Troubleshooting

I've been going back to Judo semi regularly. Also, as an experimental approach, I have been drinking a lot the night before I train to see how it changes what I do. The results are not particularly repeatable every time I do it; but for the past three sessions I have been to I have done better because of it. My first training I tried this; I only threw one guy, who was maybe 20kg's-ish lighter than me in a non scoring O Soto Gari, but it is still an improvement on what I would have done otherwise. I went against a 120kg-ish guy who smashed me in an explosive Ura Nage, after I tried a negligent O-Soto on him. He felt the lack of my right hand on my lapel and smashed me for it.

But the thing is; this time, I was hungover. I too felt the lack of my right hand on his lapel. After that; I kinda felt like I had an idea of his balance; how he was holding himself and where he was going to come for me. So I shut my body down completely and started flowing through him. He would load his grip with strength and force; and I would wash through him using dead unresistant body weight. From beyond the grave Obi Wan Kenobi whispered into my ear "Use the force Luke". I collapsed like a drunk into his legs and cupped his left foot in my right. I didn't throw him, but I got closer to his balance then I ever could have otherwise. Its probably one of my favorite rounds I have ever done in Japan. I didn't throw him; but I got a few foot sweeps in that were closer to him than he was comfortable with. From his facial expression he was rattled. One of the things I keep reading about drunken boxing on the internet is that if you can make it flow right the effect can be quite hypnotizing on your opponent. I'm starting to find that I can sometimes grip people mentally before I take a physical grip on them.

The night before one of my recent trainings, I sat in my room; watched some youtube clips of Jackie Chan; and drank 4 liters of beer, on my own. I pushed myself to the furthest limits of my emotional and physical endurance this semester. I had tried everything I could think of. I had only one last thing that I knew worked. As I got drunker and drunker I also got sentimental. I didn't remember writing it at the time; but I posted this up on a web forum for alcoholics. It wasn't really appreciated. I have censored out the obscenities, tidied up some punctuation; but for the sake of retrospective verisimilitude I have left the rest intact, regardless of how embarrassing it is.

I think I am in a relationship to alcohol. Tell me if I am a cunt if if what I say suggests otherwise. I separate with him and keep coming back. This suggests more about me than it does about him. And yet, he has given me the strength to get through a lot of the ordeals I have faced in my life.

At first I experimented with him; and he was sexy. It was cool, it was what teenagers did. But I felt I knew more about you. Your character, your personality, I heard nothing of that from my friends or family, but I felt I got to know you better as I met you more. You got me through some bitter times. But sometimes you can be a bit of a drag. You dragged me into some times that I didn't want or need. I felt you wanted things from me that I didn't want to give. And yet, what you wanted, what I wanted, was the same, oblivion. Because we both know this world is filthy and dangerous. If happiness is something that can be consumed than sign me the fuck up. Can you give me that? Will you give me that? You wanted that of me and I wanted that of you. Consume of me what you can and I will take from you what I can.

I wanted more from life. I wanted a life where I could overcome myself and become someone better. But I felt you weren't happy with that; you needed me as I was. I don't know. I don't think I know you as well as I should. But I wish you knew me as well as you should. I don't want you to want my weakness. I want you to want me as I am. Can you do that? Could you meet me in the street, as a stranger, and think, " yeah ok fuck yeah that's something I wanna get onto? Because I feel; as I know you now, I couldn't meet you on the street for the first time and feel that. I feel you are a bit of a demanding cunt. You need shit done your way and that's how its gotta be done.

I am considering breaking up with you; but I dunno if I can. We are heavily tied together. Please, for you and me, let us work our shit out. I love you. Do you love me?

..............................

I dragged myself through my classes; thinking how expensive the attendance marks were. I was watching my life evaporate before my eyes; but I needed to be in class so I could get funding from my university to pay for my welcome here. I had completely checked out of the classes mentally maybe a few weeks ago. I realized they were not helping me learn Japanese; they were tattooing phrases and grammar points onto the inside of my skull. I felt like I was in prison; peering around on the inner casing of my mind. Everyday I would see the same graffiti;  phrases such as "Yesterday, I slept as little as 3 hours" or "as a rule, you shouldn't wear jewelery" grooved into the bone. I mustn't complain. The teachers were very helpful and sincerely wanted to teach the language to me. But I feel at the same time I had to fight to keep them from taking my desire to learn. My alcoholism didn't really aid things all that much.

