Hard to Swallow

Tuesday was an unusual day. Our long-time 1st kyu taught class. I'm not sure where everyone else was, but it was fine. Mostly fine, I'd say. I have always been very particular about things. My wife, from Brasil, says "Cu do ferro," or iron butt. I suppose that's why I graduated from my Master's program with a 4.0 grade average. I see how things ought to be, and that's the way I carry those things out.

So we had class Tuesday. Our resident 1st kyu is trained in another style of Aikido; iwama, I think he said. It seems to be a harder style than the aikikai style we practice. We worked on three techniques that seemed more "battle ready." Two techniques used tonto. All the techniques used controlled pins. That means that we either held our uke down with a pin after a throw, or we moved from attack into a choke hold.

I worked with a 6th kyu girl on the choke pin. This girl is big, and she is not aware of her own strength. Even today, I feel as though I have something stuck in my throat; like a big pill I tried to swallow that never made it past my larynx. It hurts. That said, I was not the only one who made that same comment after class. At least one other student said the same. I hope that a) we don't do any choke holds tonight, and b) my throat feels better soon. If it goes on for a while I'll see the doctor, but honestly I don't know what he'd be able to do. Even if my hyoid bone or some other area is damaged, there is nothing to do, but give it time to heal.

Lastly, and I know I'm not being courteous here, but our new 1st kyu, Joe, is quickly becoming someone I'm not too fond of. It is common for him to be the ranking sempai in class, so he determines how we line up in class. The problem is that he lines up however he feels like, rather than learning the ways of our dojo. We have always lined up the same way since the dojo's inception - at least that is what I've been told. When we line up we place our knees along the line created between the first and second rows of mats. It's simple and makes sense, because if we line up with our knees on the "line," we are lined up straight across. I remember that it was one of my very first classes when someone made it very clear to me that this was how we lined up; knees on the line.

It seems to me that no one has told him, and if they have, he does not heed the instructions. On Tuesday at the end of class, for example, the sensei said, "Line up," and the five or six students of lower rank all lined up very quickly - centered in front of the Kamiza, and with our knees on the line. Simple, easy to figure out. Joe lines up last, and even though there were six students already lined up the way we were supposed to, he plops himself down in seiza away from the other students.

I was the next ranking student in class. Instead of sitting down to my right, he sits about a foot off to my right and about a foot ahead of the line - in other words, at about 45 degrees ahead and to the right. That meant that even though everyone was already down, we all had to move ourselves to adjust to him - even though he was not in the correct place. It bothers me that the five or six of us who lined up correctly had to move and therefore had to line up incorrectly just to line up next to him. As I see it, there seems to be a very strong ego in this guy - something we at this dojo are not used to. In fact, the lack of student (and sensei) ego was one of the things that attracted me to this dojo in the first place.

My very first sensei in Tomiki Aikido also had a tremendous ego. I remember once doing randori - as this is common practice in Tomiki Aikido - with that sensei. At one point as he attacked with the rubber tonto, I grabbed his hand and executed a very nice shiho nage (if I do say so myself) which landed sensei right down on his backside. He had this astonished look on his face, as though he could not believe that one of his white belt students (as all his students were at that time) was able to defend one of his attacks. Well he was not going to take that at all. He got up and slammed that knife into my chest time and time again, as if to say, 'don't every make one of your techniques work on me again.' I had bruises on my chest for days. His ego was the primary reason I quit Tomiki Aikido, and almost quit Aikido altogether.

I'll say that Joe's ego is nowhere near as bad as my first sensei, but I still don't like the idea that he is so oblivious to our dojo's traditions. I'll be as humble as I can and follow along. Maybe I'll learn something, but this is going to be hugely challenging, as I like sticking to procedures that are well established. Sticking to procedure is one of the things that makes me who I am, for better or worse. As a teacher myself, I know that procedures are important, and when students know and accept procedure, it makes everyone's life much easier, and makes learning happen quicker, with less wasted time.