Last three weeks, there's been a leg issue. Below the butt and above the thigh, there's a muscle, a big one, that I think doctors refer to as notchurassitol. (That makes more sense if you say it aloud and fast.) Anyway, that muscle has been roasting itself over a campfire, or taste-testing Naga Jolokia peppers, or maybe just snorting melty glass. This particular pain hasn't made it any higher than my list of secondary concerns, because it's not like it hurts all the time. It's only a problem, really, when I roll, stand up, or take a step. Or stretch my legs in any way. So, basically, it hurts like hell on earth, but only each time I take a fall.
Tonight, over three hours of practice, I took somewhere right around three hundred falls.
And yeah, my leg hurt pretty much every time I stood up from one of those. That is, until somewhere in the third hour. It was at that point that the hurting, well, seemed to go away. I didn't realize this until later, because at the time, I was too busy being sure not to get punched in the face or thrown into a wall. After class, though, during what has become, over these last three, pained weeks, my usual limp to the car, I realized the pain was gone.
Yea! Right? I can live a pain-free, happy life as a pimp. Or a safety and quality inspector of crutches. Or maybe a professional hop-scotcher. Right?
Wrong: the limp was still there. My body has played this trick on me before; I know exactly what it's up to. It cripples me with pain for a time, until I'm no longer thinking clearly, then it pretends to go away, like a cheater at hide-and-seek (who stomps his feet as if running away while actually just standing in place), only to come back, and soon, with a vengeance. I'm sure there's some science I could only half-guess at that would explain this dynamic, but I don't need it. All I need to know is that the limp has stuck around after the pain has subsided, which means tomorrow the leg will hurt even more than it did before, and tonight's is perhaps the worst--because the most insidious--suffering of all: the anticipation.
02 December 2008
Sometimes the pain is only in your head...
...which only makes it worse. Tonight, the full-body ache subsided, sparing me just enough endurance to carry on with the test preparations. After a full night's excellent practice--attentive, athletic, and accomplished--one of the newer students had a breakdown. He's been training a year and a bit, and he's taken only one test before. Thing is: he's a very, very good student. Even on days when the demons aren't hunting his self confidence, he's got only an inkling just how much he's learned, how capable he's become, in such a short time. Tonight, though, the demons were on a rampage.
When I asked him to pinpoint what was bothering him so much, he spent ten minutes showing me his approach to ikkyo (literal translation: the first teaching), insisting that he knew he was performing it incorrectly, that he knew the correct form, and that he couldn't, for some reason so unknowable that it bordered on the magical, do what he was "trying" to do.
This was the struggle Yoda taught us about twenty-five years ago. The only thing wrong with this guy's ikkyo was that he thought it was wrong. The ten minutes he spent demonstrating his supposedly flawed technique, I spent explaining to him that there was nothing wrong with his technique. I wasn't lying to him. His method was correct; he just wasn't actually using it when attackers were levelling knife-handed shomenuchi strikes at his head. Perhaps this description makes his problem sound like one, simply, of timing. If only that had been the case. Timing, like the mechanics of technique, is tricky--something even the masters keep working on--but it's not mysterious. Proper timing can be demonstrated, observed, pursued, and, eventually achieved. Tonight, the problem wasn't timing, because the student didn't even get far enough into the technique for timing to be a factor. He was getting hit in the head and tangled up in arms because there was no intent left in him by the time the attacker reached him. He had convinced himself that the technique wouldn't work, so he never really gave it a chance to. Excruciatingly, he continuously defeated himself well before his attacker ever had a chance at him.
This is the secret we can never show: agatsu. Self-victory. It's an often-discussed topic in many martial arts. Innumerable teachers have worked on it with even more students for longer than we could ever catalogue, but no one has ever successfully taught it. This is one teaching we all must learn for ourselves. No small demand on those seeking the way, because doubt hurts: in the mind; heart; and, as a result, tonight, the forehead.
We will keep working on it, though, and some day I will have the rare pleasure of seeing this student--and friend--realize the vast scope of the victory he will at that point have achieved over himself, and we will think back on tonight's painful progress...and laugh at it.
When I asked him to pinpoint what was bothering him so much, he spent ten minutes showing me his approach to ikkyo (literal translation: the first teaching), insisting that he knew he was performing it incorrectly, that he knew the correct form, and that he couldn't, for some reason so unknowable that it bordered on the magical, do what he was "trying" to do.
This was the struggle Yoda taught us about twenty-five years ago. The only thing wrong with this guy's ikkyo was that he thought it was wrong. The ten minutes he spent demonstrating his supposedly flawed technique, I spent explaining to him that there was nothing wrong with his technique. I wasn't lying to him. His method was correct; he just wasn't actually using it when attackers were levelling knife-handed shomenuchi strikes at his head. Perhaps this description makes his problem sound like one, simply, of timing. If only that had been the case. Timing, like the mechanics of technique, is tricky--something even the masters keep working on--but it's not mysterious. Proper timing can be demonstrated, observed, pursued, and, eventually achieved. Tonight, the problem wasn't timing, because the student didn't even get far enough into the technique for timing to be a factor. He was getting hit in the head and tangled up in arms because there was no intent left in him by the time the attacker reached him. He had convinced himself that the technique wouldn't work, so he never really gave it a chance to. Excruciatingly, he continuously defeated himself well before his attacker ever had a chance at him.
