A Friends Watch

My competition ended. I was in a mental haze. I was too hungover to be able to speak properly. I had also done the best I had ever done. It was weird. A few people came up to me and asked me my name, my club, and talked about my techniques. It was not an experience I was used to. For my grading requirements, I had to go around and record my wins on a small piece of card. Depending on the grading; if you want to grade up you need evidence of the required amount of competition wins. So I walked around and found most of my opponents sitting together at a table. I was too strung out to easily ask them what I needed or why; but one of them saw the card; saw what was written on it and said he would sort it out for me.

I went and sat down. People were speaking around me; through me; at me. Most of it washed over my head. I still didn't really believe what happened. I was also feeling pretty sick. My last round was in the open division; I went against a maybe 100, 110, 120kg player. I tried my usual approach after being told by one of my coaches that the only way I could expect to do well is if I played intelligently, efficiently, and made him work to get me. So during my competition with him I went straight up to him and tried to get him in the overhand grip. I was held out pretty quickly.

I got my point card returned back to me. They had found everyone I had beaten and wrote their details down. Amongst the information on the card, each of the players had written nicknames for themselves, like a list of villains from an 80's action movie. I remember one guy calling himself "El Chapo" and getting a name myself; "Shotgun". I came very close to having a "Dobby" in the start of Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets moment. They had given each other nicknames and they had given me one too, as their equal. I smiled outwardly; but very nearly broke down internally. I had worked my arse off for years, and felt an outsider to everyone I had trained with. I did not perceive myself as equal to them. Something as simple as getting a nickname like anyone else made me dangerously emotional. I folded it up quickly and put it in my bag. I left soon after.

I went home and explained to my roommates my win. They seemed incredulous. I didn't really believe it either when I explained to them that I was probably the most hungover I had ever been during a judo competition and also did the best I had ever done. I took the trophy I won out of my bag and put it on the table. It was a relatively cheap plastic figurine of one judoka throwing another. One of my roommates was playing with it; and found out that it was held together by one central screw in the center. He dismantled it and couldn't put it back together again. I didn't care.

One of my favorite martial arts books explains some Japanese concept called "breaking the mirror". No actual mirrors are destroyed. Martial arts halls often have wall to wall mirrors. You need to be able to look at yourself when you move to see if you are doing a technique right. I am not really sure what the concept of "breaking the mirror" means and most likely I have put more weight on it than the idea can support. Once a year at one of the more central Aikido halls in Tokyo there is a small ceremony where they figuratively "break" mirrors.  This ceremony exists as a way to detach people mentally from their prior performance. It's a metaphor for discarding too heavy a reliance on the past to found an opinion of yourself in the present and future. The ceremony requires you to turn your mind to a concept that probably looks something like this.

"Stop looking behind yourself in the mirror; what you are looking at is not yourself but your reflection. It is just an image of yourself, in the past. It has happened already and it is gone. Break the mirror; stop using old information about yourself then, to found your beliefs in yourself now. You have the future to be responsible for; focus on developing that; not on looking backward". I think the basic premise of the idea is this.

And so I watched one of my roommates destroy my trophy. Had he not done that; I would have thrown it away the next day anyway. I have a personal rule where I only keep my judo awards for one day before I discard them. I wouldn't feel comfortable being the sort of person that would use such a thing to fortify his perception of himself. I did not win that trophy. Some other person did; and that person is now gone. I want to create a better version of myself in the future; and to do that I need to let go of the past. The past won't help you develop your self; it will only provide a convenient resting spot for your excuses or your vanity or your ego. Focusing on the future is what you need to do if you want to develop; forget the past; it is no longer relevant.

..................................

Some weeks after this, on my last day in Australia, my room-mates held a "housecolding" party (there is no antonym for "housewarming" but please indulge me). Everyone I lived with were moving away to different cities. I had left my packing to the absolute last minute. I had a lot of errands to run; borrowed favors to reciprocate; possessions to stack away in friends' houses. I was running around my city stressed and unsure if I could get everything ready in time. I got to the party some hours after it formally started, feeling completely relieved that I had managed to do everything that I needed to. There were a just a few remaining odds and ends scattered around that I needed to pack. I packed up the last things that I needed. Everything else was rubbish and could be discarded. In terms of physical things; I had completely erased any evidence of my existence in my city.

