An Uchideshi Experience: Introduction
Assumptions, Exchanges, and Credits
It’s hard to remember a year in its entirety.
It’s been said that people massively overestimate the changes they can undergo in one year, while underestimating the changes they can accomplish in five. While I partially agree that people can over-aspire, a year can definitely be life altering. In that time, I went from working at a cushy job in the federal government, living at home, driving a nice car, and having play-time in Alaska to living in a loft, commuting on foot, and getting thrown around by world class martial artists.
I wish I could have written this book as I went along, but the demands of the life of an uchideshi did not permit me to even keep a brief journal. So now, after the fact, I will attempt to piece together the account of a young man entering the adult world, in search of experience and exposure during a time in his life when the hunger for knowledge was insatiable. It is also the story of brothers coming together, and of spirits connecting despite time and distance.
An uchideshi is the Japanese term for a live-in student. It is one of the closest relationships students can have with their teacher, and according to some traditions, the only way to access the finest details, hidden techniques, and innermost workings of an art. Some teachers consider the intensive, required daily training of an uchideshi necessary to receive a teaching certificate, because only when you actually live in the dojo are you able to see the full spectrum of an art. How it is taught, how the students respond, the test procedures, the injuries, the challenges, and the endless stream of variables that life provides are best assimilated through the constant exposure that required training brings.
Often, the apprenticing student would carry out domestic responsibilities for the master: cleaning, preparing the meals and bath, massaging their sensei, and even taking care of the books. This is a very traditional arrangement, and although I’m sure it’s still possible to find teachers willing to provide this service in the United States, I think you’d be hard pressed to find STUDENTS willing to undergo all of that.
I’d wanted to be an uchideshi ever since I was a teenager, but even as a child, I had some sort of fascination with Japan. I remember looking at Japanese toy catalogs, admiring their warrior-like robots, wishing I understood the kanji. I loved the elegant simplicity of Japanese architecture and interior design, expressing to my mother how I needed to simplify my room and put up Japanese screens as room dividers. Going to an international gift store, I’d slowly pore over their selection of martial arts books, silently imagining the mysterious powers of their deadly practitioners.
I certainly wasn’t aware that I had a fascination with Japan; I was far too young, but for some reason I thought it was all really cool. As a matter of fact, aided now by hindsight, I can clearly see a pattern, which (according to Northern California philosophy) is an indication of a connection to my past life. I’m not sure what to make of it, but in retrospect, I can see how it all added up to the next step.
I was fifteen, coming off a very successful freshman year in high school, when I walked into my parent’s bedroom and told my mother, “I need to get out of here.” Oozing the kind of cockiness that can come only from youth, I felt an itching to leave Alaska and see the world, knowing there was so much more out there, without the slightest clue as to what it was. My mother suggested I go speak to a school counselor and check into an exchange program.
The next day I rolled into my counselor’s office, and he promptly sent me to another counselor who exclaimed, ”Oh, you must have seen the signs!” I didn’t know what she was talking about, so she informed me flyers had been posted for weeks advertising Rotary Exchange programs. Although it was past the sign-up deadline, and interview times had already been assigned, she made a call for me anyway.
The person she spoke with at the Rotary Club had just hung up with a student who couldn’t make it, and I slid into that cancellation spot. A few days later I went to the interview, laid it on pretty thick with heavy swagger and freshman grades (it should be noted, that if they’d known my grades for the current year, they would have kicked me out on the spot), and left quite satisfied with my performance.
But I made a mistake. I filled out a sheet requesting the country I’d like to stay in, with two backup choices. Being fifteen, I made an assumption that everything would go my way. Consequently, I put only one selection down for my country of choice. You can probably imagine what it was…
Sweden. I put Sweden as my top choice, for reasons that are pretty obvious if you think about what a fifteen year old boy is interested in. And I was definitely interested in it.
For the alternate slots, I smugly wrote, “Any other country in the world.” Four and a half months later, I received a phone call congratulating me on being selected to go to Japan. I tried to change things, but it was too late.
