu to defeat opponents who were sometimes 100 pounds heavier than him.

“It was eye-opening to the world of martial arts,” Ellis says.

The slim, fit Dean - who holds black belts in Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu, aikido, judo, and other martial arts - says he was inspired by Gracie.

“On the ground, size and weight are significantly less factors,” Dean explains. “It’s empowering, and there’s a confidence it gives you, where if you’re ever in a situation, you know you’ve been through tougher situations in class. Mental clarity under duress is a great gift.”

Dean, 31, who moved to Bend from San Diego this fall, has been training in martial arts since he was 16 - and under some of the best trainers in the world, he says. He grew up in Anchorage, Alaska, watching the Karate Kid and Seagal movies, which piqued his interest in aikido and other martial arts.

Dean studied in Japan, where he trained in judo and eventually earned a black belt in the discipline.

At the age of 21, he moved to Monterey, Calif., where he lived in a dojo for more than a year, training every day under an aikido master. Soon thereafter, he earned a black belt in aikido.

Becoming an expert in jiu-jitsu is an arduous task, and it took nine and a half years for Dean to earn a black belt in Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu. He trained under one of the first American black belts in the art, Roy Harris, and he finally received the belt in September of this year.

About a week later, Dean moved to Bend. A former student living in Bend told Dean about the area, and the instructor saw a good opportunity to open a new academy.

Dean conducts his classes four nights per week. They are open to men and women of all ages, and Dean says that women are often interested in learning Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu for self-defense. He says most of his clients want only to learn the discipline and are not seeking to compete in mixed martial arts competitions such as ultimate fighting.

“Anybody can learn it (Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu),” Dean insists. “I’m trying to create a family environment. There’s a competitive aspect, but not too competitive. I want to make it very female friendly, because if a woman were to be attacked, that (on the ground) is the most likely position she would end up in.”

But in Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu, one can gain an advantage from being on his or her back. Dean says his two favorite moves in the discipline are the “armlock” and the “triangle.”

Dean demonstrates the armlock while on his back with Ellis’ hands around his neck, as if Ellis were choking him. Dean positions his body perpendicular to Ellis’ and throws his right leg over his partner’s neck, showing how he could use the strength of his hips to hyperextend Ellis’ arm.

From there, Dean performs the triangle, a powerful technique that he says requires no upper-body strength. He swivels his hips and places both his legs around Ellis’ neck, forming a triangle with his legs by locking his left foot behind his right knee.

Dean says this position would cause Ellis to choke himself on his own arm.

“Within seconds he’d be asleep,” Dean says. “The body is a powerful weapon when integrated, but we use our hands for everything. Raising your hips off the ground is the basis for all submission holds. The hips are the power center for the body.”

Aside from ultimate fighting events, tournaments are staged in which Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu is the only martial art performed. The competitions are judged on a complex point system with the goal of submitting your opponent, Dean explains.

But Dean says he is finished with the competitive aspects of martial arts.

“I have no interest in competition anymore,” he says. “My 20s were about competition. My 30s are about longevity and teaching. Passing of knowledge is important as a martial artist.”

A Brief History of Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu

(Originally posted on BJJ.org by Don Geddis)

In the mid-1800’s in Japan, there were a large number of styles (“ryu”) of jiu-jitsu (sometimes spelled “jujitsu”). Techniques varied between ryu, but generally included all manner of unarmed combat (strikes, throws, locks, chokes, wrestling, etc.) and occasionally some weapons training. One young but skilled master of a number of jiu-jitsu styles, Jigoro Kano, founded his own ryu and created the martial art Judo (aka Kano-ryu jiu-jitsu) in the 1880’s. One of Kano’s primary insights was to include full-

power practice against resisting, competent opponents, rather than solely rely on the partner practice that was much more common at the time.

One of Kano’s students was Mitsuo Maeda, who was also known as Count Koma (“Count of Combat”). Maeda emigrated to Brazil in 1914. He was helped a great deal by the Brazilian politician Gastão Gracie, whose father George Gracie had emigrated to Brazil himself from Scotland. In gratitude for the assistance, Maeda taught jiu-jitsu to Gastão’s son Carlos Gracie. Carlos in turn taught his brothers Osvaldo, Gastão Jr., Jorge, and Helio.

In 1925, Carlos and his brothers opened their first jiu-jitsu academy, and Gracie Jiu-Jitsu was born in Brazil.

At this point, the base of techniques in BJJ was similar to those in Kano’s Judo academy in Japan. As the years progressed, however, the brothers (notably Carlos and Helio) and their students refined their art via brutal no-rules fights, both in public challenges and on the street. Particularly notable was their willingness to fight outside of weight categories, permitting a skilled small fighter to attempt to defeat a much larger opponent.

They began to concentrate more and more on submission ground fighting, especially utilizing the guard position. This allowed a weaker man to defend against a stronger one, bide his time, and eventually emerge victorious.

