Roppo Doji

Crazy boy, you still have all your hair! I didn’t expect the headmaster to recognize me all these years later, let alone pick me out of the crowd. High school was an interesting time, and I probably created more problems for him then I solved over those years as a student. Before the graduation I had wandered around the school expecting the years to compress, which they didn’t. The building was physically the same, the classrooms physically the same, but everything else was different. Different desks, different doors, different stuff, even the locker room, my locker was gone. I recognized none of it, yet this was the school. The last classroom I stopped in was hers, and everything there was different except the teacher’s desk- her desk, which was stylistically out of place. It was during the graduation ceremony that the room was dedicated to her, a scholarship set up after all these years to help future students. A chance for her from the beyond to do for the future for what she did fo...

The library had one of the largest collections of sci-fi in the city, and I made it a personal goal to read and re-ready through my favorites. Man-Kzin Wars, Dragonlance, Thieves’ World, and even the entire series of the Myth Adventures. I was in the process of checking a few out when I noticed D. moving among the stacks on the second level. I called out but he didn’t hear me. I found him at one of the study stations on the second floor, busy flipping through some books and writing down some notes. Pausing for a moment, I found it strange that D. was even at the library as it wasn’t his thing. Brother… He was surprised to see me materialize from around the stacks, his first impulse was to close the book and gather his notes.  We were sitting outside in the park across from the planetarium when D. looked and gave me one of his smiles.  I didn’t know what he was working on, but given that I saw him in the library I knew he would approach me on his own time. Brother… D. had been ...

Are you ready? One we stepped through those doors we were on, and would be on for the next three days. What we wanted would not matter, as it was now not about us, but rather the perceived persona. We navigated the lobby and made it halfway to the elevator banks when a group of guys noticed us and invited us over to sit in the lobby and hang out. Dropping our bags, we followed and talked about the different factions and which one was the best. The elevator was no different as somebody spotted and stopped us there. We checked in at 7 PM but didn’t make it to our room by 2 AM. It was strange sitting in the grand hall at our designated table waiting for the doors to open. Outside you could hear the crowd ramping up as the other tables around ours also checked things and prepared. Once those doors opened. We played game after game, when one finished the next group was already lined up for the next. Total focus and dedication, we had all come hundreds of miles for the moment of these few ho...

It was only a weekend seminar and there was no way all of this and us were going to fit in the van for the drive down. Boxes, bags, training gear. Sticks, swords, and some presents. Where was it all going to go? My teacher was confident it was all going to fit, and he was correct, somehow it did. I was in the back of the van sitting with the Master, a wall of boxes and backs dividing us and stacked around us to the point that all I could see was a small sliver of light out my window. Loaded up we set off for the seminar. We made good time over the bridge and things picked up once we hit the turnpike. By late morning I was getting hungry and knowing the personality of my teacher I knew we wouldn’t be stopping anytime soon so I brought my own snacks with me. A small bag of pretzels and chips stashed in my jacket pockets, and juice box if I got thirsty. Opening the pretzels and preparing to enjoy them, the boxes stacked next to me started to shift as an open hand pushed through them stopp...

When I was given my shodan I didn’t have a plan for after receiving it. All of my effort had been in developing the movement needed and the forms required to pass the exam. When I stepped out on the dojo floor in that next class I felt exposed. I was a black belt now, a senior in the dojo but what did that really mean? New expectations were now placed on me, and would be expected, but I had no idea what those might be. What did it mean to be a black belt? Just as there were different ranks of junior students, there were different ranks of senior students. The upper-level black belts were still to high for me to understand, but similar first-degree black belts- maybe I should look at them? Three of the first-degree black belts were collectively called “The Russians” in the dojo as all three were PHD students at the nearby University, spoke Russian, and shared similar traits of being over six feet tall and a mass of muscles. They hit hard, knew their stuff, and once you got talking to th...