It was meant to be. Whether I liked it or not.
So I went, and it was a difficult time. Countless books and movies have been made on the “cute” consternation of westerners clashing with eastern customs, but my situation wasn’t cute at all. At 16, it’s pretty traumatic being ripped away from your friends (who mean more to you at that age than your own family), and taken to a place where you can’t speak the language, or even read their alphabet. It was sensory overload, and I had no one to blame for this disorienting situation but myself.
Japan is not what you might think it is. It is not America as a small island where people speak another language and everyone has black hair. It is far more foreign and paradoxical, and every assumption you may subconsciously harbor will undoubtedly be proved wrong.
Forget about the Japanese gardens you’ve seen in pictures. Those are microscopic pockets in a dirty and overpopulated land. Zoning laws as we know them do not exist. A small shop can be right next to a house, which sits right next to a bar. My high school happened to be uphill, yet strangely downwind, from a pig farm. The insects were gargantuan, but everything else in that country was crammed, compacted, and narrow. What you would swear is a one-way alley was actually a two-way street. An extra large shirt is equivalent to an American medium. And western-style toilets? Don’t depend on it.
The area where I lived in the summer was very hot and very humid. To give you an idea, jeans would mold on the clothes line after washing them in the rainy season. The winter was brisk (sometimes spitting snow), but you really got a feel for the temperature since there was no central heating. Too hot or too cold, it was never just right, and the only dependable constant was your assured year-round discomfort.
The only joie de vivre the Japanese experience is generated by contrast to their pains of daily existence. They believe it’s especially important for the young to learn how to gaman, or bear discomfort well. From my current perspective, I can agree that’s an important concept to instill in a country’s youth, but at 16, I wasn’t really receptive to doing things that were good for me. What I wanted to do was party with my friends, hang out with girls, and experiment with things that would land me deep in trouble. I was a self-absorbed, egocentric glutton of appearance and excess. In other words, I was an American teenager.
High school in Japan, in some respects, is a lot like college in the United States. It’s very competitive, and everyone wants to get into the oldest and most established schools to increase their chances of getting into a good university. New schools had difficulty attracting top students, so if they wanted to successfully upgrade themselves, they needed a hook to get the bright kids. Internationalism was fashionable at the time, so my school used exchange students as a public relations vehicle to lure in talented individuals. I felt bitter and antagonistic toward my Japanese school for using me, probably more so because they denied it, but nevertheless, I did my duty and played along.
In other respects, my high school functioned like a military academy. Of course there was a uniform to go along with the regulation book bag which was strapped to your regulation bike. Hair and nail inspections were practiced, and makeup and piercings were not allowed. Even in the wintertime, when you could see your breath in the heaterless classrooms, no additional clothing was allowed beyond the French military style uniform. My school was reputed to be the second strictest in Japan, and they were bent on proving it.
It was standard practice for students who had committed some minor infraction to line up in a hallway with their backs against the wall, waiting for a teacher to come by and dole out his version of discipline. When the instructor arrived, he would begin by yelling at the students, working his way into an academic frenzy: throwing their schoolbooks down the hallway, or punching and kicking the wall. Girls usually broke down into tears. If a serious infraction had occurred, then on top of the lecture, the student’s hair had to go; boys had their heads shaved; girls learned to live with a short cut.
While other exchange students were partying on the beach in Rio de Janeiro, exploring the wonders of Africa, or frolicking with Swedish beauties, I was stuck in the Westpoint of the Orient. Even though my classmates were friendly, and my host families were kind, patient, and accepting, I felt like I had been shafted, so my overall attitude was less than optimal.
The one thing that got me through that year was a school policy for international students to study a Japanese art. Kyudo, kendo, sado, and ikebana were among my selections, but I chose judo. My advisor warned me that judo training was very severe, but that was all right by me. I didn’t have anything else going on, so I earnestly welcomed the challenge.
