“Kochira koso onegai shimasu,” I replied. My pleasure. I was annoyed that he had addressed me in English, and I stayed with Japanese. “Nihongo wa dekimasu ka?” Do you speak Japanese?
“Ei, mochiron. Nihonjin desu kara,” he responded, indignantly. Of course I do. I’m Japanese.
“Kore wa shitsuri: shimasita. Watashi mo desu. Desu ga, hatsuon ga amari migoto datta no de . . .” Forgive me. So am I. But your accent was so perfect that . . .
He laughed. “And so is yours. I expect your judo to be no less so.” But by continuing to address me in English, he avoided having to concede the truth of his compliment.
I was still annoyed, and also wary. I speak Japanese as a native, as well as I speak English, so trying to compliment me on my facility with either language is inherently insulting. And I wanted to know why he would assume that I spoke English.
We found an empty spot on the tatami and bowed to each other, then began circling, each of us working for an advantageous grip. He was extremely relaxed and light on his feet. I feinted with deashi-barai, a foot sweep, intending to follow with osoto-gari, but he countered the feint with a sweep of his own and slammed me down to the mat.
Damn, he was fast. I rolled to my feet and we took up our positions again, this time circling the other way. His nostrils were flaring slightly with his breathing, but that was the only indication he gave of having exerted himself.
I had a solid grip on his right sleeve with my left hand, my fingers wrapped deeply into the cloth. A nice setup for ippon seonagi. But he’d be expecting that. Instead, I swept in hard for sasae-tsurikomi-goshi, spinning inside his grip and tensing for the throw. But he’d anticipated the move, popping his hips free before I’d cut off the opening and blocking my escape with his right leg. I was off balance and he hit me hard with taiotoshi, powering me over his outstretched leg and drilling me into the mat.
He threw me twice more in the next five minutes. It was like fighting a waterfall.
I was getting tired. I faced him and said, “Jaa, tsugi o saigo ni shimasho ka?” Shall we make this the last one?
“Ei, so shimasho,” he said, bouncing on his toes. Let’s do it.
Okay, you bastard, I thought. I’ve got a little surprise for you. Let’s see how you like it.
Juji-gatame, which means “cross-lock,” is an arm-bar that gets its name from the angle of its attack. Its classical execution leaves the attacker perpendicular to his opponent, with both players lying on their backs, forming the shape of a cross. One permutation — classicists would say mutation — is called flying juji-gatame, in which the attacker launches the lock directly from a standing position. Because it requires total commitment and fails as often as it succeeds, this variation is rarely attempted, and is not particularly well known.
If this guy wasn’t familiar with it, he was about to receive an introduction.
I circled defensively, breathing hard, trying to look more tired than I was. Three times I shook off the grip he attempted and dodged around him as though I was reluctant to engage. Finally he got frustrated and took the bait, reaching a little too deeply with his left hand for my right lapel. As soon as he had the grip, I caught his arm and flung my head backward, launching my legs upward as though I were a diver doing a gainer. My head landed between his feet, my weight jerking him into a semicrouch, with my right foot jammed into his left armpit, destroying his balance. For a split second, before he went sailing over me, I saw complete surprise on his face. Then we were on the mat and I had trapped his arm, forcing it back against the elbow.
He somersaulted over onto his back and tried to twist away from me, but he couldn’t get free. His arm was straightened to the limit of its natural movement. I applied a fraction more pressure but he refused to submit. I knew that we had about two more millimeters before his elbow hyperextended. Four more and his arm would break.
“Maita ka,” I said, bending my head forward to look at him. Submit. He was grimacing in pain but he ignored me.
It’s stupid to fight a solid armlock. Even in Olympic competition, judoka will submit rather than face a broken arm. This was getting dangerous.
“Maita ka,” I said again, more sharply. But he kept struggling.
Another five seconds went by. I wasn’t going to let him go without a submission, but I didn’t want to break his arm. I wondered how long we could maintain our position.
Finally he tapped my leg with his free hand, the judoka’s way of surrender. I released my grip instantly and pushed away from him. He rolled over and then kneeled in classic seiza posture, his back erect and his left arm held stiffly in front of him. He rubbed his elbow for several seconds and regarded me.
“Subarashikatta,” he said. “Excellent. I would request a rematch, but I don’t think my arm will allow that today.”
“You should have tapped out earlier,” I said. “There’s no point resisting an armlock. Better to survive to fight another day.”
He bowed his head in acknowledgment. “My foolish pride, I suppose.”
“I don’t like to tap out, either. But you won the first four rounds. I’d trade your record for mine.” He was still using English; I was responding in Japanese.
I faced him in seiza, and we bowed. When we stood up he said, “Thank you for the lesson. I’ve never seen that variation of juji-gatame executed successfully in randori. Next time I’ll know not to underestimate the risks you’re willing to take to gain a submission.”
I already knew that. “Where do you practice?” I asked him. “I haven’t seen you here before.”
“I practice with a private club,” he said. “Perhaps you might join us sometime. We’re always in search of judoka of shibumi.” Shibumi is a Japanese aesthetic concept. It’s a kind of subtle power, an effortless authority. In the narrower, intellectual sense, it might be called wisdom.
“I’m not sure I’d be what you’re looking for. Where is your club?”
“In Tokyo,” he said. “I doubt that you would have heard of it. My . . . club is not generally open to foreigners.” He recovered quickly. “But, of course, you are Japanese.”
Probably I should have let it go. “Yes. But you approached me in English.”
He paused. “Your features are primarily Japanese, if I may say so. I thought I detected some trace of Caucasian, and wanted to satisfy myself. I am usually very sensitive to such things. If I had been wrong, you simply wouldn’t have understood me, and that would have been that.”
Reconnaissance by fire, I thought. You shoot into the treeline; if someone shoots back, you know they’re there. “You find satisfaction in that?” I asked, consciously controlling my annoyance.
For a moment, I thought he looked oddly uncomfortable. Then he said, “Would you mind if I were to speak frankly?”
“Have you not been?”
He smiled. “You are Japanese, but American also, yes?”
My expression was carefully neutral.
“Regardless, I think you can understand me. I know Americans admire frankness. It’s one of their disagreeable characteristics, made doubly so because they congratulate themselves for it ceaselessly. And this disagreeable trait is now infecting even me! Do you see the threat America poses to Nippon?”
I regarded him, wondering if he was a crackpot rightist. You run into them from time to time — they profess to abhor America but they can’t help being fascinated with it. “Americans are . . . causing too many frank conversations?” I asked.