Invited, Not Included

What was a green belt doing at a black belt class?

That was the feeling as soon as I walked into the dojo, the room suddenly growing quiet as the senior students paused the conversation waiting for me to leave.

When the teacher walked in behind me and announced that I would be joining the training tonight the conversation picked back up.

I took my place over in the corner as we lined up and bowed in to begin training.

Before class that teacher had made my place clear in the class.

I was there by invite only, his invitation, and at any time he could rescind that without explanation. I was not there to be taught, so no correction or adjustments would be given as this class was for the senior students, not me. I could practice the techniques when the class partnered up, but deference was to the senior students as these lessons were important for their training.

I was also going to be used as uke for the teacher when he needed to demonstrate the techniques for them.

Nothing could be complexly certain, but I had a feeling as to why I had been invited to the class as I overheard my teacher and the Master talking after a recent class.

Taking continues ukemi as uke for the Master had made me good at getting hit and landing on the ground when being thrown, the teacher could use this in future classes when instructing the black belts and attending future classes with the appropriate restrictions would be permissible.

I think my teacher and the Master intended me to hear that conversation.

Naturally when the invite was extended I accepted.

The first class must have worked out ok, as a future invitation was extended, being told by my teacher that I should now plan to stay late on Wednesday night moving ahead.

In those black belt classes I was not allowed to look at the densho or write down any notes during the break, I was there not to learn, but to be uke.

To adapt to the techniques, take the hits and falls.  

During the break I’d sit in the corner and replay what I saw over and over again in my mind, memorizing the names and the important points of the waza.

I burned those movements and feeling into my brain and practiced them for hours on my own outside of class.

In time, while I was never accepted by the black belts, I gained a tolerance by a few of them for being there. A few could care less, some accepted the teacher’s command when I trained with them, one or two hit me hard because they could.

On a few occasions when he was in town the Master would sit and watch the black belt class, offering instruction and insights from his time with his Master, and when the situation required a demonstration I was always called up to be uke.

The Master didn’t see belt color.

Over time the dojo began to change and the black belt class became smaller and smaller until there were only two senior students and myself in the class at which point I had finally passed my black belt examinations and would be admitted to the class as a senior student.

The disappointment at this when I was told by the teacher before my first senior class that it was going to be put on hold for a bit. One of the senior students would not be around on Wednesdays for a bit, and the other was recovering from surgery and could not rush back into training.

At this announcement I felt…something, but the dojo is not a democracy.

When the senior student sat down next to me after class and asked how things were going I understood the question.

He wasn’t asking me, he was asking me on behalf of the teacher.

Over the past year I had grown a bit distant, a bit quieter in the training.

Based on our relationship I had to honestly tell him how I was feeling, choosing my words carefully.

It has been a year or so since I was a black belt, and the senior student classes had stopped, having no promise of starting up again.

I felt stuck in training, and was wondering where I was going.

When would the black belt classes start back up?

The senior student just listened as he was asked to do.

A few weeks later, when the dojo was closing for the night and we were all leaving the teacher happened to be walking out with me at the same time and asked if he could speak to me for a bit.

He understood that I was upset about the black belt class and was wondering what was going on with it.

First the black belt class wasn’t coming back anytime soon, and that was just the way it was.

The dojo moves in cycles, and it was in one of those cycles where there are more junior students compared to senior students and that would take some time, maybe a few years to work out.

How many senior students did the dojo now have?

Just two.

I was one of them, and the other senior student was still recovering.

Time was needed to move others through the ranks and as a now senior in the dojo I could assist with that if the black belt class was that important to me.

Besides, for where I was right now in the tradition, that kind of black belt class wasn’t needed, and I shouldn’t feel that I was missing out on anything.

To repeat the material would not be an efficient use of time.

Clearly, I still did not understand what the teacher was trying to say, so he switched to the best approach in understanding the martial arts- throw a punch.

Instructed to put down my bag and take off my jacket, right there in the street outside the dojo he told me to receive a few punches from him using the movements from the black belt class.

For a few minutes we went back and forth and suddenly I felt very foolish, and quite ashamed.

The teacher saw my expression change, so there was no need to apologize.