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Bruises by David Mendenhall "A certain kind of person, usually male, tends to approach aikido from a competitive, quantitative viewpoint. If I study twenty minutes per day, it will take me ten years to get good. So if I study for an hour a day, it will take three years. If I do Aikido for twenty-four hours around the clock, I'll be a sixth dan in four months! Go! When I started, I came from an American male competitive background. I was going to get it. Now I figure there's no it to get, so I'm in no hurry." —Terry Dobson from It's a Lot Like Dancing... Humble: adj. 1. not proud or arrogant. 2. feeling insignificant, inferior, or subservient. 3. low in rank, position, or status. 4. courteously respectful.   tr.v. 5. to destroy the independence, power, or pride of. 6. to lower in rank, position, or status. Mr. Mendenhall, what do you think of my lead? Mr. Mendenhall, how can I change this dialogue? Mr. Mendenhall what if... Some days I can answer every student question. I know how things work, mostly. When it comes to writing and math, I can teach 13 year-olds all kinds of cool stuff. I can turn on my computer and whip up web pages and Power Point presentations and talk about poetry and literature and film and rudimentary physics. Yeah, I'm a real Renaissance man. And then maybe I go to aikido class. It's an introductory class, so maybe Sensei summons me to be his uke. Days ago, hours ago, even minutes ago, I may have thought, "Wow, what an honor! I must really be getting somewhere for Sensei to demonstrate with me like this." And then he throws me. It doesn't go quite like I'd visualized it. The problem is I was too busy visualizing it. I was too focused. And then he throws me again. But something has happened to my feet, legs, abdomen, and shoulders. They're heavy and stiff (probably form working so hard all day), and when Sensei moves me again, I don't move quite quickly enough. It hurts. The mats gon't give the way I remember. My gi doesn't fit quite right and my belt comes undone. "Please try that," Sensei says to the class, bowing. I raise myself to my knees and bow in with a partner. I begin working with my partner but Sensei is there, watching. I can't get anything right, not the technique and not the ukemi. Sensei moves in to demonstrate for me. I try again. Not right and he bows in to show me again. And again. And then it's time for the class to try another technique. Sensei keeps calling me up for ukemi, throwing me again. And then again. Really hard. And now I'm just embarrassed. I'm sweating and out of breath and my gi is all undone, along with my ego, and then he motions to me again. I can't do anything right, and I can't get away from the humiliation, because what can I do? Bow out? The next morning I'm stiff. While looking at my bruises in the mirror in the half-dark of dawn, my wife asks, "What the hell is that? And that?!" staring incredulously at the inky pools beneath my skin. "Um," I say. She shakes her head and I leave the room without meeting her eyes to go eat my breakfast and feed my daughter. I leave for work and there's a message on my voice-mail. Its from a parent who's angry. "With me?" I think. I return the call and the situation worsens. Instead of blending, I catch myself defending. Instead of diffusing the situation, turning tenkan, moving, I buy in and get hit, get angry. Shout. I hang up and wonder, "What the hell am I going to teach these kids today that really means something? Goddamn it!" So now I'm wallowing in self-pity, moping. I go home and I don't sleep. It's a day after the phone call and five a.m. and I'm walking my dogs and not noticing the crisp air and the stars and the moon and the shadowplay in the early light. I notice I'm not noticing. And I remember what Ed Pincus said once during one of his classes recently: There is life after getting hit. And then he directed us to hit each other, gently, just to understand. It's been eight years now that I've had my own classroom, and if teaching writing were aikido, I might wear a black belt by now. But I bet I'd tie my hakama on backwards. Or I'd forget to tie it at all. Because the thing is, when I think I've got it, I'm an imposter. I don't know what I'm doing. Not really. And that's when life becomes most interesting, when I get that there's nothing to get. I continue to wake up aching, inside and out, but I'm learning better ukemi all the time. Soon enough I'll get my ass whooped again, inside the dojo and out. But I can't wait. Because that's when I am forced to look at myself as a beginner again. That's when I realize that that's all there is really: beginning. I have the bruises to prove it.