An Uchideshi Experience: Chapter One
Luggage to Loft
If I wanted to be an uchideshi, I needed some money. I wasn’t sure how much I needed, or how much Sensei Toribio (from here on referred to as Sensei) was going to charge me over the course of the year, so I just played the denial game. It seems funny to say it now, but I was so resolute on creating this kind of experience, I really didn’t want to know how much it was going to cost in case it turned out to be more than I could afford. I was just going to save as much money as I could, and if it wasn’t enough, I’d work something out.
After graduating from high school in Canada and going back to Alaska, I worked as a stay-in-school student for the National Transportation Safety Board. The field office I worked for investigated airplane accidents. Basically, I was a secretary, but it was a great job with all the perks of working for a sharp governmental agency: a pleasant working environment, intelligent co-workers, sick leave, and my own parking space. This lasted until someone in Washington deemed my position unnecessary and cut its funding.
My supervisor at the NTSB generously allowed me to remain as long as I wanted that summer, paying my salary out of the agency’s travel fund. I decided to stay on until August, then immediately got a job slinging bags for a cruise line.
It was a terrible job, and one I was poorly suited for. It didn’t take a lot of mental acuity to heft bags off conveyor belts and throw them into trucks or trains, but it did require a certain amount of common sense, which I apparently lacked. I couldn’t stop making mistakes in this gig, and anticipated dismissal at every turn.
I came in at the end of the season, so I was already behind in understanding the operational logistics (which no one seemed able to clearly explain to me). I tried to hit the ground running, and asked a lot of questions, but despite my intentions of doing a good job, nothing ever seemed to go right.
One reason I took the job was they needed people to work a lot of overtime. At $6.25 an hour, I needed to put in many hours to build my uchideshi nest egg, and worked at every opportunity I could. I stopped training in aikido, I stopped lifting weights, I stopped everything, including getting adequate sleep. I worked 70 to 80 hours a week, and looking back on it now, I think my judgement skills took a nap while my body was chucking luggage.
Many of my problems in this job stemmed from driving their trucks. I was used to bopping around in a Honda Accord, so when they tossed me the keys and barked instructions on where to meet them and what to do, I did my best in getting this huge commercial vehicle from point A to point B. I always made it, too. I just hit a few things along the way.
It was bad news having me behind the wheel. Whether it was driving for miles with the emergency brake on, backing into the garage door of a hotel, or tearing bumpers off innocently parked vehicles, if it involved destruction of property or monetary loss for the company, I was most likely responsible. And believe it or not, these were warm-ups to that summer’s big fiasco.
The crew was loitering in the airport baggage claim as usual, when my manager, Paul, gave me the order: “Look, as soon as that plane comes in and you load the bags, drive the truck out to Seward. Got it?”
No problem. In Seward, a team of longshoremen would be waiting for me to deliver the goods, and transfer them from truck to ship. All I had to do was drive out there. How hard could that be?
The plane came in on time, we loaded the bags up, and as I got behind the wheel, the rest of the crew piled in the truck. I took them back to headquarters, driving all the way across town (in the middle of rush hour), stopping off at Wendy’s for some takeout food, then retracing my path across the city before getting on the highway and heading out toward Seward.
Everything was fine until I arrived in Seward, and people swarmed the truck as it rolled to a stop. At first they seemed concerned, asking what happened and if I was all right. Once they registered my confusion at their questioning and realized that there wasn’t an emergency situation that slowed my journey, the supervisor put me on the cell phone with Paul (who was livid), as he demanded I account for myself and explain where I had been. I kept telling him that I didn’t go anywhere else and had driven straight out to Seward. I felt that my stop at Wendy’s fell into the category of unnecessary information, so I chose to omit that beefy detail.
“That’s impossible! You had to have gone somewhere, you’re over an hour late!”
“No, I swear, as soon as I dropped the guys off at the yard, I came straight out.”
“You dropped the guys off? Don’t tell me the truck is still sitting there at the airport! Don’t tell me it’s still there!”
“I didn’t even know about it,” I said, and realized this mysterious hour they kept referring to was spent driving my crew through traffic when a vehicle had already been provided. I thought I was doing the right thing, but in ignorance, my actions created repercussions I could not have foreseen.
