JOURNEY - on Mastering Ukemi

JOURNEY

On Mastering

Ukemi

Also Available by

Daniel Linden

On Mastering Aikido – 2
^nd
Edition

9 Dialogs on Principles

(2004, 2010)

FICTION

The Last Viking

(2011)

The Aikido Caper

A Parker Mystery

(Release date 11/2011)

JOURNEY

On Mastering

Ukemi

By

Daniel Linden

JOURNEY - On Mastering Ukemi

Daniel Linden

Published by Basswood Press

All Rights Reserved

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical., including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without written permission from the publisher, except for the inclusion of brief quotations in a review.

This is a work of fiction and no quotes may be attributed to any individual except the author.

© 2011 Basswood Press

For Laurie

Part 1

Prologue

The doctor looked at me with apparent disapproval. I don’t know why, but I sometimes have that effect on people without meaning to. When he spoke he had an accent I could not identify, but he was probably from somewhere in northern Europe. I didn’t think it sounded Aussie or South African. He slipped the I.V. into my arm and then bent over to stare at my cheek. My face was so swollen that my eye was closed.

“
You have a fractured kidney and a slight concussion. You have been in a fight. Yes?”

“
Well, Doc, I wouldn’t really call it a fight. I pretty much stood there and they pretty much hit me. Is that being in a fight?”

“
I think so. Yes. How did you get here?”

How did I get here? Was he kidding? There isn’t a road for a hundred miles in any direction.

“
I walked,” I said.

Introduction

Aikido is a unique martial art. It requires that two individuals train together to a mutual end. One person cannot train at aikido alone.

In other martial arts, Judo, Karate, or Kung Fu, for example, one person can train at
kata
or in practice
kumite
(fighting) along with another, but in all of these arts it is the point of the training to win the encounter. Each individual tries to overcome the other.

Not so in aikido. In aikido there is an
uke
and a nage. These are roles that are played and shared by the people who train at this esoteric art. The
uke
attacks and the
nage
defends. In Japanese,
uke
means ‘one who receives’. So in aikido the person playing the role of
uke
attacks the person playing the role of
nage
and then receives the results of the attack, whether it’s a throw or a pin or an
atemi
(strike).

It could be argued that mastership in
ukemi
is tantamount to aikido mastership, but it is not. One can be said to have done aikido, for example, when one successfully defends oneself from an attacker. If the attack takes place outside of a convenience store late at night, and the attacker is just another street hoodlum, he is probably incapacitated in some way and you (who have done aikido) have achieved a resolution. That attacker cannot be said to have done aikido or to have taken
ukemi
. At best he fell down.

Ukemi
is a part of the ‘practice’ of aikido, but it is not aikido. It is a necessary part of the learning process, but it is not aikido. It is a requirement for mastership, the requirement that one masters the art of
ukemi
, but it is not aikido. Each role is unique and necessary. One can no more have a marriage with only one person than train at aikido with only one person. Traditionally (new ideas notwithstanding), a marriage requires a man and a woman – a husband and wife that is - to be a marriage. Aikido requires an
uke
and a
nage
.

Ukemi
is the art of falling down and getting up again.
Ukemi
is the art of listening with the body.
Ukemi
is the art of attacking from the heart, to the heart.
Ukemi
is attacking relentlessly until one is engaged or disengaged. I believe it is an art in itself, albeit one that no one will ever claim or truly master. However, only the best at
ukemi
ever claim true mastership in aikido.

***

There is a perfect image for me. It is the journey from beginner to master. In that image I see a person walking down a path and the path stretches to the horizon. The seeker walks, climbing hills and then descending into valleys, through forests, across streams and rivers, over bridges and through harsh dry desert. He becomes weary, but regains his strength in equal measure. He moves relentlessly and falters repeatedly, but on he walks, going past the end of the road and then beyond the end of the trail and then into the wild. He bushwhacks his way into the unknown until he finally begins to climb the highest mountain. He knows peril and cold and unspeakable hardship, but continues until one day he experiences grace.

After that everything is different. He begins to breathe easier even though the trail still climbs. He passes people along the way and though they have never met, he recognizes them. He begins to have fun and the fun becomes the joy of being alive in a great adventure. One day he stands on the summit rejoicing in his accomplishment, and then realizes that far off in another cordillera there is another higher mountain and he still has a long way to go.

This does not deter him, because he has matured and realizes that all life is a journey that we must continue to travel until we die. Or worse, we give up and continue in the shadow of what it is to exist, but not to live.

This is my image. The journey, the passions of living and of mastership are all part of the same poem that we continue to write all the days of our lives. These things are as entwined as they are eternal.

Train hard, and good trekking.

Chapter 1

1972

The first punch almost broke my nose. I could hear the buzz and smell the musty odor of a hard strike to the face. Tears welled unbidden to my eyes. Struggling to my feet I launched another attack at the small man in front of me and again he struck then simply disappeared. This time I jerked my head back away from his fist and took the fastest
ukemi
of my life and was rewarded with a crushing fall to the mat, but no pain in my face. I had escaped.

Once more I stood and Akira Tohei Sensei turned to address the assembled aikidoka who were training in Lake Geneva for a summer seminar. Not sure what was expected of me, I stood dumbly waiting for a sign. At the edge of the mat one of my school’s senior students was motioning for me to get down. I nodded at him and went to my knees. Tohei Sensei (teacher) finished speaking then motioned for me to attack and I again launched my best
tsuki
at his face. Again he seemed to disappear, but the crushing hand to the side of my head told me that once again I had failed to react sufficiently to avoid the blow.

With a disgusted gesture he motioned me back to the sitting crowd of students and called to a more experienced
uke
. I had been dismissed for my incompetence. With shame burning across my face, the two strikes faded away into nothingness. The bruises only lasted a couple weeks, but I still remember how humiliated I felt at that moment forty years later.

Ukemi
is the art of attacking and then avoiding being hurt (arms or wrists broken, being thrown to the mat or being struck) by a person doing aikido. This is so difficult to explain that I will seem to contradict myself over and over while I discuss this aspect of aikido. However, it all makes sense once you grasp that it has nothing to do with you and everything to do with the instruction. You finally understand that it has nothing to do with falling down (other than the physical fact) and everything to do with communication. Yes, it’s a people thing.

As a young Viet Nam veteran I did not understand
ukemi
at all when I began aikido and regret all the trouble I made for those poor partners who tried to practice with me. For me it was about winning. I did not want my partner to succeed in making me go to the mat and my sensei was most insistent that I should do so. I wouldn’t let him take me to the mat without a struggle and so after nearly five years of hard training had never been allowed to test for even the lowest rank.

Ukemi
is what I should have been taught, but back then one did not ask questions of this sensei and most of the other students I trained with were able to grasp this concept. I did a nice
irimi nage
with one of the senior students after a couple years of training and when he reacted with his feet high in the air and a rush to strike the mat in a hard break fall I suddenly understood the basic concept. It came slowly for me but by the time another Sensei arrived in the United States I was pretty good at it. Not good enough for Tohei Sensei who had never again called me for
uke
, but as I decided to move to Florida and train with the newly arrived teacher, I was damned determined that I would be good enough for him

Chapter 2

Present

Christian punched fast and hard. I reacted slowly, and gently raised my left hand as he breezed into my center. His face met my raised hand and his head snapped back, feet flying forward and the first thing down on the mat was his shoulder, followed by his neck, back and then all the rest of him. It was brutal.

“
Christian, are you okay?” I bent over and asked.

He shook his head to clear it and I could see that his neck was not hurt, my first concern. His eyes crossed and uncrossed and then he jumped up to his feet.