Pre-Engagement Lunch

It's not every day you find yourself awake before 7:00AM on a Saturday morning, slicing up black duck eggs to be be presented on six plates of cold-cuts in a house decorated with pink-and-white streamers.



Today marks Tung's and my pre-engagement lunch--or, at least, what started out as a lunch that morphed into a mini-ceremony. The house has been cleaned almost to the point of non-recognition, with fresh flowers and a tea set displayed on the coffee table, awaiting the arrival of family on both sides.




Here's what was initially planned: According to the tradition of pre-arranged marriages (which I stress, was NOT the case with Tung and me), the groom's side of the family doesn't see the bride until the day of the pre-engagement when arrangements are made to further the nuptial agreements. Therefore, I am to remain in my room until called out to serve tea. Some time during my conversation with them the night before, my parents and I came to the agreement that this was too archaic, but we never really established a game plan for my entrance. So this was what happened instead: Naturally, everyone shows up super-early, and after a morning of food preparations and light cleaning, I am putting on make-up in my room when the guests arrive, bearing traditional gifts of tea and wine wrapped in festive, red cellophane.



Introductions are made on both sides of Tung's family and mine, and then the tea gets poured. Nobody comes in to get me, so I timidly enter the hallway to greet the guests, who are of course too engrossed in conversation to acknowledge me. I spend an awkward few minutes standing around, then mingle to the best of my ability with party guests who look wayward.



When my brother arrives with the last of the food to be picked up, we set the table with food, food, and more food.



Chowtime!



As if one cake is not enough, we end up with three:





Here I am, serving up dessert:



Some shots of family, with family...

With my mom:



With my snuggle-cuddle-able niece, Kaitlyn. She's a fraternal twin, but as she and her sister are growing up, I'm having trouble telling them apart.


The twins and their mom, my cousin Susan:


The twins and their uncle, my cousin Vinh. Ironically, Vinh met Tung before I did because they went to the same high school. After Tung and I started dating in college, we found out each other's relations to Vinh.



My paternal grandparents:


Finally, the guests depart:





It was a taste of what is to come, the realization that every young woman must have when looking at herself in the mirror, all dressed up, and discovering that she has grown up, ready for the next big journey in her life. Somewhere in the approaching distance, I can hear my wedding bells ringing.

Suwari Waza

These techniques done on the knees require a greater level of precision, a more forceful maneuvering through every step. Sitting kneecap-to-kneecap, there is less mai-ai--distance--between you and your partner. The cheats of using arms strength and vertical leverage do not apply, and balance becomes harder to take as your partner sits stable, closer to the ground.

Sensei explained that suwari waza techniques stemmed from the ancient samurai ways, where a warrior could not rise without permission from his lord. As a result, the samurai devised ways to attack while still seated in respectful seiza. Sensei also said it would help us learn how to move if, from a seated position, we were suddenly attacked--the rules of blocking, blending, and moving out of the way still applied, the most important lesson being, don't freeze.

I used to be good at shikko, the knee-walking that my former Sensei was so keen on using as a warm-up exercise. Now, either my knees have softened after having been out of practice, or my age comes upon me in the form of stiffer joints. My kneecaps throb and my legs burn from cut-off blood flow. I close the distance between my partner and myself, moving in tight to his body, trying to make every joint lock precise and controlled. One advantage of suwari waza is that, seated, I do not feel so much that my petite 5-foot frame is being towered over by a world of giants. Down now to my level, I slide, pivot, and pin, learning how to walk and move in an entirely new way.

Happo no Giri

The "eight direction throw" is also a bokken suburi exercise that can be used to cleanse the negative energies of the old year and usher in the new. Instead of the usual paired practice, Sensei had us spread out and taught us how to cut eight ways, facing a different direction for each cut, using the corners of the room as a guide. Suburis are meant to be practiced alone, but as a group, the collective energy became a palpable thing. Our bokkens rose and fell together, our ki-ai's were timed, and the swishing of our feet across the mat made a soft wind's song as we fed off this synergy.

A former boss once drew a helix sculpture to help me visualize synergy. He said we each go through our individual lives and different jobs, but the points where the helix met were where we communicated and what kept the structure together as a whole. So it was important not only to find the merging points, but to ride their energy.

Learning how to play a musical instrument had been one of those things that I had always meant to do but never got a chance to. "If you have a heart, "Sensei had told me, "you've got rhythm. Aikido is rhythm, and it is music."

We cut through eight directions in the dojo, like a compass star and all its sub-directions. Together, we cast our last year's sorrows, shortcomings, and negative energies out to the winds. The rain beat a staccato rhythm against the dojo walls, washing away the old year. I moved and cut with my bokken, thinking ahead to sunny days as I welcomed in the new.