Last night, I made it to NJ dojo, after 1/2 hour of dodging trucks, cars, and heedless pedestrians. My commute always seems to include at least a few drivers who want to kill themselves and take as many people as possible with them. I hate this type of driving, whether on Route 80 or dodging everyone and everything on Broadway on the way to the George Washington Bridge. Add to that the kind of week I have had so far, and it's small wonder I got to the dojo parking lot and heaved a big sigh of relief.
However, within moments of being inside, where the last few minutes of the combination Daito ryu and Shinri classes were taking place, I was laughing as loudly as anyone as I went to change my clothes. I'm not sure how to explain what was so funny in a way that readers would get it - let's just say that one partner attempted a spectacular throw, an errant foot landed off target, and two people ended up curled into fetal positions on the floor, followed first by giggling, then by fits of laughter by them, and then by everyone in the room.
Clearly a mistake had been made. "Do that again," I said, "I missed it the first time."
The two men tried again, made the same mistake, and landed on the floor again in the same positions, followed by more laughter. This is what serious practice among adults can look like here.
And no one is doubting that seriousness. As I've written here before, the instructor makes the potential danger of the techniques apparent over and over again, and last night was no exception. But for the moment, the seriousness gave way to peals of laughter among students who trust both the instructor and each other. By the end of the practice, the problem still had not been totally resolved, but enough progress had been made that both students and instructor felt slightly more reassured that somehow, someday, they would learn the throw.
Of necessity, the iaido practice is generally both more formal and more dignified. As dangerous as Daito techniques and Shinri throws can be, swords are dangerous objects by their nature. You don't need another person to cause injury; you can get hurt all by yourself. And yet, a certain amount of good humor and wit often accompanies this practice too. For an hour and a half, until 10:30pm, we worked together through a set of kata, trading ideas, theories and analogies to pull the best possible technique out of each other. It was the NJ instructor's class, but sometimes I was able to contribute a thought or analogy that helped out the others. We have worked on this set of kata for awhile, but, typically for iaido, there is always some other principle, some other small detail that hadn't come up before, to add to the mix.
I have tried to get some of my NYC students to come to NJ. Nothing doing. New JERSEY? No way. But what's not to like? We stay late. I get home later. Sometimes I can't sleep once I do get home, tired as I am, my head filled with ideas - for training, for teaching, for DOING. Getting up the next morning, faced with work and a schlep to my other dojo and another late night, is a bear. My spouse thinks I'm crazy, though, at the same time, he's become resigned. I think he's become resigned to Wednesday night madness because it's obvious I have so much fun (at least, I hope that's what he thinks). I go to my Thursday practice and I often bring relevant ideas to my NYC students that were forged off the highway, in a low-ceilinged TKD space, in suburbia.
By Friday, I'm a zombie. Training three nights in a row is exhausting. I'm crazy, yes (I must be). But it's worth it.
