I was helping Daisy with de-installing an art show today and it reminded me of the time I became convinced of the importance, and usefulness of dedicated training in Aikido, and specifically the art of Ukemi (receiving.) In Aikido we learn Ukemi to take the techniques well and to practice our falling skills.  This allows us to train vigorously without having to worry about the partner we are throwing getting hurt.  It’s a key element to the practice, and without it Aikido would not have the amazingly dynamic component of training that it has.

I was about three years into my Aikido training.  Daisy was working for the San Francisco Jewish Museum at the time.  They were clearing a massive storage unit, and needed all the large shelving they had constructed taken down.  I was always on the lookout for extra cash at that time, and took the job.  Me, a 12 foot ladder, a power drill and about a dozen 5 foot by 8 foot shelving units stacked three high to the 20 foot ceilings.  Quite a job.

On the third day of taking down the shelves, plank by plank, I found a set that had been made out of single large piece of thick plywood.  They were affixed directly to the wall.  I probably should have thought better of working on one that had about 23 screws through the 2X4 at the back of the frame, driven into the wall.  I was under neath it, almost at the top of the ladder when I started in on a screw.  Once it was an inch clear I saw the white powder and realized that the wall was sheet rock.  Just as I thought, “That’s not a good way to mount this thing”, all the rest of the 22 screws started to give way.  The shelf, which weighed about a hundred pound, started to fall on top of me.  I dropped the drill as the wood hit my head.  Leaning forward I was able to get my shoulder past it and toss the thing over my back.  The shelf caught the ladder and swept it out from under me.  I was falling backwards, 10 feet up onto a solid metal floor.

I remember thinking, “No.”  Not a loud, “No!”  Not a defiant, “no.”  Just a simple, “this is not going to happen”, “no.”  My toe was the only thing still on the ladder, and I managed to use that to spin over in air to be face down.  I put out my hands, and caught the floor with a practice we call at Suginami, a “dolphin dive.”  You catch the fall with your hands then roll down onto your chest, belly and finally legs.  With so much momentum I actually popped up to standing at the end.  Not bad for a guy who at the time weighed in at 270 pounds.

I stood there for a moment, stunned, and tried to figure out what happened.  As I started to clear the debris I noticed a trail of thick blood coming from under my pants.  Somewhere in the fall something had hit the inside of my shin enough to rip open my leg, while not ripping my Ben Davis.  The hole in my leg was about the size of a dime.  I got some butterfly bandages and anti-septic from a first aid kit, patched it up and got back to work.

It wasn’t until later that evening when the adrenalin was gone from my system that I realized what had occurred.  I realized that my Ukemi training had at the least saved my back, and may have saved my life.  There’s an old Japanese word, Shugyo, that basically means “deep mind-body training.”  In martial arts it has a special place.  It is training to an ascetic level.  Training past the point of your own endurance.  Training until you bleed.  The first recorded example of a martial arts Shugyo in Japan was an agreed training betwwn two swords-masters.  They resolved to do sword cuts with each other until they simply could not anymore.  They were witnessed by their students.  The session lasted for 25 hours, and by the students count each master had performed 125,426 cuts before they both passed out.

The Yamabushi, ascetic warrior monks of Japan, have made a high-art of Shugyo training.

The fact that my hard training in Ukemi had saved my back-side, made a big impression on me.  To remind myself that it’s a good idea to put some hard training time into a skill that will be of great practical use I commemorated the experience by having the characters for Shugyo tattooed around the scar.  Everytime I put on my Gi at the dojo I see it, and I remember.

I don’t think training until your bleeding is something that should be done everyday.  But, every once in a while I really think it’s a good idea to see what your limits are, and what it feels like to go past them.  I have put myself through three Shugyo experiences in my time.  All of them provided deep, lasting, powerful lessons.

What would you do for Shugyo?