This is the secret we can never show: agatsu. Self-victory. It's an often-discussed topic in many martial arts. Innumerable teachers have worked on it with even more students for longer than we could ever catalogue, but no one has ever successfully taught it. This is one teaching we all must learn for ourselves. No small demand on those seeking the way, because doubt hurts: in the mind; heart; and, as a result, tonight, the forehead.
We will keep working on it, though, and some day I will have the rare pleasure of seeing this student--and friend--realize the vast scope of the victory he will at that point have achieved over himself, and we will think back on tonight's painful progress...and laugh at it.
30 November 2008
No one is safe.
Eight mudansha, junior students to prepare for tests right now. Theirs is the present toll on my body. If I weren't so fond of these truly, very good friends, I wouldn't be offering myself up to the degree I have been. Despite my high regard for them, despite only wanting the best for them, and despite the fact that I am supposedly helping them to learn how not to be hurt, sometimes, I injure them. The evidence:
And in that picture, the bruise is only about twelve hours old. It's already half the length of her arm and approximately the color you imagine when you think of an ulcer. She doesn't remember when it might have happened, nor what exactly might have done it. It's going to get bigger, darker, and more sensitive to touch before it starts to heal, when it will get even uglier. Yellow, purple, spotty and raised. Still, she showed up for three hours of class the next morning, ready to practice again the test that left this mark on her the night before. Tough, persistent, and further developing both of those qualities every day: this is a big part of budo, embodied.
And in that picture, the bruise is only about twelve hours old. It's already half the length of her arm and approximately the color you imagine when you think of an ulcer. She doesn't remember when it might have happened, nor what exactly might have done it. It's going to get bigger, darker, and more sensitive to touch before it starts to heal, when it will get even uglier. Yellow, purple, spotty and raised. Still, she showed up for three hours of class the next morning, ready to practice again the test that left this mark on her the night before. Tough, persistent, and further developing both of those qualities every day: this is a big part of budo, embodied.
A lot.
Thus far, I've enjoyed thirteen years of aikido, including five distinct styles, six different dojo, and more seminars than I presently care to count. In that time, the following injuries have come my way: a torn knee ligament; a twice-broken nose; a dislocated finger; mat-burn to the point of bleeding from the knees, heels, toes, knuckles, and face; a chipped tooth; a black eye; a couple slight sprains of the wrists; innumerable relatively-minor bruises and cuts; and no small amount of damage to the ego. To be certain, there is more, happily forgotten, for now.
This sounds, perhaps, like a lot. But I train a lot: three hours a day; six days a week. Compared to the peril, violence, and plain-old accidents of normal life (car wrecks; potato peelers; drunk guys and psychos) it's not a bad ratio for what some might describe as a part-time job in a full-contact sport. Tonight, however, I've reached an ignoble impasse. Tonight I suffer pain I cannot blame on any particular strike, joint-lock, or throw. Tonight I am, simply, sore. It hurts to stand. And walk. Even breathing must be done in proper measure. (Almost) worse than the pain is the mystery of its source. I've been putting forth a little extra effort lately, and I am more often industrious and athletic on the mat than I am lazy. Yet, though I can't single out any specific recent training for blame, my body feels pushed to a more dire limit than I remember it previously knowing. Wisdom teeth surgery sore. Disastrous teenage romance sore. Santa Claus truth sore.
Maybe it's the eight soon-to-test nage for whom I am presently designated uke, and their attendant preparation. Maybe the years are catching up to me even worse than I'd suspected. Maybe, rather than writing and complaining, I should have just gone to bed, instead, but tonight I feel impelled to begin a long-ruminated project, participating in that dubious literary tradition of sharing my pain with the world, and so I begin this blog of just how much aikido hurts.
This sounds, perhaps, like a lot. But I train a lot: three hours a day; six days a week. Compared to the peril, violence, and plain-old accidents of normal life (car wrecks; potato peelers; drunk guys and psychos) it's not a bad ratio for what some might describe as a part-time job in a full-contact sport. Tonight, however, I've reached an ignoble impasse. Tonight I suffer pain I cannot blame on any particular strike, joint-lock, or throw. Tonight I am, simply, sore. It hurts to stand. And walk. Even breathing must be done in proper measure. (Almost) worse than the pain is the mystery of its source. I've been putting forth a little extra effort lately, and I am more often industrious and athletic on the mat than I am lazy. Yet, though I can't single out any specific recent training for blame, my body feels pushed to a more dire limit than I remember it previously knowing. Wisdom teeth surgery sore. Disastrous teenage romance sore. Santa Claus truth sore.
Maybe it's the eight soon-to-test nage for whom I am presently designated uke, and their attendant preparation. Maybe the years are catching up to me even worse than I'd suspected. Maybe, rather than writing and complaining, I should have just gone to bed, instead, but tonight I feel impelled to begin a long-ruminated project, participating in that dubious literary tradition of sharing my pain with the world, and so I begin this blog of just how much aikido hurts.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)