And so I looked at everything I was going to bring; stuffed into 2 backpacks. I had told anyone who would listen at the party that I was going to Japan to do the closest thing to a religious pilgrimage I would ever do in my life. Someone put on Eminem's "Lose yourself", I guess in tribute to my rantings. Personally I am more into metal music; so my bias is that I don't believe other forms of music are capable of the same level of sincerity. However; I heard this song as if for the first time.

Look, if you had, one shot, or one opportunity
To seize everything you ever wanted, one moment
Would you capture it?
Or just let it slip?

I had wildly ambitious goals. I wanted to be able to train at Tokai University. I didn't know if they would let me. I didn't know if I would be capable of training there. But I had only one shot at trying; and it was now; while I was still at uni and could smuggle in a exchange to stay there. The reality of what I was trying to do hit me then. I was going to the strongest Judo University that I was aware of. It would not be easy. I was going to attempt something that most people would call me insane for. And deep down I knew I was insane for wanting to go there to train. But I felt that if I turned this opportunity down then I would always live in regret. I decided then and there that I would rather break myself in the name of my goals then live comfortably because of a fear to pursue them.

I had thrown away all the rubbish I did not need; except for one thing. My Judo points card. I no longer needed it; I had been graded already. Any points you accumulate are only valid for one belt change to the next one above it. And so this piece of paper no longer had any formal relevance to me; it was just a piece of scrap paper. And yet; I couldn't part with it. It had everyones name on it that I had beaten; and all of them had nicknames. They had given me a name, a name that wasn't derogatory. They had identified me as their equal. I was premeditated-"shotgun"-midlifecrisis. At that point in my life I had done the best Judo I had ever done. I had done well, and my opponents respected me in that moment.

I played rugby for several years and I felt that my team-mates wouldn't let me have that. I had several names and all of them were bad. I used to row and I was always the social scapegoat. This point card was evidence of the first time I had ever felt anything like a sense of camaraderie in a sport. I didn't know when the next time would be. I didn't know if there would be a next time. I was incredibly lucky to have won the way I did; and I had no way of knowing if I could do it again. 

My father is a farmer in an area that sometimes has terrible droughts. Every time it rains enough; he goes to a bridge to watch the water flow in. He watches the creek rise and flow into the water hole where the livestock drink. He has explained to me why he does this. He said that no matter how many times he has seen it rain; every time he does he feels that it is the last time it ever will. And so when the water flows in; when it brings the kiss of life to the environment and his land; he always makes a point of watching it so that he can frame it in his mind; and draw strength from it should times turn worse later. The seasons are unpredictable in that part of the world; you can never presume when the next time it will rain; when you will see water flow in again.

I came out over one of my blogs, and received nothing but support. And so what I write next I know now to be untrue; but at the time I didn't know this. I didn't want to lean too heavily on the experience of my judo competition. I considered it dangerous for my ego, it would distract me from my motivation to train hard. I didn't want to presume if I could ever do Judo like this again. I had no idea if I could ever again be recognized by other Judoka as worthy of being treated like an equal. I wanted to rest on this achievement; I wanted to let it become part of how I thought about myself. But I knew if I relied on it too heavily I could be dangerously weakened when I went to my host university. It would take everything I had to deal with the experience of Tokai Uni, and so I didn't want to waste mental energy on anything that had passed and was no longer relevant. My future was going to take all of my attention; I needed to stop looking into the past; all it would do is make me weaker. 

I have thrown away medals like they were chewing gum wrappers. Sometimes I give them to friends as a joke. In one way or another I make sure that I get rid of them. I feel that it helps me mentally look to the future instead of leaning on the past. This points card; a mere scrap of paper; was the hardest Judo thing for me to discard. I was giving up on this experience; I was giving up on the time when I did Judo so well that people joked with me as friends do to one another. I was going to throw it away knowing that a repeat performance might not ever happen again.  In my mind I didn't know if i would be considered an equal again. I stood; and shook slightly, with the card in my left hand. I didn't move for about 5 seconds. Then I crushed it, and threw it into the bin in one rushed movement. In one movement I dismissed my highest sporting experience as a weakness and something to be ignored.