The supervisor in Seward carefully explained that every passenger on the ship, employee, longshoreman, and lackey were held up, waiting for me to arrive with their luggage. It was also clearly illuminated that since they had been unable to contact me on the road (I had the radio on the wrong frequency) to determine my estimated time of arrival, the ship’s engines had been on for over an hour. Time is relative, and this hour was considered particularly lengthy since the operational cost of running those engines was one hundred dollars a minute. Needless to say, there was a lot of attention on me at the time. Normally I’d like it, but this was not my finest hour.
I went back to the truck, shoved the Wendy’s wrappers under the seat, and awaited my dismissal. Instead, the supervisor told me to hurry up and drive back home, since the highway would be closing soon. I thought to myself, ‘Great, Paul’s going to do the honors himself,’ and drove away from the dock, hoping to make good time before the road closed and midnight repairs began.
I was really frazzled at this point, and ended up taking the wrong dirt road (or what I perceived to be a dirt road, it was pretty dark) out of the harbor. Seeing nothing but weeds in my headlights, I stopped and put it in reverse.
All of a sudden, I heard an explosive BAM!, felt my body rock forward, and the truck stopped dead in its tracks. Obviously, I’d hit something, and shaking with frustration at what had already been a pretty bad day, I hopped out of the cab to check it out.
A telephone pole had sprung from the ground and collided with the back of the truck. At this point, the local supervisor noted I was teetering on the brink of self-destruction, so he told me to spend the night in Seward and forget about driving back. At the rate I was going, I would have rolled the truck before I hit town, and he knew it. I went back to Anchorage the next day, and instead of firing me, Paul told me to go home and get some sleep. I did, and felt much better.
I don’t know if I was necessarily in the wrong place at the wrong time, but having that job was like gambling with scared money. I needed it so desperately to attain my goal of becoming an uchideshi that somehow, I lost touch with common sense and remained defensively employed. In other words, I just didn’t want to get fired.
Relationships predicated on desperate need rarely work well, and this job was a case in point. Paul had previously forbidden me from driving in town, then reneged on his word as times got tougher and they needed another driver. I needed them, they needed me, and it worked, but neither of us were happy.
One of the few things that brightened my long, sleepless days was a friendship I developed with a fellow bagcrew member named Chris. We hit it off immediately, and the shifts we spent together moved beyond mere tolerability toward actual enjoyment. He was very bright, and having already completed two years of college, was taking a year off before finishing up the rest.
I’ve always held that strong bonds in male relationships are forged through loyalty and time, so it’s almost uncanny when two individuals easily click into sync. Others notice it as well. Paul chided me, “So, I hear you and Chris are buddy buddy there, eh?”
It was true, we got along well, and it was a joy sharing our separate interests. He took me rock climbing, I introduced him to aikido and Brazilian jiu-jitsu, and we celebrated his twenty-first birthday in style: Dining at one of the finest restaurants in town, immediately followed by a long night of hard partying.
But moving forward to Monterey, I had to leave it all behind: Family, friends, training partners, associations, patterns and habits, addictions and failures; my old life was fading as my new one began. I needed something new in my life, and I felt an uchideshi lifestyle was it. I didn’t know what that entailed, exactly, but I’d figure it out shortly.
When I arrived in Monterey, an Instructor from the dojo picked me up, took me out to do some training, then deposited me back at my new home, where I checked out my living quarters. Hmmm… not terribly spacious. Then again, at least I had something. I was willing to sleep on the mat if necessary.
My living space turned out to be a loft, originally used for storage, recently cleared to accommodate two college kids from Kansas who did a three-month uchideshi stint. There was already a futon on some industrial carpet in the 5-by-15 foot space, so I simply laid my sleeping bag on top of it and got the rest of my personal items arranged in my compact living quarters.
Believe it or not, and as unglamorous as it may seem, this was my dream, and the giddiness I experienced by going through the motions of living out my goals translated into an insatiable appetite for training. Let me assure you, training was plentiful, but I still couldn’t get enough. That is, initially.
