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Unlearning by David Mendenhall "I smell a mat." —David Mendenhall, neophyte Thwack! My head hit the mat, nose first, my neck throbbing from the throw. Sensei fell atop me like water, as though he was another part of my body. In a motion, he swung my arm up behind my back, pinning me by my left shoulder between his knees, pressing my chest and jaw deeper into the sweat-slickened mat. Slowly, he continued to stretch my arm over my back towards my ear. I writhed and squinted and squirmed. I thought my arm would come off. I was nearly purple. "Feel that?" I heard - almost a whisper. "Yeah," I yelped, as he released my arm and it fell, loose, a boneless rag next to my body. "Be sure and slap the mat when you feel it. That's the only information I have," he smiled, gazing down at my limp figure pooled into the soggy gi beneath him. "Otherwise I just think you're enjoying yourself." He bowed and sprung up like a cat. "Yes," I half-grinned, rolling to my knees and bowing. "Thank you, Sensei." "Thank you." I walked shikko toward the edge of the mat, straightening my gi, tightening my belt. A fellow student waited for me as partner. "O na gai shimasu (please teach me)," I whispered and bowed. "O na gai shimasu," she replied. The windows of the dojo steamed. Water streamed from my pores. I was enjoying myself. I loved aikido. "Never hurry; never rest." —Goethe, poet A Buddhist word of wisdom I've come across these last months goes something like: "One should meditate as though his hair is on fire." The idea seems to be that there is no time to waste. Right now is all you have. To learn about the "right-now," zazen (zen meditation) has become a dawn ritual. I sit alone in seiza, very still, breathing, facing a blank wall in my dim living room. Shunryu Suzuki has said that this posture, this breathing, this awareness is the Path. So I just sit. For months it was sitting and stretching and pacing. My thighs burned. And my knees, oh, my knees. But I continued to breathe. These days, I still just sit. Thoughts come. Thoughts go. But I can sit still a little bit longer. And I think of those thoughts like stones that ripple the "water," a common metaphor. And my mind, though no calm pond, sees the stones each morning just a bit more clearly as they drop. Some mornings there are more stones than others - but I have come to think of those stones as the Path. I'm in no hurry, and as my hair ignites, I dunk it under the waterline. "Like water, my brother..." —Sean Hatin, student "Nice shiner," Sean jokes, motioning towards my bruised eye. We are practicing kaitennage in class. I am frustrated, fumbling around, stepping this way when it should've been that. Last week I stepped that way when I should've stepped this...and so the "shiner." "Thanks," I reply, trying to focus. It has been six months and I now know what "kaitenage" is...how to perform it is another dilemma. "Why can't I get this right?" I scold myself. Sean I think senses this and, as I stumble back into hanmi (basic stance), he says to me, "Like water, my brother." I shake my head and he grins. I laugh and manage the move. Later I can't remember ura waza from omote waza. I have a 5th kyu test coming up. Why can't I remember these simple differences, like breathing? The mat reminds me each night that I am a beginner. Again, I'm frustrated. And after class, when Andre says to me in the dressing room, "Geeze, I'd been feeling pretty good about things the last couple of weeks, but..." I finish his sentence for him. "...some days you don't know your front from your back? Yeah," I nod, "I wasn't on at all tonight." And then I laugh. What joy to see again as a child! Just because. When I walk out of the dojo, my burning hair lights the nighttime sky. "Aikido is about finding your center." —Ed Pincus, instructor I think of my daughter rolling around with me on an old rug in our living room. "We do aikido, Daddy?" "Yes, Merrick. We do aikido." We laugh. It is dusk and the sky purple. It is autumn and the leaves have changed. It is as though they are on fire. "If you follow the present-day world, you will turn your back on the Way; if you would not turn your back on the Way, do not follow the world." —Takuan Soho, Zen monk "So, you won't eat chicken if I make it?" my wife queries, somewhat perturbed. We are in the kitchen. "I really want to see this out a bit," I say. "I guess I'd rather not, at least not at home." She shrugs, "I like to make chicken...Merrick likes to eat chicken..." "I hear that," I reply. I smile, but the tension remains taut, like a tendon. In the last six months I have quit meat, coffee, television, glossy magazines, driving over seventy and cursing at other drivers, and various other habits. I cook tofu. I get up to breathe at 5:00 A.M. I practice yoga. I go to aikido three nights a week, and Jenny grumbles. "Okay," she breathes. We remain standing in the kitchen. She looks at me. It is me and it isn't me. It isn't the me that once worked from 6:00 A.M. to 8:00 P.M. It isn't the me that worked every Sunday. It isn't the me that yelled at the dogs. It isn't the me that lined up all his ties with matching dress-shirts a week in advance. It is the me that makes my daughter's lunch each day. It is the me that washes the dishes. It is the me that sleeps through the night. It is the me that plays with my daughter on weekends. It is the me that practices aikido three nights a week. It is also the me that comes home and talks with my family afterwards. And that is the path of least resistance. "We must unlearn the constellations to see the stars." —Jack Gilbert, poet My mind remains "little mind," no still pond. It is windswept, white-capped and choppy. But at night, when I drive home from aikido, I know I love my wife and daughter and that my body is tired but alive. And I see stars.