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

and I discussed; that I should see some of the world before I settle into a profession. My dad agreed completely, but my mom freaked out. My dad served in Korea and was in Viet Nam and saw all kinds of places in the world and thinks it’s a great idea. My mom is completely against me going anywhere. So I asked Dad if he and I could go together, him and me. But his health isn’t very good and anyway he hates to walk anywhere. He won’t even go into a store if he has to park more than fifty feet from the entrance.

“My grandfather thinks it’s a great idea, too. But when we talked about it I thought Mom would just lose it. So my grandfather said he would pay for the trip if maybe we could get you to agree to go along as a kind of guide and mentor. You know, you’ve been there and could watch out for things. You could arrange the trip and organize things. It would be like you were a paid tour guide, or something. The deal is this. If you won’t go, my mom won’t let me go, or at the very least won’t ever speak to my dad again. And Grandpa won’t give me the money for the trip unless Mom is happy. I guess I could just go by myself, but I can’t afford it, either. So in a nutshell, it’s this. Grandpa and Dad want me to go and Grandpa will pay, but only if you go along as a guide. My mom will accept the idea of the trip as long as you are willing to go. Otherwise it’s a long weekend in Chicago visiting my cousins. What do you say?”

He stood there staring at me and I realized that he was not only serious, but that this was something that he really wanted to do. Other members of the dojo were watching as well, and I turned to look at them and then back at Christian.

“You don’t need to pay for it. Hell, I’ve wanted to go back for a long time and I have a little money set aside. I’ll tell you what. You pay for the land costs, and I’ll take care of my own plane tickets and expenses and we’ll call it even.” Then I went into the house and told my wife that I was taking a trip. But, she already knew that.

Organizing an expedition to Nepal can be easy or hard. It’s easy if you know people and only have to send an e-mail requesting transportation, accommodations, porters, Sirdar, (guide and translator) and let someone you know at the other end take care of all these things for you. Or it can be difficult for someone who cannot readily find Nepal on a map, knows nothing of third world diplomacy and does not understand how things work in this part of the world. I do.

After Christian’s parents came to dinner and we discussed the trip I began to get excited about going. His mom was not happy, but after talking with my wife about her two previous expeditions to the same region, and after looking at many photographs of happy indigenous children and towering mountain peaks, even his mom started getting excited for him.

I gave them a list of the special equipment Christian would need for the journey. Heavy, goose down sleeping bag, expedition-weight goose down parka, top-grade, lightweight hiking boots and at least four pairs of the best socks they could find. These things needed to be purchased here with a long list of other items that could easily total over a couple thousand dollars. The upside of this is that if he took care of these items they could last a lifetime and he could get many years of enjoyment out of them camping in the high Rocky Mountains and hiking almost anywhere.

I had everything I needed with a few small exceptions. Some logistical juggling was going to be necessary because I intended to bring a much better camera than I did last time. It weighed about three pounds more than my previous one and was quite a bit bigger, but I wanted to take some lifetime photographs on this trip. It might well be the last time I would be able to go to this part of the world and I intended to make the most of it. The juggling was due to the self-imposed weight limit of thirty pounds.

Thirty pounds of gear is not much when you factor in sleeping bags and three pound cameras. We would wear our hiking boots and carry certain things during the day, but a porter would transport most of our gear for us and I refuse to ask a human being to carry more than thirty kilos. That would be thirty pounds each for Christian and me. We would need certain emergency gear that is absolutely required. We would be as far as five days away by foot from the nearest medical help and a blizzard in the high country could require us to hunker down for several days, so a minimal amount of survival food would be required. We would each carry a light pack with some clothing, foul weather gear, and emergency supplies, but the majority of our gear would be in the hands of our porter and Sirdar.

Break falls require trust. When attacking a powerful combatant we must believe that we will prevail, however if that opponent is strong, centered and has captured our center and energy, it is vital to our survival to escape his intentions. Thus we take ukemi, escape.

While preparing for this expedition it was necessary to understand the opponent would be the heart of the vast Asian continent near the roof of the world. It would be formidable. Yet there could be no escape. Not from the exposure, the fatigue, the hunger, and especially not from the brigands who