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Chapter 3

The training hall is called a dojo—a place of the Way. The name has all the exotic allure of the Mystic East: the promise of hidden wisdom and esoteric powers. But step inside a training hall and stay awhile. Venture out onto the floor with us. There are no wizened sages popping out cryptic advice. Instead there is the bark of commands and the hard, relentless gaze of your sensei. There is sweat in the eyes, the burn of muscle, and the constant presence of fear, surprise, pain, and frustration. Yet occasionally, as your hand slides in to grip the hard wooden shaft of the training sword, in the steamy pause between bouts when your heart is hammering in your ears and your breath scrapes in and out, something wells up inside you. It touches you like a phantom hand: the sense of connection, of potential, and the overwhelmingly clear beauty of the moment. Then it’s gone.

So if there’s a way we pursue in the dojo, it’s a way back to that sensation, as intense and fleeting as a flash of light at midnight. It’s as simple and as complicated as that.

I’ve been chasing the spark for almost thirty years. I’ve spent close to twenty of them with Yamashita, practicing the brutally elegant system he teaches. It encompasses sword and staff arts, unarmed combat, and more. If modern systems like judo or karate specialize on one segment of the fighting spectrum, the Yamashita-ha Itto Ryu blends as many of these segments as possible into an integrated whole. My teacher uses sword and staff as the main vehicles for his teaching, but insists they are merely means to an end. He trains warriors, and uses whatever is on hand to do so.

He once showed us a tanto, a short knife. Yamashita held it comfortably in his thick hand, moving the blade so the light played dully along its surface. “This,” he said, “is a sharp piece of metal. Nothing more. In one man’s hand it is good for cutting carrots. In another …” he held it up for the assembled class to take another look. He smiled. Then his face went totally blank. The sudden movement of his arm was fluid and almost too fast to see. The tanto shot across the room and buried its point into one of the wooden pillars along the dojo’s perimeter. You could almost hear the metal hum as it struck home.

“In another,” Yamashita concluded, “it is something very different. So …” He smiled at us. “In swordsmanship there is ki, ken, tai.” Spirit, sword, body. “Without spirit, without the force of the warrior, there is no sword.” He shrugged. “It is a spike, perhaps, or a cleaver. Just metal.” His eyes narrowed. “You make it dangerous. You create the sword.”

And then the lesson continued. He left the knife buried in the wood of that pillar as a reminder to us all.

I carry on that tradition, but without the elegance of my master. All of the pupils he accepts for training are required to have black belts in more than one martial art. Many of them have trained with bokken, the oak sword that forms the centerpiece of Yamashita’s training, but they have rarely plumbed its depths. As a result, new students often focus on the sword too intently, momentarily forgetting the other valuable lessons they have learned.

So I have to remind them. I like to think of it as an awareness exercise. But as some of my students limped off the floor after one session, I heard them ruefully calling it “hammer time.”

I’m not a cruel man, you understand. Yamashita used to chide me for sometimes being too gentle with the students. And over time, I’ve learned ours is an austere discipline, set against a hard world. Compassion is only possible when it follows mastery. But even in the rigors of training, I remind myself what is taking place is not mere battery, but a pounding more akin to the blows of a swordsmith as he forges metal into a blade of terrible beauty.

That day on the dojo floor we were working on different counters for attacks at distant and close intervals. Most sword work takes place in issoku itto no ma, the distance where you cross swords with an opponent and one small step will bring your weapon into striking distance. Some of the students had spent time studying kendo, the modern version of Japanese swordsmanship, so the concept was second nature to them. And the others quickly got the hang of it. They all had the body awareness of fighters.

The members of the class were paired off, a long line of swordsmen in the midnight blue of the traditional uniform, gripping the white oak bokken. I worked their wrist and forearm muscles in the quick jerking parries that are designed to deflect a strike and, with luck, expose an opening for a counterattack. We moved on to the sliding deflection of the suriage technique, then the move known as kaeshi, and finally to uchiotoshi. By that time, I could see the fabric of their heavy training jackets growing limp with sweat. In the pauses when we would rotate partners, people wiped their hands on their uniforms to keep their swords from slipping out of their hands. The constant repetition of the training session, the ceaseless back and forth of attack and counterattack, was taking its toll on them. They were straining to maintain focus, working hard at their swordsmanship. It was, as they say, a teachable moment.

I called the class to a halt and asked for a volunteer. A guy named Rick stood up. He had been training with me for almost a year, a diligent student who was skilled enough to be a good demo partner. We paired off and the others dropped to one knee to watch, grateful for the break. “So,” I began as I squared off with Rick. The tips of our bokken crossed. We were in issoku itto no ma. “From this interval, a number of attacks are possible. And a number of parries.” I nodded at him and we began, running in sequence through the techniques we had been practicing. As the senior member of the duo, I would attack, giving my junior a chance to respond. He did. Then we squared off once more and I came at him with a different technique. Again, the smooth response. I held up a hand to pause as we squared off one more time. “But now, what happens if something changes?”