I went home; and logged into the internet; and found my love letter to alcohol written on a forum. I had completely forgotten about it. It wasn't a pleasant experience; seeing the slimy trail of my drunken mind smeared across the internet. I don't particularly want to lose my mind to it. It is not a glamorous way to lose what makes you human.

I was talking with an exchange student some months ago; about the tea ceremony. He was adamant that it can bring you feelings that people call Zen; where you abandon your mind and body to the ritual and have it release you of the burden of your self. I told him it creeped me out. I didn't like it when i saw it. I have heard that it is one of the highest cultural expressions of love in Japan and at the same time so mechanically memorized, so stiff and sad, that the one time I watched it I felt uncomfortable. I felt the drink itself was a tiny object on which the rest of the ceremony had crystallized around, and become so far removed from its original source that it no longer resembled a casual drink; that it was worshiped as a libation. I felt that the tea was too big of a deal to drink and enjoy without risk of offending someone.  It made me feel quite uncomfortable; like I had gatecrashed a funeral. That love and meticulous ceremony seemed to be aspects of the same ritual seemed to me that love and mechanical rehearsal are conflated concepts to those who practice it. He did not agree. I said to him "it is just a drink".

"It is just a drink". And yet, it gives me the ability to abandon my body and my mind to the flow, to the feel of the action when I do Judo. It gives me a release that I cannot easily obtain otherwise. When I sleep well and don't drink the night before, my mind locks up in doubt. Whenever I am in position for an attack, I freeze in indecision, and that moment is all it takes for my opponent to smash me. I was drinking with some friends some weeks ago; and I was trying to express my own opinion on the meaning of the word "martial art". It contains the word "art" for a reason. Your body is a medium for you to express your creativity. You can use as much artistic license as you want; it is your body and your style, no one can own it but you. Judo is the most expressive and creative thing that I do. And yet I feel I need a depressant to aid me to connect to my movements. Without it; often I feel that I am just going through the motions, I am just regurgitating a rote memorized speech that I don't want to give and no one wants to hear. And so, my critisism of the tea ceremony and my use of alcohol for judo is more or less the same.

If a depressant can increase my skill in Judo; then I must have some sort of mental condition that alcohol treats. I have spoken to friends casually about some of the things I am anxious about; they often get frustrated and vocally demand that I go and see a doctor. Mental health is not an easily broached subject. And yet if I view it the same as I would any other injury or malady; it seems to me to be an easy fix. I may potentially have some sort of health problem that gets in the way of my sport, in the way of my quality of life. If so, I can easily go to a physician; get treatment; and move on. If I have something; maybe it is just like any other sporting injury. Get it fixed and get back to training.

I would not call myself a mentally balanced person. And yet; I don't know and don't think I ever will know what "mental balance" means. I don't believe in human averages; they are vulgar and imaginary. I have never spent a day in my life being a normal person. It has taken me a long time to accept that I never will. It has taken me still longer, and will take more time; before I can become comfortable in who I am. When i was drunk i wrote;

I wanted a life where I could overcome myself and become someone better. 

.............................. 

So i drank a lot in preparation for Judo at the Kodokan. The Kodokan is the head judo dojo in Japan. I organized to meet some friends that I trained with in Australia, as they had been there before and could show me the ropes. I turned up with a bad taste in my mouth, wading through a mental fog. I knew I was in the best condition for me to do the kind of judo I am trying to develop. I went through some clerical peripheries with one of the judoka at the front desk. He got me to sign a contract disclaiming responsibility for certain damages. As I was reading it; I noticed the absence of a word which voided a whole clause of any meaning. I pointed this out to the attendant; I was instantly embarrassed for being a pedant. But I was also exited. I had drank with the intention of invoking this mindset; I wanted to be able to react quickly and decisively to stimuli that I noticed. The fact that I had done that for something that I saw on the contract, without being restrained by a niggling sense of doubt telling me to keep my mouth shut for fear of judgment, implied that I would also be capable of doing the same during the randoori class.

I walked onto the mat. It was amazing to be there; I had worked; saved; suffered; slogged through some bitter trials to be capable of training in that place.  I got talking to an old man. He explained to me the set up of the place; how the randoori training was run; and then he invited me to ask him Judo questions. He didn't look a day under 80. I was afraid I might break him. When he moved into me to demonstrate a technique, his technique was flawless. My fear was groundless; he had such command over his own body, I knew nothing would happen to him unless he intended it. He explained to me some techniques and threw me using them. It's hard to explain what it feels like being thrown by a 5"6 old man that is more skillful than you can even find a context to compare to. It feels like talking to an immortal being; humans were not supposed to be capable of exerting that kind of power. It is also sobering; seeing someone with that kind of skill and knowing that you can never hope to obtain anything close to that level of understanding.