My required training schedule was pretty full. Monday’s evening classes began with a 5:15, plus a 7:00. Tuesday had the kids’ classes at 5:30 (which I was forced to participate in, despite strong protests), a seven o’clock, and a weapons class at eight. Wednesday repeated the 5:15 and 7:00 schedule, then added iaido at 8:30. Thursday repeated Tuesday’s schedule, with a black belt class replacing weapons at 8 p.m. On Friday, Sensei taught ninjitsu, so that was a day of rest for me (for the first few months, at least), and classes resumed Saturday morning at nine. Sunday was also a day of rest, but I usually did some sort of training on my own, feeding that compulsion.
When you add it all up, 12 classes a week doesn’t seem so bad, but a host of other factors were taking up my time, and breaking down my body. In becoming an uchideshi, you have, in effect, become a martial serf: Your body is no longer your own, it belongs to the dojo. If somebody dreams up a crazy technique and wants to try it out, the uchideshi is there and always willing to train. If higher-ranked students are offering instruction to newer ones and need an uke (training partner), you’re it. If a pretest is occurring, 9 times out of 10 you’re involved, getting thrown and absorbing techniques.
Additionally, once your ukemi (rolling and falling skills) is deemed suitable, Sensei will use you to demonstrate techniques, which keeps you on your toes and cuts down your rest time in class. But taking his ukemi is fun, since he’s developed the ability to effectively off-balance you with smaller joint manipulations such as wristlocks. He can put the hurt on, but you’re smiling all the way.
Every time they train, students go through the same warm-up sequence, which includes a variety of hand strikes, kicks, and falling exercises. Even by the end of my term, I didn’t mind participating in any of the classes (they were almost always fun), I was just tired of doing the same warm-ups, day in and day out. Since I had to do them, every day, for a long period of time, those skills and movements were deeply ingrained in my body. I guess that’s really the thrust behind required training, you’re going to get better, whether you want to or not. I think about the thousands and thousands of rolls I took in classes over the year, and note a definite difference.
I always thought I had good ukemi to begin with. In Japan, the head judo coach at my school, Kakihara Sensei, wouldn’t let me get on the mat with the other players before I learned some protective falling skills. I learned ukemi two hours a day, five days a week, for six weeks. After the first week, as angles were shaved and my body rounded out, two circular bruises appeared near my shoulder blades, each four to five inches in diameter.
Every time I rolled, it hurt. Every time I fell, it hurt. Every time I slapped, it hurt. Generally, I was miserable. I told them this. They responded by telling me that if I did it correctly, it wouldn’t hurt. They were right, of course, but my body was at a point where everything produced pain. Finally, after six weeks, I took their ukemi test and passed. When I look back on it, I think my skills were acceptable weeks earlier, but they held off because my gi hadn’t been received in the mail.
Although I cursed them at the time, I’ve thanked them years after for saving me in countless occasions. In critical situations my body has simply responded to a surprise throw or an unusual takedown, protecting me in the process. But even though my ukemi was satisfactory in protecting me from major damage, that doesn’t mean there wasn’t room for improvement.
Daily Seibukan practices refined my protective skills as a martial artist, which is one of the benefits I was hoping for. I longed for a day when the movements of a martial art would be so infused into my body that no thought would be necessary to initiate appropriate action. Direct entries to off-balance an opponent, getting off the line and delivering a strike, spotting and directing my opponents into their balance points, all of these are concepts and movements repeated over and over again through kata, tai sabaki, and other often used Seibukan exercises. Having to be there, class after class, day after day, removes the magic from the movements, and after a while, what you may have thought of as a cool technique turns to merely something that you do. Then you move on and keep training.
One some level for me, being an uchideshi was a kind of ego trip involving hours on the mat. I trained a lot in Alaska doing aikido, but it still was never enough. Training, in itself, is significant to me. I really feel that the consistency and volume of training a student undergoes is a reflection of his character and dedication to an art. If you train a lot, in my book, you’re a serious martial artist, even if you’re not as quick to catch on to things as others are. Adopting the discipline of consistent training is what really shows your mettle over the long haul.
I was already diligent about going to class, but by forcing myself into a heavy regimen of required training, I was discovering who I was as an individual and as a martial artist. It was my own manhood ritual and rite of passage. I almost joined the military, looking for the same sort of masculine vindication, but decided on an uchideshi program instead. It’s what I really wanted, and it’s exactly what I got once I found the right place.