Up to this point, I had been moving in what I call training speed. It was fast enough to be dangerous, but not so fast that a student like Rick didn’t have the opportunity to counter my attack. There was no point going at him full speed. I would have struck him every time and he would have simply grown frustrated. That would have been battering, not forging. And a good sensei must teach, not simply humiliate.

But now, I came at him for real. I shot toward him so fast that I got inside the striking radius of his sword. For a moment, Rick froze. I shot diagonally to the left across his front my right hand let go of the bokken, and my free arm curled up and across his neck. I saw the realization of what was happening come into his eyes, but by then it was too late. I was facing his rear, our hips on the same line. I extended forward and down, driving him into the floor. It wasn’t a hard throw, and I didn’t put all my energy into it, but coming down like that onto a hard wooden floor is bound to ring some bells in your head. I kicked his sword away and it skittered across the wooden floor.

Rick looked slightly cross-eyed for a moment, and then he shook it off. Even half stunned, he began to roll to his feet. I nodded in approval. Training is designed to help your body respond even before the conscious mind orders it to. But I must have dumped him harder than I had intended. His movements seemed slower than usual. Yet he doggedly began the long slog to his feet. I liked him for that, and felt the urge to help him up. But I didn’t. In the end, what we teach is not victory, but the capacity to endure. He deserved the small dignity of the struggle to stand upright once again.

Rick took a breath and set himself for the next attack. His sword was gone, so he set his hands in front of him in the unarmed tegatana posture, and waited. I nodded in approval, then backed away, showing him there would be no further attack.

“Irimi nage,” I told the class. “You’ve probably all seen it at one time or another, right?” Rick nodded ruefully and some other heads nodded as well. “So what happened?” I gestured to him, someone handed him his bokken, and we slowly went through the motions of what I had just done.

“We’re working on sword techniques and you’re getting tired. So you’re trying to compensate and you’re trying really hard. But your brain is sticking, focusing on the idea of using the sword.” I looked at Rick. “Here I come.”

I replicated my move and got in close. “For Rick to strike me, he needs to take a step back and swing the sword up, right? But that’ll be too late. So …” I smiled at them, “here’s Burke’s secret technique for the day.” I gestured at Rick. “You come in at me and do the same thing I did.” Rick glided in and across my front. He was now inside my strike radius to my right and my arms were extended in front of me, holding the bokken in the classic two-handed grip. “Now the sword is useless, yes?” I could hear Yamashita’s vocal cadence sneaking into my own. “But look!” I let go of the bokken with my left hand and raised the weapon horizontally and mimed hammering the butt of the sword into the side of Rick’s head. Well, maybe I gave him a poke in the nerve point under the ear where the jaw hinges. I pivoted around and placed my left hand against the back of the sword, slicing it down in a deep, vicious arc across the triceps of the arm that should have been snaking across my neck to throw me.

Rick nodded. I ran through the sequence again, letting him try the technique. We bowed to each other.

“The sword is a great weapon,” I told them. “But don’t get locked into thinking about it one way. It’s a spear. It’s a cleaver. A hammer. And sometimes it’s just an impediment. In fighting, there’s only one way to use a sword,” I told the class. “The way that gets the job done.” I swept my arm up and they reformed the line.

“Hajime,” I said. Begin.

Some people won’t take no for an answer.

Ito unfurled the small tube of paper, carefully smoothing it down on the coffee table between us. Below the loft apartment, the dojo was silent and empty. I could hear the refrigerator’s compressor cycle on in the kitchen and the distant hum of street traffic. Before me, the old paper crinkled.

It was a sheet of calligraphy in a vaguely familiar hand. The two large characters at the head of the paper were clear enough: seiyaku, a written vow.

“Can you read this?” Ito asked. He wasn’t being arrogant: the grass writing of personal calligraphy is cursive and often more suggestive than precise. But the characters were simple enough. It was addressed simply to a woman named Chika-hime.

I glanced at Ito. “Hime? An honorific of some sort?”

He nodded. “Princess.”

I scanned the lines, striving to get an English translation that mirrored the elegance on the page. “Each snow an … echo of this warrior’s promise … heart and sword.”

“Kokoro ken to,” Ito repeated—heart and sword—pleased with my rendering. “You see the signature below, Dr. Burke?”

I said nothing, staring at the calligraphy. It was the product of a younger brush, but the underlying stylistic structure was there. There was no denying I knew the handwriting: it was the same thick sprawl of ink that marked my training certificates as authentic, the signature of Yamashita Rinsuke. My sensei.

