As I was explaining the technique to the class I noticed him out of the corner of my eye.
A kind of tension that signaled the next punch thrown was
not going to be a practice punch.
And that is where we now found ourselves.
He was quicker then me, stronger, and had a range of natural
motion that I would never possess, and this is how he was going to do it.
If only he had a little more experience on how to hid his
movement, maybe I would not have noticed.
And if I didn’t that punch would have connected and laid me
on the floor in-front of the entire class.
The teacher had put me in charge of teaching the class for
this training session and I had picked him to work with me as uke- the one who
has the techniques demonstrated on him. Out of all the people in the class,
knowing how he felt about me, I picked him because out of everybody he had the
best ability to take a fall, to help demonstrate a technique.
Feelings aside he was the best choice, and the best chance
the other students had at seeing and learning the movement when shown by me.
But I had experience on how to hide my movement, and a
hidden shift put me at the far end of his striking distance when that punch came
in.
From day one I was disliked.
He had a plan for training at the dojo, and I stood in the
way of that plan.
It wasn’t what I physically had that he wanted, as he had
already surpassed that on natural talent alone, rather it was my position in
the dojo.
The instruction and noticing the teacher gave me.
I started to notice what he was after, I made the decision to
let him in, there was room for everybody who wanted to train, or so I thought.
As uchi-deshi in the dojo, sometimes on the nights I stayed
over in the dojo another student would stay with me and we would practice
together, usually followed by the teacher stop by in the early AM hours with
some instruction.
During a break after class when less people were around I
asked the teacher if they could maybe stay over with me on one of the upcoming
nights.
I expected a yes, but instead got that it sounded like a
good idea.
When we would practice in class, I tried to guide him
correctly in how to advance, how to put oneself in a position of opportunity in
the dojo. It still might not happen as that was up to the teacher, but if it
was going to happen, here is how it would happen and how you need to be to make
it happen.
After one of the classes with the teacher, senior students,
and the other students around he asked the teacher why he was not admitted as
an uchi-deshi yet.
It was one of the few times that I saw my teacher caught off
guard.
When a reply wasn’t coming fast enough he pointed out that he
was already three ranks higher then I was when I was offered to opportunity.
He forced the teacher to say publicly in front of the entire
class: not right now.
Like clockwork I knew the conversation was coming about a
week or so later when one of the senior students casually pulled me aside after
class and asked what I thought of him.
I thought he was a very gifted and physically athletic
student, the type of student that any dojo would love to have, a student who
could publicly make the dojo shine.
That, and if there were other issues, ones I of course would
not know about, hopefully those could be worked out.
To have a sit down with the teacher and the senior students
directly was a rare thing, and the conversation was very direct. It was rare to
get such a direct answer and I think he missed the point.
I know he missed the point.
With both of us sitting there the teacher laid it out.
There is only one uchi-deshi in the dojo at a time, and
right now I occupied that space. When that time was complete, things would be evaluated
at that point, with no guarantee a new live-in-student would be appointed.
It was entirely at his (the teacher’s) discretion with no input
from the senior students in the dojo or anybody else.
He should continue training and trust that when the time
comes he will be taken care of.
After that I was tolerated by him in the dojo.
Things had the appearance of calming and smoothing out in
the dojo, the illusion of harmony restored, and I wanted to believe that.
I really did.
It hurt my feelings to actively be disliked.
But feelings have no place publicly in the dojo, so we
continued to train together and I hit him as hard as he hit me.
The class had finished reviewing one of the nine sword
patters and the teacher opened the floor up to any questions on it.
He asked the last question inquiring why the teacher held
the sword the way he did, which received a good explanation and should have ended
the question and allowed others in the dojo to ask their questions.
But, he followed up the question with a statement about how
another teacher who was of higher rank held the sword differently so they must
have known better.
And how did he know this asked our teacher?
They replied they saw it at a seminar they attended recently.
How many in the room knew what was coming next?
The senior students, myself, and a few of the junior
students who understood that the dojo was not a playground or democracy.
The teacher’s response was that the other teacher was indeed
higher ranked then him, and that he should go train with him, but just to keep
in mind that some of his sword postures are a little off because of an accident
that shattered his arm decades ago.
Students of this teacher would have known this so they would
have not copied that part of the movement.
When the punch came in my evasion overextend his reach and
since he put everything into hitting me there was nowhere else to go but to
trip and fall over.
Everybody in the room thought it was an overly enthusiastic
accident except the two of us.
A month later he had left the dojo for another teacher who
offered more *realistic* training.
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