Co-worker of mine waxes enthusiastic about this
aikido school he's going to. Insists that some friends and I just
have to come and learn at the feet of this
sensei.
I'm curious and I'm always up to learning something new. So co-worker and I and one of my buddies load up one evening and drive 200 miles to this class.
I've seen at lot of unarmed combat instructors, but this guy was the first one I've ever met who
wheezed when he talked. And I guarantee you that he's never missed a meal. And most of them were baked cheese or something.
And he's got this Martial Arts Death God thing going. Folks, I completely understand and agree with the requirement to show respect to the
dojo and to the
sensei, but I've this thing about grovelling. It's the stiff Scottish neck, or something. Can't do it.
Anyhoo,
sensei waits until the class has grovelled to his liking, then makes his Pronouncement for the Day and class begins. I guess. I think.
He does a technique, and then gestures grandly to the class, and they try to imitate what he just did while he screams and wheezes at them.
Seriously. I'm talking purple-in-the-face, veins-popping, dude-you're-gonna-have-a-coronary, slobber-slinging abuse at the top of his lungs.
Well. Co-worker is flying around the
dojo, banging his forehead off the mat every time
sensei walks by and my buddy John and I are looking at each other with our eyebrows climbing into our hairlines and wondering if we've stumbled onto a secret Oriental S&M training camp, when
sensei deigns to notice our presence.
He stops the class(?), waddles up to us and asks what we think we know. John respectfully (never insult an S&M practioner in his own home) answers that we've studied kickboxing, some stick-and-knife stuff and a little bit of grappling.
Sensei opines at the top of his lungs that he will teach us things [wheeze] about the knife that lesser arts [wheeze] will never know. Or things to that effect. Student is summoned, runs up, bangs his forehead on the mat, runs off, comes back, bangs his forehead on the mat (what
is it with the forehead banging?) and
sensei tells him to attack.
Student stabs,
sensei grabs his wrist, pulls him left, pulls him right, pulls him left again (I think), grabs the students face, student goes flying, all other students bang their foreheads on the mats.
Very pretty.
Sensei tells John to attack his senior student. John aks how the student would like him to attack.
Sensei replies that the
ki [wheeze] of the senior student will allow him to sense and [wheeze] react to any attack John could come up with.
Sensei furthers instructs John to [wheeze] go full speed and to try to [wheeze] do his best, so that John will learn [wheeze] how much he has yet to learn.
Or things to that effect.
John shrugs, lunges into the student, slashes him twice across the chest, student grabs John's wrist, John twists his wrist loose, fires a thrust kick into the students tummy, steps to the right and slashes him twice across the side of the neck as he bends forward, then leaps back into a low guard. Standard streetfighting smash-and-slash attack.
We're summarily ejected from the
dojo.
LawDog