Since I didn’t know any Japanese when I went (actually, I didn’t even know where Japan was on the map), it was impossible for me to crash into a classroom and understand what was going on. Consequently, I spent a lot of time in the library with my fellow exchange students. We studied Japanese, and I joined my assigned class for physical education, music, and English lessons. By the end of my term, although I could have asked for a diploma stating a year of full credits, I chose not to and returned to Alaska a year behind my peers, as an academic junior.
My junior standing, however, didn’t immunize me from contracting a nasty case of senioritis. I investigated early graduation, but my counselor couldn’t work it out with the “lost year,” as I would still be a few credits shy by the end of my first senior semester. I deeply regretted not asking for academic credits while I was in Japan, but at that point it was too late. I considered dropping out of school, and just taking the GED exam, but figured it would end up haunting me later.
My teachers, quite concerned for me, urged me to do something different for my senior year. It could be as simple as going to a different school, leaving the state, or taking off on an adventure to curb my restlessness. I didn’t know what I was going to do. I was pretty depressed overall, but something had to be done.
Then an opportunity arose. I could go to Canada and live with my brother-in-law in North Bay, Ontario, a resort town about three hours northeast of Toronto. He had room in his house, I would take Grade 13 classes where the students were my age, and it would be a totally new scene. All that was true, but it wasn’t easy being an American and moving to a small town where everyone knew everyone. Even worse was the lack of martial arts training. No judo, just karate and kickboxing. I studied a little karate, but spent the majority of my time reading about aikido- hardly the way to learn a martial art.
I bought every book I could get my hands on regarding aikido, learning everything I could about the art and its founder, Morihei Ueshiba. I bought it all: the books, the theory, the philosophy, and legends. But I couldn’t train. Nothing was available in the area, so I seethed and bided my time until I went back to Alaska.
Once I arrived in Anchorage, I signed up at the local dojo, Aikido North, and fervently began training. I was attending the University of Alaska so I could keep my job with the federal government as a stay-in-school student, but my job there was really just to support my aikido habit.
I trained diligently for two years, falling in love with the circularity, the aesthetic beauty of the movements, and the efficiency of blending with an over-committed attack. The people at the dojo were wonderful, and I looked forward to the daily practices.
It was through one of the instructors there that I came into jujutsu and the connection to Seibukan was made. Ken Blaylock taught aikido on Mondays, and one night after class, he related to another student and myself his experiences during a trip to Japan. He accompanied his jujutsu teacher, Julio Toribio, and they studied under Ninjitsu Grandmaster Maasaki Hatsumi and Machida Kenshinsai, head of multiple martial art systems. I could relate to what Ken was saying through my own experiences in Japan, and was wowed by his confirmation of some mystical and energetic aspects of martial arts I had only read about.
When Ken began teaching Julio Toribio’s jujutsu style, Seibukan, I quickly enrolled as a student, hoping to learn the roots of aikido. He taught on Sundays, and while other aikido students would occasionally drop in to play in a class, I ended up being his only regular student. He taught me well, and over time I inquired whether I could be an uchideshi for Sensei Toribio. I had investigated uchideshi programs for aikido students, but never found anything that felt like it would’ve been the right place for me. I even considered going back to Japan to study, but I would have really had to exhaust my options before doing so. Not only would it have been prohibitively expensive, but I knew far too well the additional pains a foreigner had to endure training in Japan. I wanted the opportunity to invest my efforts in training, without wasting time overcoming cultural and linguistic barriers.
Ken spoke to Sensei Toribio, and on his recommendation, I was accepted into the program. Both suggested that I travel to Monterey, see the dojo, spend some time with Sensei, and check everything out, just as you’d visit a university before enrollment. Although I would have liked to, I couldn’t afford that luxury. I just didn’t have the money to fly down, so I did a little praying, and trusted that everything would work out.
