Gi, Revisited

Few women may remember the outfit they were wearing when they first met their spouse or significant other. I can clearly recall mine. Almost 10 years ago, I was in all white--wearing my martial arts gi with my white belt when Tung grabbed my wrist for the first time and sealed our fate as a couple with a potent kotegaeshi.

Tonight, changing out of that very same gi after my current aikido class, I noticed the beginnings of a threadbare rip across the knee area of one of the pant legs. Seems like it's time to retire this one and see about the purchase of a new gi; after all, few outfits can boast an almost 10-year residency in anyone's closet. But throwing out this gi does not come with some regrets. Though Japanese martial arts stress a kempt uniform to foster a "clean" training spirit, I've also heard stories about how students go to great lengths to patch up worn out, torn, or threadbare spots on their training uniforms. Even high-ranking practitioners and instructors sometimes wear these apparel battle scars as a symbol of pride for the hard work and training that they've been through. A black belt frayed at the edges or turning back to white from years and years of use is representative of the painstaking, yet exhilarating and worthy journey one has taken to achieve a level of martial aptitude. Like any important path in life, it speaks of the symbolic arc of who were were before we transform into who we become--through discipline, dedication, sweat, and sometimes tears and blood.

Yes, it's time to throw out my very first gi that has shaped one of the biggest and best parts of me: my aikido training, which has helped me both find and understand love, which has cultured my spirit, refined my body, and brought an indescribable sense of peace to my soul. Over the years and through my two dojos, it has molded itself to my training style: frayed at high-impact areas, crinkled from grappling and kneeling, creased at fold seams. It reflects new lessons and recent changes: my name now sits on the left sleeve in black iron-on letters; the sleeves are folded back to accommodate wrist grabs; and the pant legs have recently been rolled up to be hidden under my new hakama.

In our consumer society, materialism is so much a part of our culture that we often lose track of the meaning behind things like a simple article of clothing. This gi helped me find myself in an art that I've come to love. It waited patiently for years in the dark closet when I lost myself to a new world of career choices and corporate rules. And now it's time to let it go...but not before it helped me rediscover an essential part of myself through aikido again.

Locks of Love

Every time I cut my hair short, my boyfriend has a coronary. Never mind that when it's long, the strands sometimes accidentally thwack him across the face or whip him in the eye. Never mind that it takes shampoo and conditioner bought in max packs and giganormous sizes to maintain it everyday, or that the fine ends knot themselves up, or create enough drag when I'm swimming in the pool to count for resistance exercise. He likes it long, likes to run his hands through the liquid silk, likes to lightly pull on my ponytail for fun.

I've only cut it (in what he considers) dramatically short one other time since the 10 years that I've known him: to do my first Locks of Love donation and help financially-disadvantaged children who suffer from hair loss due to various illnesses such as alopecia areata or cancer. Especially for young girls, facing their peers and society without hair can be difficult and demoralizing. The organization collects real hair (since artificial wigs can sometimes cause allergic reactions to sensitive scalps) and produces hairpieces for the children, helping them regain their self-esteem.




It takes 10 hair donations (with a minimum length of 10 inches) to make one hair prosthetic. This week, I will send in my second donation. Of all the charities I have been involved in, this one feels the most to me like a labor of love. It's more than donating a few weekend hours to sort canned food for the hungry, collecting school supplies for underprivileged children going back to school, or writing a check to financially provide for some organization. It has taken me about a year-and-a-half to grow my hair out for the foot-long donation, and this severed ponytail will become part of something tangible that a child can use.




I enlisted the help of Tung's aunt, who is a hair stylist, to cut off the ponytail for the donation. As the family gathered around to watch the progress of my new style, someone asked, "Are you regretting it? Will you miss it?"

When I brought the ziploc bag home containing my donation, I spent some time alone with it before I will mail it off. I ran my hands through the silky strands, through the cool softness, and sympathized with why Tung has such a problem letting it go. There was a Ranma 1/2 anime episode I watched once, entitled "A Girl's Hair is Her Life." It was about a playful sword duel where one of the main characters, Akane, gets her long hair accidentally hacked off in the fray. She ends up with a cute little bob, but her new appearance initially shocks her peers and causes her to cry over the loss. Throughout history and in literature, a new haircut or style can be symbolic of so many things: the shedding of innocence and childhood, the readiness to head a family, the alteration of one's personality, the desire for change, the need to make an emphatic point.