In the 1970’s, the undisputed jiu-jitsu champion in Brazil was Rolls Gracie. He had taken the techniques of jiu-jitsu to a new level. Although he was not a large man, his ability to apply leverage using all of his limbs was unprecedented. At this time the techniques of the open guard and its variants (spider guard, butterfly guard) became a part of BJJ. Rolls also developed the first point system for jiu-jitsu only competition. The competitions required wearing a gi, awarded points (but not total victories) for throws and takedowns, and awarded other points for achieving different ground positions (such as passing an opponent’s guard). After Rolls’ death in a hang-gliding accident, Rickson Gracie became the undisputed (and undefeated!) champion, a legend throughout Brazil and much of the world. He has been the exemplar of Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu technique for the last two decades, since the early 1980’s, in both jiu-jitsu competition and no-rules MMA competition.

Jiu-jitsu techniques have continued to evolve as the art is constantly tested in both arenas. For example, in the 1990’s Roberto “Gordo” Correa, a BJJ black belt, injured one of his knees, and to protect his leg he spent a lot of practice time in the half-guard position. When he returned to high-level jiu-jitsu competition, he had the best half-guard technique in the world. A position that had been thought of as a temporary stopping point, or perhaps a defensive-only position, suddenly acquired a new complexity that rapidly spread throughout the art.

In the early 1990’s, Rorion Gracie moved from Brazil to Los Angeles. He wished to show the world how well the Gracie art of jiu-jitsu worked. In Brazil, no-rules Mixed Martial Art (MMA) contests (known as “vale tudo”) had been popular since Carlos Gracie first opened his academy in 1925, but in the world at large most martial arts

competition was internal to a single style, using the specialized rules of that style’s practice.

Rorion and Art Davie conceived of the Ultimate Fighting Championship. This was a series of pay-per-view television events in the United States that began in 1993. They pitted experts of different martial arts styles against each other in an environment with very few rules, in an attempt to see what techniques “really worked” when put under pressure. Rorion also entered his brother Royce Gracie, an expert in Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu, as one of the contestants.

Royce dominated the first years of the UFC against all comers, amassing eleven victories with no fighting losses. At one event he defeated four different fighters in one night. This, from a fighter that was smaller than most of the others (at 170 lbs, in an event with no weight classes), looked thin and scrawny, and used techniques that most observers, even experienced martial artists, didn’t understand.

In hindsight, much of Royce’s success was due to the fact that he understood very well (and had trained to defend against) the techniques that his opponents would use, whereas they often had no idea what he was doing to them. In addition, the ground fighting strategy and techniques of BJJ are among the most sophisticated in the world. Besides the immediate impact of an explosion of interest in BJJ across the world (particularly in the US and Japan), the lasting impact of Royce’s early UFC dominance is that almost every successful MMA fighter now includes BJJ as a significant portion of their training.

Excerpt: On Classical Training

I believe in classical training, because many of the requirements and exercises in these older arts can help further the range and skills of a martial artist, even if they aren’t directly applicable to winning a fight. I see this in a variety of subtle ways, but ukemi springs to mind as a good example. I’ve found that it’s more often practiced , and more heavily stressed, in older judo and jujutsu traditions, and I haven’t seen this kind of time devotion and emphasis in their modern derivations, such as BJJ. Why? One reason is that in a competition, no one’s going to tap to good ukemi, no matter how polished or practical it may be. Still, there are benefits in it, ranging from real-life falling skills to enhanced kinesthetic awareness.

So, the benefits of these specialized skills may often be masked or unseen in a martial arena, but other art forms make it easier to realize the benefits of traditional training. Whether it’s exhibited in an electric guitar solo or modern dance performance, the advantage of a classical base can often be spotted through the precision of technique in both music and dance, because of the specific physical demands inherent in classical guitar lessons or the discipline of ballet. Also, Chopin and Paganini may not be dominating the current music marketplace, but that doesn’t mean there’s no worth in what they’ve created. Studying, practicing, and finally understanding this music can give a student a tremendous amount of perspective on more contemporary creations, in addition to expanding and improving technical ability. An understanding of what has gone before can deepen the comprehension why the old was altered to form what’s now the new.

We Have A New Blackbelt…

This is a post from the popular website, MMA.tv, where Mr. Harris has his own forum as an expert on Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu.

Harris International has a new Black Belt in Brazilian Jiu Jitsu! Mr. Roy Dean took his three and one-half hour Black Belt examination today and passed with flying colors!

I am very proud of what Mr. Dean has accomplished! I am also proud of the fact that he too is one of my “FIRST” black belts. Let me explain:

Mr. Matt Stansell was the first person I ever promoted to black belt in Brazilian Jiu Jitsu. He was the first FIRST.

