It was moments like these where the illusion was shattered.
Over time, all of that time spent in the dojo, creates an artificial world.
A distant world of tradition, history, rules, and ways of doing things, amazing things, but it is only a simulation.
The moment the rokushaku bo deflected off my stick I knew it was trouble.
Maybe if I had more experience or time I could have shifted my weight and lifted my leg up, or perhaps desperately leap backwards.
The impact hit right below my knee, a perfect ashi barai, the impact continuing past my knee and dropping me to the ground.
One moment I’m standing, the next moment I’m on the ground, and not so much in pain, that would come later, but on the ground with a leg that won’t respond.
The dojo points to the way, but it is not the way.
Over time one has to be careful to not confuse the vehicle of the dojo with the transmission that it prepares you for.
The danger happens after a few years of practice, and with a little skill in one’s movement, you begin to think you can take a hit, or you can stand up against one of the methods.
In rokushako bojutsu the illusion is thinking you can maybe take one of the hits from the stick, forgetting that these strikes are timed and aimed for very specific outcomes.
The senior student who was practicing with me and had hit me was not standing over me, a mixture of genuine concern and confirmation on the strike, as the voice of the teacher got louder asking the rest of the student to step aside.
I disliked being a spectacle in the dojo.
The teacher removed my hakama for a clear assessment.
I was lucky that it was only practice and that they strike was not full force. The numbness would subside, ice would take care of the rest, along with some stretching of the leg over the next few weeks.
But the welt that was now well on its way to forming, that would go down, but the mark from the stick and the vascular damage it caused from the impact, that I would most likely have for the rest of my life.
It is good to have illusions dispelled, especially when they involve sticks and swords.
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