I like to wear my hair long, and yes, I always regret cutting it off after it has taken me years to grow. Yes, I will miss it. But to me, sacrifice is part of a worthy charitable cause. And I choose to do it because I want to give one of the best parts of me, hoping that it will make a big difference in someone's life.

Ura Waza

Most aikido techniques are performed either to the front of the training partner--"omote"--or to the rear--"ura." Both aim to break balance for the take-down and pin. Ura has always felt more powerful to me as a technique, more concentrated on the circular and spiral movements characteristic of aikido. When it's being done to me, there is a brief feeling of being off-balance, followed quickly by an out-of-control spinning where my training partner is the center axis and I am the spoke of the wheel.

Like what William Butler Yeats calls the "widening gyre" in his poem "The Second Coming," the centripetal speed begins at a concentrated point of power and spirals outward, gaining momentum as it becomes a bigger and bigger circle. There is a moment when my mind is gripped by the fear of the body losing control, and I have to make a conscious effort to breathe and allow myself to go with the flow. Arms akimbo, body flailing, and legs losing traction, I fly like I've just lost grip on the merry-go-around on the playground during it's maximum speed, and the room flashes by in a blur, and then I am on the ground, often bruised on my way down as my flesh impacts the mat after gathering velocity.

Ura waza is much like life when it spirals out of control; you can feel it coming, can even brace for it, but in the end, you will be swept along with the tide, watching things spinning from their logical, stationary position until they pass by in a blur, until they no longer make sense. This is what happens when "the centre cannot hold," when "things fall apart."

Yonkyo

When that dull, throbbing pain took hold like someone had taken a sledgehammer to my arm, I forgot to breathe. The sensation shot up to my brain like electricity and shut it down; I couldn't think, didn't even register that my eyes were squeezed shut and my jaws were clenched closed until I heard, "Relax. It'll hurt less if you don't stiffen up." Then my training partner let go of his grip, and everything came rushing back to my senses: the sound of my own blood pumping in my ears, the whoosh of air flooding into my lungs, the smell of the dojo, the sight of dust streaks on the training mat on which I lay.

Sensei said, "There is a nerve in the arm, about a palm's width up from the wrist and near the outer bone." This is yonkyo, and finding the nerve can be tricky because its placement on individuals can vary depending on the size of their palm. Once it's found, though, applying pressure to it in the right way can make for a potent submission take-down. When it's yonkyo day at the dojo, I cringe; and I'm fairly certain that I'm not entirely alone in that reaction. I hadn't realized that a simple nerve in the arm can paralyze the entire body. Like a strike to a pressure point, it could cut off the breath and cloud the vision. It leaves bruises 3 inches across on the length of the forearm. It gives people the paranoia that they've gotten permanent nerve damage. It instills power to give, is painful to receive--and one day I'll get it right and execute a perfect yonkyo on every try.

Obi

On the week after my aikido belt changed from yellow-stripe to blue stripe, I tried on my new one before class started. Freshly freed from the flimsy paper bands that tied it, the belt uncoiled, stiff as cardboard, still bearing the crease marks of its packaging.

My two Sensei came over to comment. "Now you can recycle the old belt," one said to the other.

A look of protest crossed my face before my other Sensei responded, "They usually want to keep them, though. Daisy, you want to keep your old belt?"

"Yes, Sensei," I responded enthusiastically. "Please."

My first Sensei smiled good-naturedly as she walked away. "I don't know why you'd want them to pile up for."

I wanted to say, "But, Sensei--it means something to me." Where I used to practice aikido at SJSU, we didn't rank. I took those fitness classes over and over, long after my Human Performance units had been fulfilled, impossibly drawn to the art. My belt stayed white for the two-and-a-half years I first trained in aikido.

There are mixed feelings about rank in the aikido community. Some feel it goes against the non-competitive nature of this martial art; others think it's a good way to measure self progress, or for instructors and senior students to gauge skill level when working with a new student. I came in neutral to these arguments, simply accepting that different dojos do things in different ways, and as long as I still had fun and fueled my passion to train, it really didn't matter.