Mr. Jeff Clark was the second person I promoted to black belt in Brazilian Jiu Jitsu. However, he was the FIRST person I promoted to black belt that began his journey with me as a white belt. (For Matt Stansell came to me as a blue belt in 1998 from Royce Gracie.)

Mr. Kyle Saunders was the third person I have promoted to black belt in Brazilian Jiu Jitsu. However, he was also the FIRST person I promoted to black belt as a long distance student. Kyle lives in Rochester, New York. I live in San Diego, California. Kyle has consistently trained with me for a minimum of twenty hours every year for the past six years. This demonstrates how Kyle can listen, learn and train on his own (a definite mark of discipline, determination and dedication). Kyle came to me in 2000 as a purple belt from Carlos Machado.

Mr. Roy Dean is the fourth person I have promoted to black belt in Brazilian Jiu Jitsu. However, he is the FIRST person I have promoted to black belt that has consistently trained at group classes at the academy since he began his training with me. He is also the first person I have promoted to black belt that has continued his group class training at the academy past purple belt.

Mr. Dean has quietly and selflessly invested so much of his time, energy and experience to the development of Harris International Instructionals and the development of the Harris International competition team. He has also given so much of his time to the development of so many Harris International Instructors that many are deeply indebted to him, myself included! Thank you Mr. Dean for all you have done!

I am very proud of Mr. Dean’s accomplishments and am honored to have him on my team! I wish him thrilling success, bounding fulfillment and exciting adventure on his new journey in Bend, Oregon!

Sincerely,

Roy Harris

Roy Dean Interview

Edited version of an interview taken from creativeexercise.com, conducted by Robert Bentley.

Martial arts you’ve studied: Kodokan Judo, Aikikai Aikido, Seibukan Jujutsu, Enshin Itto-Ryu Batto Jutsu (Iaido), Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu, and exposure to many others.

What rank or achievements did you obtain in those other arts?

I have first degree blackbelts in Judo, Aikido, Iaido, and Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu. I have also obtained a third degree blackbelt in Seibukan Jujutsu.

How long have you been training for?

15 years.

What got you interested in the martial arts in the first place?

Media exposure. The Karate Kid. Steven Seagal. Then the first UFC’s inspired me to train in Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu, and illustrated the importance of cross training.

How long did it take you to achieve your black belt in Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu?

Nine and a half years.

What are your two favorite techniques?

Triangle and straight armlock.

How often do you practice?

I practice in some way 5 days a week.

Are there any other training programs etc that you do to supplement your martial arts training?

I do weight training and yoga. I like to go on hikes. I stretch. Meditate. Visit chiropractors. Eat well. It’s all part of it.

Have you participated in any competitions?

Yes. I have won and lost many times.

What were your results?

As a blue belt, I won a gold medal at Grappler’s Quest (no-gi), and a silver medal at the United Gracie Tournament (gi). As a purple belt, I won silver at Chris Brennan’s Westside Submission Championship (winning 5 of 7 matches by submission; no gi), and a gold medal at the HCK All Comers Tourney, receiving awards for fastest submission (flying armbar: 15 seconds) and most technical fighter (gi). All of my wins have been by submission.

Have you ever had to use your skills in a confrontation?

I’ve never had to fight, but I’ve been in situations where I thought that violence was imminent. I think the confidence that jiu-jitsu gives you makes you less prone to aggressive posturing, verbal or physical, since situations can be resolved by so many other means.

What would you say to a prospective student of your art in regards to what they should be looking for in a dojo or instructor?

Look for a place that you feel comfortable. Don’t just go for the name. Go for the technique. Because that is where the focus needs to be to really understand and appreciate an art. This way it can be part of your life, and you can grow from it, and with it, as your mat skills improve. Great competitors don’t always make great teachers, some great teachers may not be the best coaches. It depends on what’s most important to you. What are you looking for? Get a feel for what each instructor offers. Look around. See if you can make a match.

I would also advise them to take a look at the skill level of the students. Would you feel comfortable training with them as a fresh whitebelt? Can they moderate themselves? Are there at least 1 or 2 advanced practitioners working smoothly during training? Does it look like a lot of power is being used? You only get one body for this trip, take care of it. You’ll need it later.

What would you say are the most important qualities that a person must possess to be proficient in this art?

Humility. Dedication. It’s not a one year martial art. The experience changes dramatically as you progress. The first year is not easy, especially if you’re not used to losing. Later, you may have more skill than you ever imagined, and can tap almost anybody you want, but are still dissatisfied with your own game because you have still have small holes, or pockets in need of improvement, that only you know about. You’re still polishing the mirror. The dedication steadies you.

Is there any other advice that you can think of to give a new student of your art?

Leave your ego behind. Enjoy the journey. Each phase has its perks. In many ways, white belt is the best place to be. Just keep going. That’s the most important thing.

Roy Dean - An Uchideshi Experience

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