How much training can you take? That’s the question my ego was asking, and my body was slowly formulating an answer. The first three months, armed with enthusiasm, I was easily able to take more training than the schedule required. By the time I hit six months, the toll of multiple daily practices started to wear on me, and the thrill had somehow waned. At the end of the year, training was nothing special at all; it’s just what I did. I ended up staying another quarter, totaling 15 months, and by the end of my term, I definitely had as much training as I could take. Actually, the last month I was there, my body fell apart.
It was a mental release with physical manifestations. I absorbed a lot of techniques, took gobs of ukemi, trained like a madman, but remained injury free for more than a year. Of course, there were little sprains and tears here and there, but overall, I just kept ticking because I knew I couldn’t afford to get hurt. But that last month, I had already left the dojo mentally, so with my body still hanging out and training, I paid a very real price for my lack of integration. My left wrist was trashed, right arm hyperextended, neck tweaked, hips misaligned, the list goes on and on. I was tired, too. Not tired of training, or tired of classes, but just tired of the uchideshi lifestyle. Allow me to ask two questions;
What do you call a musician without a girlfriend?
Homeless.
What do you call an uchideshi without a girlfriend?
Hungry.
Cuisine was an important factor. Before I arrived, Sensei had purchased a small refrigerator and put it in the back of the dojo with a microwave on top. Initially, that was the extent of my cooking facilities. Later in the year, a rice cooker and toaster oven were added, but what I really longed for was easy access to a stove where I could have boiled water. Large quantities of pasta as a staple would have made my life much easier. Instead, I ate a bunch of canned food, fruit, yogurt, and energy bars, on top of the frozen dinners I’d cook at night.
Initially, I didn’t buy a lot of meat since I didn’t want to ingest the carcinogenic nitrates used to preserve them. That didn’t last long though, since I could definitely feel the effects of inadequate protein intake, so I bought it anyway, cancer be damned. Since I didn’t have a lot of money, eating out regularly wasn’t an option. People knew my situation well (hey, they trained in my living room every night), so they sometimes brought me leftovers, and occasionally invited me into their homes for dinner.
My caloric intake was just too low for the daily energy expenditure training required, and consequently, I dropped well over 10 pounds. Unfortunately, none of it was fat. After 15 months, people told me I looked pretty gaunt and haggard, which is not always the most pleasant thing to hear, but it was the truth, and they mentioned it only out of concern.
I could’ve eaten more if I’d had the money, but no amount of money would have given me a shower. We didn’t have one in the dojo, nor hot water for that matter, so I’d bop down a couple blocks to the Coast Guard Marina and use the quarter-operated shower stall. That wasn’t a big deal.
What was a big deal was getting sick. If I was legitimately sick or injured, there was no expectation for me to train until I healed. So training wasn’t the issue; a healing environment was. Without any heating, and oftentimes alone, having the flu or even a cold in an empty dojo can be a miserable experience. It’s hard to imagine you’re recuperating quickly when you wake up and see your breath. Once, I got a bad case of food poisoning and Sheila Haddad (Sensei’s wife at the time) put me up at the house, which was a blessing. I don’t think I’ve ever been so sick in my life, and I hope that experience goes unrepeated.
Despite the reduction in my standard of living, sometimes living in the dojo was magic. After the last people had left and lights flipped off, only I was there to break the silence with soft steps on the mat. The movements and exertions of the day were long past, but something else still dusted the air. It wasn’t like entering a barren warehouse or abandoned building, where the sense of vacant space can overwhelm you. Even without anybody in it, the dojo was never empty; it was simply still, like some kind of martial cathedral. I’d put Jewel in the stereo, sit back, and listen as her voice reverberated off the cavernous angles. Or, if there were other uchideshi there, I’d put in U2 and we’d do midnight training in the dark. Or maybe we’d dance. It didn’t matter; the playground was ours to do what we wished.
Other uchideshi would come in periodically, some for a few days, others much longer. Although I liked having the place to myself, it was great having company, and some very strong friendships were formed. The only thing about having extra uchideshi in the house was the fact that most were on vacation. That being the case, they usually wanted to live it up and make the most of being away from home. Those of us who were in it for the long haul couldn’t afford to stay up late talking or eat out every night, especially when Sensei would lead special uchideshi classes in the morning. Their vacation was our daily life, so our ability to burn the candle at both ends was brief at best. Having a good time just took too much out of us.