I sat around afterwards and waited for the training to start. I found a guy from the UK who was visiting; we got talking. We went together and practiced some movements. I tried drilling O-Soto Gari on him but wasn't feeling it. For some reason, when I do a right O-Soto Gari, my right arm doesn't really do anything. I keep paying attention to it and trying to fix it but nothing has improved yet. My training partner noticed this and talked me through the movement. I tried adopting his advice, to fix my technique but it still felt so alien.

We sat around and waited for the training to formally start; but we realized that there was no formal start time; you can just show up and train with who you want and how you want. It's really cool; it seems to abandon the whole stuffy rigid approach of conventional martial arts training and goes for a more organic jam session kind of vibe. This was perfect for me; I had experimental ideas, I was in the mood for a 20 minute jazz solo odyssey. I asked the guy from the UK if he wanted to do some randoori with me; he agreed. I apologized to him before we started for the lunacy I was about to inflict on him. I told him I meant him no offense; but I had a weird style and wasn't using it against him as a joke. He looked at me sideways and said that it was alright.

We bowed each other on. I gripped his lapel and before he could rebut it I corpse whipped him. I rolled my force from my left foot, up my leg, through my hip, up the right side of my body, through my shoulder and head; and then projected the force out of my arm into his body.  It was interesting; it took him completely by surprise. His head vibrated like drum cymbals. By the time he had recovered his balance I had slumped into position on him for the throw he was teaching me how to do. I can't remember if I threw him in that throw or not. But I threw him at least 4 times. When we finished he said to me breathlessly "yeah your style is interesting." I replied "I have watched a lot of Jackie Chan movies"

My friends arrived; I had rounds with both of them. It was cool to see their techniques again; it was like listening to a friend's voice on the phone that you hadn't seen in a long time. One of them threw me in a respectable Seoi Nage in the motion of my corpse whip against him. I felt the force in which he blasted me onto the mat and knew I was feeling his judo "accent". No one I know "speaks" judo in quite the same way when they use that technique as him. I got a dirty sacrifice throw on him. I went against a few other Japanese players. One thing that I have discovered about my approach is that it robs my opponents of oxygen. Dealing with a sloppy weight thrashing against you like a dying fish requires different muscles that ordinary judo uses. I tried explaining to one of my Japanese partners after our round that I came up with my approach because I was training at Tokai and needed a way to counter my main physical problem; that my hips are too tall to be capable of doing judo like a Japanese person. He humored me and listened to my explanation.

The place was a lot more fun than I had anticipated. People were helpful, friendly and enthusiastic about Judo, and wanted to share what they knew to strangers. In Tokai it is much more militaristic; the passion is still there but the lighthearted freedom is not. Afterwards I went out with my friends to eat at a restaurant. We got talking about Judo. I was feeling hungover enough to want to talk about my ideas about drunken boxing and judo. I got some criticisms; some critiques that I needed to hear. I developed what I do in a language vaccum; people would watch me train and would laugh at how unorthodox and unconventional it looked; but I never received any dialogue beyond a few complements when I managed to throw someone using it. One of my friends; the gravamen of his disagreement with me was that it was fine for me to seek release if my actions affected only myself; but Judo training requires partners. If i sought release by drinking, I could do that on my own; but not when my actions could adversely affect the health of others. If i was trying to relinquish control in my mind, then I would also lose control over my body, and therefore control over my partners safety. It was a good point and not one I had considered before.

In my defense; for about 2 years I quit alcohol completely. I think it was also during this time that I was quite determined to learn Tai Otoshi. I went crazy pursuing that throw; and the more I trained in it the worse I got.  I couldn't release myself to the flow of the movement; I was always doing it through clenched teeth. I couldn't relax or feel natural while doing it. Another of my Australian friends; he commented that every time he trained with me in that time; he was quite afraid that I would injure him. Tai Otoshi is a quite dangerous throw if you apply it incompetently. You can end up hyper extending your partners knee. I tried to do that throw the same way I tried to do everything at that time; through clenched teeth, tense and uptight. The other day; during our randoori session at the Kodokan, I threw my friend using a drunken interpretation of that throw. He commented on the fact that it felt quite stable and safe compared to how I used to do it . I know I am much kinder to myself in my own mind when i drink. I may also be more supportive to my training partners when I can relax in my body. However, a feeling that I have that relies on alcohol is not something that I want to impose on others to feel comfortable about.