As the other students filtered in, putting on their gi and adjusting their garments in preparation for training, I wrapped the stiff new blue-striped belt around my abdomen, looping it neatly around itself and tying the double knot from years of muscle memory. I looked back on the white days. I looked forward to the days of solid blue and brown and black. I thought about how my basic movements had refined over time, wondered about the techniques and kata I have yet to learn. Lining up in seiza, the obi tight around my center to push my posture straight, I thought about my newly-earned color, and how I'd train going forward to deserve it.

Back to Basics

Once upon a time, I used to be able to do the basic-blend technique of tai-no-henko, a normal warm-up exercise often performed in pairs at the beginning of class to get students into the mindset of aikido's movements. Palm face-up and held near the abdomen; hand pivots on an invisible vertical line; forward foot slides in deep; body blends, and both arms end palm-up. Now, I couldn't control the shape of my hands, or slide deep enough, or take my opponent's balance, or end up quite right.

Re-entering aikido is like going through physical rehab after a major accident has robbed you of the ability to walk. You remember how it's done, and yet it is with the greatest of efforts that, with support and guidance, you begin the painstaking journey of learning how to put one foot in front of the other again. It's painful to see fluidity all around you but not yet attain it. Hard to relax when you're so preoccupied with finding the flow. But I do hope to find my aikido again, dormant within me, rusty from years of neglect. Because when I watch the smoothly-flowing aikido of two senior-rank students during practice, it is one of the most beautiful things I have ever seen in my life--it is an execution of art, like perfect penmanship across lined white paper, or the foam at the peak of the ocean waves before they break and rush in to meet the sand. It fills me with a sense of inner tranquility even as I seek to unravel the secret behind such perfection, and a feeling wells up from deep within me, akin to love.

This journey strewn with obstacles comes with its little, occasional rewards: hearing the click-clack sound of wooden jo's clanging against each other during weapons practice, executing a perfect pin, and getting that odd sensation of the 20 hot bodies in the room just disappearing so that all that remains is your training partner, you, and the moment. Once in a while, a training partner attuned to my body's movements, or an instructor who was standing by observing, would say to me, "You've done aikido before, haven't you?"

"Yes," I answer them. "Once upon a time."

Gi

For five years, it sat in a dark corner of my closet. When I pulled it out of the bag, it still looked the same--crisp and white, stiff at the seams, crinkled in areas bent over and over from years of use. When I tried it on, it still felt the same--cottony cool and loose for easy mobility, with a belt tied tight around the abdomen to remind me of correct posture, good etiquette, and decorum.

In reality, my body and its limitations become my inhibitions, but in my dreams, I remember how to fly. I am weightless as air, malleable as water, flowing easily over wrist locks and joint holds, taking tumbles and executing standing rolls with barely a skip in my heartbeat. My breathing is rhythmic and not labored as I train--moving in perfect circles, landing soft, lost in the rhythms of my own body, and the techniques come to me as second-nature as the speakings of my own soul.

Now I start at a different school and don a new gi. My belt is white, my mind an empty cup as it seeks to learn again, from the start. Everything in these initial stages feels awkward, awkward; my body struggles to remember how to move, limbs akimbo as they seek the right positions to start off, to end up.

I know the kanji is different, but I can't help interpreting the first character of "aikido" to mean "love." Five years put on hold as I worked toward my graduate degree and gauged the terrain of the corporate world. Now I go back to one of my first loves. Draping the new uniform over my shoulders, tying the vest in place left-over-right, cinching the belt so the knot sits right above my "hara" center energy, I start to remember why this martial art is built upon the foundation of love. The first time I wore my uniform again, it was as intimate as if I was taking off the layers, not putting them on; I got butterflies in my stomach for all the potential that is to be, and that is love. Meeting a stranger and working that closely with his or her body, taking care to learn in the process an not inflict hurt--that is love. Studying how the body moves and achieving confluence and harmony so that my mind feels linked with all the essence of the universe, that is love. Even the trail of bruises along my forearms and knees from take-downs and blocking shomen uchi strikes, which remind me about enjoying life as a mortal, and that everything worth having comes with a least a little pain . . . that is love.


In real life, I struggle against gravity and resistant forces, but in my dreams, I float on air. My passion fueled once again, I will work to re-learn buoyancy, weightlessness, and flow. This is my "ai," and I will "hajime"--begin again.