My day-to-day routine was pretty regimented. I’d wake up at about eight in the morning and prepare the dojo: vacuuming, straightening up and organizing the public areas before Sensei came in and began teaching private lessons. Then I’d cram some breakfast down my throat and head off to work at nine, return home a little after four o’clock, which gave me a bit of decompression time before I was on the mat at 5:15 to begin training.
A couple times over the year, I lay there in the loft and wondered if I could keep it together. There was so much energy going into work and training that I had to really be efficient in taking care of the day-to-day stuff. I went shopping on my lunch breaks and changed loads between classes at the laundromat across the street. I made friends with the homeless guys so they’d look out for my clothes and made sure no one stole them. There was at least one occasion where the Wasted Knights of Cannery Row, as they were known to some, made a gallant stand in defense of my wardrobe.
It was an exceptionally productive time, and over the course of the year, I feel that I really learned what jujutsu was about. From a physical standpoint, it’s using distraction, angles, leverage, and proper coordination of body weight to create the largest effect with the least amount of effort. Beyond that, it’s making the most of the time that’s available to you, and creating results that may seem spectacular to the uninitiated observer. Jujutsu is about fighting smart and living efficiently. There’s no magic involved; it’s just hard work and consistency magnified by guidance on where to direct your energy.
Because I lived it, it’s difficult to have an objective, outside perspective of how being an uchideshi has changed me. It certainly settled something deep within that I had been longing for, and satisfied a thirst for martial knowledge at a special time when personal responsibilities in my life were minimal, allowing dedication to match desire.
In its entirety, the experience was fascinating. I was able to observe the difference between the Monday/Wednesday and the Tuesday/Thursday crowd at the dojo; participate in classes taught by all the teachers; note the effectiveness of their methods and stylistic distinctions; see the progression of physical prowess in students from their first day on; endure subjection to runaway egos bolstered by rank; and much, much more.
From challengers, shysters, and mystical believers to the emotional ramifications of true self-expression, everyone I met, everything that happened, and everything taught, intentionally or not, became part of me. You never know how much you can learn until you’re pushed or overwhelmed, and this kind of experience can certainly do that. It’s not just about training in an art; it’s about living it.
Every class is a little bit different in the way that it’s taught and perceived, according to each individual’s level of skill. Attempts to verbally recreate the physical activity of training, subtle nuances of growth, and daily class variations in a book would be pedantic at best. Instead, what I’ve chosen to focus on is the stories, insights, and experiences that occurred on this lightly trodden path, rather than on an overly technical description of the vehicle itself.
I’ve always believed being an uchideshi was an elite position, and I did my best to represent this ideal. There is a tacit assumption and expectation that the volume and severity of training allows the technical requirements of the system to be passed cleanly, through direct transmission, from master to student. Whether it’s Sokaku Takeda teaching Morihei Ueshiba in exchange for serving him in his home, or Ken Shamrock taking fighters in to live at the Lion’s Den, the pattern of young warriors hungry for knowledge and experience seeking guidance under masters is perpetual. Through this closeness in their respective classrooms, the transmission of wisdom may be so thorough and complete that students may eventually transcend their teacher’s accomplishments. If they’re successful in doing so, it’s a powerful testament to the depth of their instructor’s knowledge and teaching ability. As years go by, teachers will continue to live through their students, in their movements, and those students will eventually pass the flame to the next generation. It’s a timeless cycle.
As an uchideshi, you are also the physical embodiment of the dojo’s spirit. If you’re not on the mat, it’s noted. Your only job is to train with a smile on your face. That’s not difficult; after all, you’re doing what you love, and doing a lot of it, at that. It was my dream to be an uchideshi, a modest one perhaps, but it certainly held significance to me. I bet there are people just as hungry as I was, aching for an opportunity to fully invest themselves in an art. If you get the chance, take it. You will not be the person you thought you’d be at the end of it. You’ll still be you, but after all the adventures that constitute such an experience, you’ll be a different cat. I certainly am, but I know it was the best decision I’ve ever made.