I had a lot of expectations that this experience would take me to a new level of martial artistry that I had, thus far, been unable to achieve. But beyond physical progress, I felt that the intensity and volume of training I had to endure to complete a full year would somehow legitimize me. Not to other people, but to myself. I wasn’t sure exactly what it was I had to prove to myself, but if I could do this, I felt that something inside me would be able to rest. Until then, there was no way I could go to a university and actually focus on schoolwork, despite my parents’ urging.
My best friend was attending Notre Dame while I was living in Alaska, so I flew down to visit him and check out the school. In short, he showed me around, we went to some parties and had a good time, but in the back of my head as I imagined myself in his situation, I couldn’t help but think, “God, I’d rather be anywhere but here.” Although Notre Dame is a fantastic educational institution, the lifestyle of university students wasn’t something I could handle at the time. It was too unhealthy. It certainly wasn’t healthy being crammed in a tiny dorm room with two other guys you usually didn’t get along with, or skipping meals because the cafeteria was too far to trudge in the cold. Plus, there was too much alcohol, too little sleep, noisy neighbors, and a workload that left you hobbled by stress. There’s no way I’d have been able to handle it, because I wasn’t willing to sacrifice for something I wasn’t truly passionate about. And at that time, martial arts were my passion, not academic achievement.
I admit this is shortsighted, since education will serve an individual far better than physical prowess in today’s society, but I had to be honest with myself. This is what I loved, and I had to integrate an uchideshi experience into my being before I could “settle down” and focus on school.
So I took a chance, and hopped on a plane. I had lived away from home for two years in two different countries in high school, but they were very controlled, prearranged situations. This was different. I had written Sensei an introductory letter a few months before leaving Alaska, and had spoken to him once on the phone a few weeks before I arrived, but that’s not really a lot of communication, leaving a lot of unknowns. I put my eggs in a basket and left for Monterey, hoping for the best, resolute to live through the worst.
But amazingly enough, it all worked out. There were injuries and conflicts, relationships and reunions, trials and celebrations. Programs were established, precedences set, minds were opened, and secrets exposed. It was a year that exceeded every expectation, every preconceived notion I harbored, and in the end, satisfied the gnawing hunger that hadn’t allowed me to focus on other areas of my life. In retrospect, it seems almost too good to be true, almost scripted, almost as if it were meant to be. Sometimes I wonder if it was.
Near the end of my stay as an uchideshi, I called home to Alaska, asking my mother to send me the wad of Japanese certificates I had thrown in a drawer years ago, from my exchange student days. I told her to send them all to me (she wouldn’t have been able to tell them apart, most were written in Japanese), even though there was only one I was interested in. I wanted to have my shodan certificate in judo framed, and I knew it might end up in the trash or equally lost in storage if someone got the urge to clean out that drawer.
When I received the certificates a few weeks later, I had a Japanese friend translate them, mainly out of curiosity, before I threw them away. I recognized the judo scroll, and took a little journey into the past as she read aloud the hokey certificates I had received, including one for a ski trip and a speech contest for international students that I had participated in.
Then she came across one I wasn’t expecting. “This one,” she began ,“is some sort of certificate from a Japanese school. It says that you completed the requirements for one year at Mito Koko. Is that the school that you went to?”
I couldn’t believe it. There it was, the credits for the “lost year” that had held me back in high school. I looked at the certificate: It was written in English. It may have been presented to me while I was in Japan, or sent along with my Shodan certificate after I had left the country. I really have no idea how I ended up with it, but it was here now, right there in front of me.
If I had known that I had received it, much less had it lying in a drawer collecting dust, I would have never lived in Canada, investigated aikido, met Ken, made the connection with Sensei Toribio, or become an uchideshi. I’m pretty certain that I would have just graduated with everyone else and gone off to college, suffered through, and gotten a job. The course of my life changed because I needed a piece of paper I had in my possession the entire time. If I had only known, I’d be in an entirely different world, without ever enduring the toll of pain, abuse, and injuries that serious training exacts from its practitioners. In short, I never would have become the hopelessly addicted martial artist I am today.
Thank God I never found it.