Again, I came very close to having a "Dobby" moment. I knew that I had to leave immediately because otherwise I might lose it emotionally. I said goodbye to everyone; while trying to keep myself contained. I left without saying goodbye to one of my room-mates; I couldn't hang around for long enough to wait for him to get out of the bathroom. I was wearing my backpacks; together they probably weighed around 30kg. One of my friends was quite drunk. He hugged me and hooked his leg behind mine. Even through my stress and emotion I couldn't help being impressed at how he had perfectly loaded my balance into Ko Soto Gari. I truly believe that drunks are better at Judo then sober people are; even if they don't know Judo. But I was also just about emotionally incontinent. I said to him "You really wanna do this, now?" I will forever regret that.

As I left; another of my friends asked if he could walk me to my car. I explained to him that I was catching the train. He made an impulse decision. He took his watch off and gave it to me. He said goodbye to me; and asked me to give it back to him when I returned. I screwed my face up; whimpered something out; and shuffled out of his view. It took all of my self control to avoid crying in that moment.

"...When you return" I hadn't even thought about the other end of my exchange. It was going to take all of my mental fortitude to get through the front door of my training hall. I had gone through some ridiculous interpretation of an eastern martial arts philosophy in order to prepare myself for this. But I wasn't prepared for the fact that one of my friends would just casually lend me his watch and remind me that I was going to come back, alive. Excuse me if this is melodramatic. But I am doing my best to explain how I felt as accurately as I can.

I struggled to cast off my points card because I felt that there was little probability that I would ever be able to reproduce such an experience, and once again feel like I was respected. But my friend showed me another way of conceiving it. I have traveled with this friend before. He knows well my alcoholism and immaturities. He did not lend me his watch because of any merit on my behalf to have it. He lent it to me because he wanted me to feel better. I did nothing to earn his empathy; and I never could do anything to earn his empathy. That is not how it works, if it is earned then it isn't empathy. Empathy is the ability to project your mind into the experience of another. The word "another" implies a sense of common humanity, or at least of some common sense of emotional foundation. He perceived in me a common sense of humanity and therefore he did something to make me feel better. I could never earn that; it is only something that he could give.

I have been training like a lunatic here. I have my own training goals; I have come up with and named some of my own techniques. They are all very unorthodox and unusual. It is embarrassing for me to be seen thrashing around like a dead fish when I do randoori with other players. But I can do so because I feel that my friend taught me something that day. There is nothing that any one person can do to earn the respect of another. It will only be given if those giving respect want to give it. He taught me that there is no point in working to change myself for the benefit of others. People choose what they want to respect in others because it suits them to do so.

And so I completely abandoned Japanese Judo as an ideal to train towards. Even if I could do it; I would only be respected by the other students if they wanted to respect it. I cannot intervene in what they want for themselves. Each of the other students individually; only they were free to give me their respect; it wasn't attached to or in any way connected to my actions. And so from a train of thought that came from being given my friends watch; I realized I have no part in, am truly separate, and completely free from what others want. So long as I don't intervene in what they want for themselves I can do what I want.

Weekdaily at lunchtime; I would go to an empty classroom in the martial arts building and do some conditioning exercises. Usually I would skip for 15 minutes, do 2x 25 pushups, 2x 4min bridging, 2x 30 leg situps. In conjunction with my yoga ball stuff; this has radically changed my Judo. I am capable of more than I used to be physically. I am also capable of doing more mentally than I used to be. I no longer try to achieve, hoping that others' respect might crystallize on my actions. Now I only do what I do because I want to, because I want to throw others. I can throw people now. I used not to be able to throw when I came here. Some people want to train with me; others do not. I am doing better at Judo for having abandoned the opinions of others. Some people feel too uncomfortable to want to train with me; because my style is bizarre. Others want to see what it is I can do.

And I feel that all of this would have been impossible unless my friend first gave me a token of his empathy. Otherwise I would have kept deluding myself of the fantasy that I had any control over what others thought of me. He showed me otherwise. Many people have complemented me on his watch. It is much too tasteful a thing for me to have bought on my own. I used it to time my conditioning exercises. It has been with me through some of the hardest experiences I have ever been through. It was just a small mechanism for telling the time; but it helped me release myself from my own misunderstandings and presumptions. And so I am incredibly thankful to him for it.