After a quick search on Wikipedia, I found a quote from Jigaro Kano.

A main feature of the art is the application of the principles of non-resistance and taking advantage of the opponent's loss of equilibrium; hence the name jūjutsu (literally soft or gentle art), or judo (doctrine of softness or gentleness) [as a name for]...the principle of the Maximum Efficiency in Use of Mind and Body. On this principle the whole fabric of the art and science of judo is constructed.

I had a thorough search in my own mind; looking for strengths I could use against my opponents. I found only weaknesses. I got injured at training one day because i loaded a left handed Ko Uchi Gari against a heavier opponent; who smashed me backwards in Ura Nage. My body went; my knee didn't. Since then; I have been trying to be as loose and fluid in my movements as I can. This prevents me from being injured because i don't put stress on my joints when I am forcefully thrown. In time; I learned how to use passive relaxation as a weapon. I defended myself from a Tomoe Nage that my Australian friend tried to throw me in, by shutting my body down so completely that he had nowhere on my body that he could use as a pivot to rotate me. I landed on him as if I had ipponned him; and I did it because I did literally nothing.

I have found a way to brandish alcoholism, my main mental weakness as a weapon against my opponents. Perhaps it is not maximally efficient in the way that Kano might have thought appropriate; but in my situation it was easier and more efficient than drilling Uchi Komi to the same amount that all the other students had. I took what I understood the principles of Judo to be and I adapted them so I could use them to throw others. After 4 months of training; I took an idea and developed it into something that I could throw judo students with; judo students that had trained their entire lives to develop the skills they used to throw me. I wrote when drunk that I wanted to overcome myself and become someone better. But i have found an even better approach using the philosophy of Judo; use your own weaknesses as an advantage to amplify your ability. You cannot do this without first being weak.

I drank a lot the night before in preparation for a training the next day. I turned up for training; there was an unusually buzzed vibe about the place. It turned out the National Judo team from Kazakhstan had come to train at Tokai for a few weeks. I had ideas, and I had the best Judo athletes from Kazakhstan to try them against. A lot of the Kazakhstani players struggled to get training partners; as the Japanese players avoided them at times. I bowed on a guy who looked to be close to my weight. He smashed me in an epic Ura Nage and a lot of other throws; he had the Russian Sambo kind of accent to his Judo. So I corpse whipped him, stumbled around with him, through him, around him. I taxed him heavily of his oxygen. From memory I threw him once or twice by using sacrifice throws. He complemented me on my style as we finished.

I bowed on another Kazakhstani player. He looked unenthusiastic about going against a scrawny looking kyu grade. His coaches said something to him in either Kazach or Russian, I couldn't tell. He reluctantly agreed to do the round with me; if he didn't he probably wouldn't get a round with a Japanese player. I got the first throw against him; in Sumi Gaeshi. He threw me a lot. I got him a few more times too. He came up to me and tried a three throw combo; from memory it was Sasae Tsukuri Komi Ashi, to O Goshi, to O Soto Gari. Every time I drink I watch this one fight scene from my favorite Jackie Chan movie. He's drinking, in a happy drunk mood, fighting the James Bond one-at-a-time henchmen; and naming the techniques he is using as he uses them. One technique he uses he calls "Drunken maid flirting with the master". As the henchman goes to punch him; he twists and contorts his body in such a way that his opponents fists hit nothing but air. I surfed my opponents attacks by incorporating that technique into my vocabulary, and came out of it the other end without being thrown. He let out a long grunt of frustration to himself and his coaches. I had earned his frustration.

Yesterday; I went into training without drinking. I was quite anxious; I doubted that I could replicate the same results as I did in the last training without being hungover. But I did my best, and I did well. I did some Uchi Komi with Islam Bozbayev. He said to me "You are passionate" after seeing me drill my O Soto. Maybe it was the only truthful complement he could give me after seeing that disaster. Because he was kind to me, I decided to ask him for the first round of randoori. He threw me maybe 5 or 6 times, he used a lightning fast Tai Otoshi. I got a single Sumi Gaeshi on him. This puts the amount of Olympic judoka i have thrown up to two.

