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| Mori Sensei |
(NOTE: this article was initially published in American Samurai about 2 years ago and republished here with the permission of the author - me. A few editorial changes have been made as well. I thought it was nicely written and evocative and hope you will enjoy it.)
Eleven years later on the same wooden floor. I remember the first day I walked into this dojo. I was introduced by a neighbor lady friend who heard I was looking for a place to study karate. Her name is Mrs. Miyata and we are still very good friends today. She is a marvelous lady. I remember how heavy the air felt that first day as I waited with Miyata-san at the back of the dojo, off to the side, hearing the rain fall on the roof and the chirping of night insects outside, waiting for the moment to be introduced.
I remember rehearsing my three lines of Japanese greetings so I would make a decent impression:
“Hajimemashite. Mark desu. Yoroshiku-onegaishimasu.”
“Hajimemashite. Mark desu. Yoroshiku-onegai . . . damn!”
“Hajimemaruni . . . Ah! Crap! I will never get this ”
Then a short muscular man, wearing a white karate uniform and a worn black belt, walked straight towards me, put out his hand for me to shake, and said in very clear English, “Hello. I am Taniguchi. Do you want to practice karate?” I stood up, shook this man's hand and started our nine-year-old friendship.
It all started from that day, and just about every day from the first I could be found in the early evening hours at the back of the room. Every day learning how to stretch, how to stand, how to make a proper fist, how to hold my head, how to keep my elbows in, how to rotate my hips, and how to snap back punches and kicks.
Each day was so much like the last they seem to bleed into one another. Those first three years seem like a haze of training, a seemingly endless cycle of stretching out from head to toe, standing in one place, endless repetitions of punches and kicks, and moving up and down the worn wooden floor. I started and ended each class in the same spot too: last row, far right, between the iron kendo dummy and the other adult students.
The Japanese say that theirs is a country of four equal seasons, each with its own flavor, its own essence. The same can be said for training in a dojo without air conditioning or insulated walls. Each season has its own essence of pain.
In the hot spring and summer of Japan you can feel streams of sweat roll down your back, trickle down your legs, spreading out across your gi. And that was just the warm up. I had never sweated so much in my life. Was it natural to have the backs of your hands sweat? Was it normal to see beads of perspiration well up on the surface of the skin like that? The training was hard, and before you knew it you were soaked, wrapped in the wet canvas of your karate gi.
Autumn is the season when the scorching heat has ended, your hair can dry sometime by mid-morning if you take a shower, and mold will not quickly grow on your karate gi or leather shoes. It is the season, however, when Taniguchi-sensei is really anxious to get some “real training” done. As if you had been taking it easy all summer. But autumn evenings, with the cool air drifting across the dojo floor from the open windows, has a very nice feel as you work through a kata, anticipate your opponent in kumite, or merely glide up and down the floor doing fundamentals. You really feel like you are walking through a dream, like you are skating through your karate on an old wooden dojo floor.
But soon enough, it will snow. Winter will blast in with rain, sleet, and overnight gigantic piles of snow. I remember one day in the dead of winter, lying on the floor after a grueling exercise. I was looking up at the water stained ceiling and the fluorescent lights and I saw smoke. Where did it come from? What was on fire? It was coming from me! I jerked up and realized that I wasn't on fire, I was steaming. The hot sweat was starting to cool and tiny wisps of steam were coming off my head, off my hands, and off my gi. It is times like these when the dry Canadian plains seem so far away from this little town called Terai, a short stop from the airport between Komatsu and Kanazawa, in not so sunny Ishikawa-ken.
Although the seasons seem to merge into one another typical practices have their comforting senses of uniformity. Each practice I would arrive at about 6:00 p.m., that is, unless I had a one-on-one session with Taniguchi-sensei before. The 6:00 p.m. class was supposed to be just for children but a few of us adults were beginners too so we joined in and followed along at the back of the room. After an hour the first wave of students left and the next came in. These students were mostly junior high, high school, and some other adults. The practice was more of the same. Stand in place. Punches. Blocks. Kicks. Change your stance. Punches. Blocks. Kicks. Taniguchi-sensei would often stand directly in front of me, watching every punch and kick, mirroring my moves, pushing me to try to keep up with him.
Next came some moving up and down the floor, putting techniques together in combinations. Up and down the floor. I had been up and down so many times I swore I was wearing a groove in the floor. Little did I know then that the groove had been started many years before I ever set foot on this wooden floor. The groove will likely be worked by the next karate-ka long after I am gone too. But this is the nature of the karate dojo. Many come to train, and some make grooves longer than others.
Towards the end of the practice we break up into groups and shorten our stances. Taniguchi-sensei and Mori-sensei now pay particular attention to how our bodies are moving forward. We are taught how to make short kizami jabs that snap back after the moment of impact, how to move forward, and how to sense exactly how long our arms and legs are as we once again move up and down, up and down, up and down the floor.
Then mercifully it is over. We can stand up straight again. I can feel every muscular protest throughout my thighs, calves, and hips. I have been stretched from the inside out. I wonder if I will explode. But also, with the sweat still draining into the last dry spot on my karate gi I feel a certain grim sense of satisfaction. I didn't die. I didn't gasp out my last breath of life on the dojo floor, flopping around like a trout in the bottom of a fisherman's boat. Stomach acid seems to be crawling up my throat but I made it. I did everything that was asked of me and I tried my best.
Taniguchi-sensei, in the change room makes comments about how my technique needs some changes, how I need to stand, where my knees should be, and how to keep my elbows close to my body when punching. I am drying myself off with a towel and Sensei is still teaching me as we both stand there in our underwear. And then he often says something like, “You are getting better. That is great. Don't give up. Just keep trying the best you can every time. If you learn how to do something correctly once and really learn it, you can do proper karate forever. But, if you learn something badly and do that technique a million times, it still is equal to nothing.” Mori-sensei nods and steps forward too, often making some observation about stances, distancing, or technique. A quiet man, but when he speak, everyone listens.
As we step out of the change room and walk down the short hall to the genkan, Sensei goes to the side room to shut off the lights. In the dark we find our shoes or sandals and step out into the night. Standing on those tiled steps we often chat about one thing or another. Taniguchi-sensei often asks about my wife or my little boy. I ask after his wife and aging parents. Sometimes parents of some of the younger students are there to chat as well. It is dark outside but the single street light and lights from surrounding houses let us see one another as our eyes adjust to the night.
It has been eleven years since I first met Taniguchi-sensei and he has been the best teacher and friend I could ever hope for. Honest, humorous, serious, and generous are only words which can start to begin to describe this man. He is not a hero and not a saint. He is just a good man and a great teacher. I am honored to know him.
It is beginning to get late. We say goodnight to each other, get in out cars, and drive home. I often don't get away though without Taniguchi-sensei giving me some yakimanju that he made at his shop that day. I am always glad to take them home and eat one on the way back. The training was tough, but good. I feel some mild twinges in my hips and joints, my muscles are now relaxing, and a sense of ease begins to grow through places that used to hurt. I roll down the windows as I drive along the rice fields in the dark and let the songs of cicadas and frogs fill my brain. This is Japan, and this is karate, the Japanese way.
Mark Groenewold
Ishikawa-ken, Japan
December, 2003
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