I didn’t know what to think or what to say. Yamashita’s past was largely a mystery to me. This note offered a glimpse into his secret life. It was as if a heavy curtain had shifted in a breeze and a shaft of light had briefly flickered across a dark room. I was intrigued, yet felt vaguely guilty. A pledge from the heart. Surely it was meant for only one pair of eyes other than his, and they weren’t mine. Yet the impulse to question Ito was real and irresistible. I gave in, but only a little. “It’s not dated,” I said.

“No, it isn’t,” Ito admitted. “If we were to ask Yamashita Sensei, however, he would surely remember the date.”

I squinted at the man sitting across from me. “Why would I ask him that?”

Ito shrugged. “You wish to know the date.”

“No, I don’t. Not enough to bother him.” But the protest sounded feeble and untrue, even to my ears.

Ito smiled tightly, then sat back and watched me calmly for a time. He leaned forward and carefully rolled the note up and placed it in the narrow bamboo tube. “It was written in the winter of 1962. Your master was twenty, Dr. Burke.”

“And the woman?”

Ito’s eyes widened. “It does seem a heartfelt note, does it not? Terribly sincere. Terribly young.”

“Terribly sad, I think,” I told him.

Ito nodded in agreement. “Oh, very much so. It was the last … well, the only note between them, Dr. Burke.”

“But someone went to great pains to preserve it,” I noted.

“Just so,” Ito agreed. “It must have seemed important. And a pledge is something to honor.” The implication was unmistakable. It had occurred to me even as I read the note. But Ito didn’t know me very well; he wouldn’t suspect that I’d be sensitive to issues of honor. The Japanese tend to believe they have a monopoly on this quality. When he looked at me, despite his polish, Ito looked with Japanese eyes and saw just another gaijin, a foreigner with little or no subtlety.

“I’d like to meet this woman,” I said. “For Yamashita Sensei to write this … She must be a remarkable person. I assume you know her, Ito-san? After all, she gave you this very personal note.” I was needling him a little, letting him know I was wondering how he got hold of something that wasn’t meant for anyone but her.

Ito let out a sigh. “Miyazaki Chika was a remarkable woman, Dr. Burke. A precious child of a cadet line of the royal house. A princess, truly.” He smiled. “It sounds comic to speak of a princess, does it not? But even today, they exist.” He gathered his thoughts. “And even were she not related to the Imperial House, she would have been remarkable. Beautiful. Gifted. But so sad—a woman who knew well the fleeting nature of happiness.”

The mention of the Miyazaki name piqued my interest and got me wondering all sorts of things. But I held myself back and covered the emotion with a tangential comment instead. “Mono no aware,” I said. The Japanese aesthetic of frail and transient beauty that makes life so bitter and so sweet.

Ito’s face brightened in pleasant surprise. “Yes! Exactly. She was a remarkable woman.”

“Was?”

He nodded. “Chika-hime was the mother of my principal, Miyazaki Tokio.”

“And the old man?”

“Her husband, Dr. Burke.”

“He gave you this note? The old man?”

He shook his head. “Oh, no, Dr. Burke. Had he known of it, this note would never have survived. Chika-hime passed it to her son on her deathbed. In time of need, he was to seek out your master for help.”

“Why,” I demanded. “Why, after all these years?”

“It seems a pointless question, does it not, Dr. Burke? There is need. More importantly, there is a pledge. There is honor. These things do not fade with time.”

“My sensei,” I began. But Ito reached out as if he were going to touch me.

“Is not well,” he finished for me. “I understand. Time and old wounds have taken their toll. But surely he would wish his pledge to be honored.” He left the last sentence dangling. Maybe I was wrong. Maybe he thought more of me than I had supposed.

I stood, feeling agitated. The trap was swinging shut. I glanced around the room. The clean architectural lines of a traditional Japanese room provided no shadows within which to hide. The space was quiet, but the air was charged with expectation. Yamashita’s favorite sumi-e painting of birds perched on a bamboo stalk was so delicately rendered that the leaves seemed to tremble as I looked at it. When I glanced away, my eyes fell on a table in the place of honor, and the black slash of lacquered scabbards where the swords of my master’s art slumbered. The blades had been polished through a life spent pursuing mastery. And honor.

The thing about training in a dojo is that there is no escape and nowhere to hide. You are there precisely because of that reason. You place yourself there to be hammered into something better. It’s not easy. It’s not pleasant. But it teaches you the importance of even small things and small details. Because, in the Way, all things are important, even a pledge given in the first blush of manhood so many years ago.

I sighed, and turned to Ito.

“OK. I’m in.”