JOURNEY - on Mastering Ukemi Daniel Linden (feel good novels txt) 📖

to emulate the idea of ukemi. Do you worry about dying when you attack nage? Do you concern yourself that you might get hurt?”

“Sometimes, like when I attack you.”

I looked at him and smiled and he flinched a bit.

“Well, Sensei, you do have a habit of smacking your ukes when they don’t do it right. I’ve had a black eye for the last two weeks if you see what I mean.”

I thought about that and saw how he could have gotten the wrong idea. I really don’t consider a person to be hurt unless there is damage that is at a certain level. A torn ligament, broken bone, cut that requires stitches, ruptured spleen, etc; those are injuries. A bloody nose or blackened eye or sore ribs are just learning experiences.

“Forget about that. That doesn’t mean anything because you know that I might blacken your eye, but I would never really damage you. I would give my life to protect you. So you attack relentlessly and as hard and fast as you can when I require it. And that’s the way you should live your whole life. That is the way to travel. Don’t try and be safe. People are the same the world over and love the same things, respect the same things and want the same things. We want a soft bed, a warm meal and love. All the rest is extra. Some people are willing to kill for ideology or desire for money or what have you, but the vast majority of people are just like I described and in that sameness you find your common ground. I remember walking around Istanbul one evening and looking at the architecture, the people on the streets, the veiled women, and wandering into a small store that sold your typical convenience store items. While I was paying for a bottle of wine for my wife and a couple bottles of beer I remember thinking how nothing was really any different eleven thousand miles away from Orlando.

“Another trip I took found me in a small village all alone at the end of a long journey. That was in Germany. I wandered around until I found a restaurant, went in, and tried to communicate with the manager. I spoke no German beyond ‘ein beer!” and he spoke no English. Somehow I got through to him that I wanted a bowl of soup and a beer. He went off into the kitchen, made a huge bowl of fresh soup that he brought to me with a loaf of dark bread and butter, and kept cold beer coming until I was finished. Then he invited me to join him and a few of his cronies at the bar. We drank all evening and I talked to them in English, they all talked to me in German. I haven’t got a clue what we talked about, but we had a wonderful time and when I left they all hugged me and let me know I would be welcome back anytime. See? It’s a soft bed, a warm meal and love.

“This is ukemi. We go forward and attack because it is the thing that we are required to do. We go forward and do it with the best of our ability. We know we might get hurt. We know we certainly put ourselves in harm’s way, but we do it anyway because that is where the real life is lived. Ukemi is attacking from the heart, to the heart. So we embrace travel as a beautiful metaphor for the thing we do on the mat on the other side of being nage. Remember that nage is the dissipater of the energy that is joined in the nexus of the attack. It is the uke that brings this energy to the union. Without uke, there is no aikido and without aikido nage is just someone drinking a coke or walking down the street. Uke defines aikido in much the same way that uke defines the technique that nage uses to bring him down or dissipate his energy. It’s the same way that life returns to you exactly in measure what you give to it.”

“How does uke define the technique? Nage is the one who decides what he is going to do.” Christian said.

“Nage makes his decision on the basis of uke’s attack. It all depends on what uke does. If uke moves forward and grabs and pulls, nage responds in kind. If uke launches an attack straight up the middle, again, nage responds. It’s all about ukemi, not what the nage does. Nage is only useful for re-directing uke’s energy. So why does everything we do center around the training of nage? Good question, and it isn’t always a straight answer.”

Christian nodded his head and yawned. I guess that was as succinct a comment as he could make. I guess I am getting old and repeating myself. Or maybe I’m just boring the crap out of him. I got up and told him to go home, called my dogs and turned out the lights. What a way to end a day. As he was walking down the steps I called out to him and he turned around.

“Whatever happened to that girl?”

“Oh,” he said, “We got back together. I’m going to see her later when she gets off work.”

I just turned around and went into the house. Why do I waste my breath?

Chapter 4

Break Falls

Years ago we had a method of separating the boys from the men. If you could practice break falls by yourself – toss yourself up in the air and land flat on your back, or side, or face while slapping the mat with a free hand to soften the blow- then you were a man. If you couldn’t, well, you weren’t. I have never known a woman who could do this, although I’ve known some