Afterwards; one of the Kazakhstani coaches came up to me and asked my name; my nationality; how long I had been in Japan. He asked me if I was a professional. I said no. He said in a thick accent, pointing to where all the Kazakhstani players were sitting "These are professional". It was really cool, it was also kind of surreal. I think I have something in what i have discovered here. I want to develop it further. But i also need my mind to think. I think in time i will learn how to do what I do without being hungover. I will need to study hard in order to achieve it.

Schrodinger's Hungover Cat

I think it was a Saturday, about 7 or 8 months ago. I had a criminal law assignment due in about 5 days, and a Judo contest on the Sunday. I was stressing out of my mind. I hadn't written up my notes from the lectures, and so I had no real idea what the assignment was asking of me. I'm not a fan of criminal law, I just don't really get it. To me, it feels like learning how to reverse park. There are all these arbitrary instructions like "when your passenger side window reaches a 42.9 degree parallel line with the adjacent car, then spin the steering wheel 16. 4 revolutions counter topwise, and you will align behind it". It was making me feel quite queasy, I was certain I would fail and have everyone know I was a failure.

My friends boyfriend is a D.J. and makes electronic music. She invited me to one of his parties. I jumped on the opportunity, I just wanted to forget that the future was something that adults had to be responsible and accountable for. Before I went to that, my room-mates had a different party going on at our house, so I drank some beers at that. This detail is not particularly interesting but it became relevant later. They asked me to stay longer, but I could smell pungent guilt billowing from my textbooks in my room, and so I left with my friend, to get anywhere far away from that place.

I didn't know anyone at the house party we went to. I think it was organized as a birthday celebration. I probably congratulated at least 4 different people for whoever's birthday it was. I promised the DJ I would get the dance floor beyond critical mass. I generally don't dance unless heavily anesthetized. I drank about 2/3 of a friends bottle of vodka. Again, this detail is uninteresting, but it became relevant later.

As a rule, I think less of people who itemize how much they had to drink, because to my mind it is evidence that the speaker considers each drink was a destination, on a gaudy travel itinerary (obnoxious selfies alongside famous landmarks included),  the record of which is kept for the sole purpose of bragging to others. I drink to get drunk, not to inflate my vanity. I momentarily excuse myself from my own standards here because what I drank became relevant to me later when I tried to repeat the results that came from drinking that amount.

Anyway, so I was doing my best to rinse my criminal assignment out of my head. I also had a judo competition the next day. I had exerted pretty much all the stress I was capable of while thinking about my deadline, and so I had barely thought about the competition at all. I was drinking to enjoy the moment; and it was helping. I forgot completely about the next day, or about the work I had to do. A law student friend told me, "Law school will teach you how to drink". I understand that statement better now than I did then.

True to my promise to the DJ,  I committed to writhing like an idiot on the dance floor. It felt good. I no longer cared what others thought of me. Tomorrow all these strangers would be the same thing they were to me then; strangers. Others merged into and out of the music. I had a few conversations. There was this one guy I got introduced to. He seemed to be the perfect example of the brash American Football college athlete from teen horror movies. I was convinced at the time that I had communicated with a grindr profile that looked like him. If he was who I thought he was, he had offered me swimming lessons over a gay social media app maybe a month or two before. I alluded to it and saw his face convulse for a slight but perceptible moment.

The music wasn't really my cup of tea (I like metal more) but it wasn't bad, and I was impressed by the DJ's skill. I told him so. I got to that state of inebriation that I call invincibility at the time, and others call obnoxious and unpleasant. But in my defense I wasn't the only one making a scene. This guy I spoke to earlier, he was in a similar state of inebriation. And he bore it as obnoxious teenage athletes tend to do. He took all of his clothes off and started making a show of himself.

The party went on. I had a lot of fun with the friend I came with. When the DJ finished his set everyone was approaching my level of intoxication. The drunken nudist had jumped into the pool and was loudly bellowing challenges to all who would accept, in a lord of the rings kind of narrative. I decided to accept his challenge. I stripped to my underwear and jumped in. I asked him what it was he was defending and what the terms were. He answered, from memory it included concepts such as wisdom and bravery. I asked if he was in earnest. He started splashing me. I had not come to play as children do. With his left hand he hit the water with his open palm, to send a wave into my face. I stepped backward out of the way with my right foot, spun in with my left, and used my left upper arm to deflect his advancing arm out of the way. With the back of my hand I lightly slapped him across the cheek, and gave him the dualists' beckon; "do you challenge me sir?". It was a pretty cool movement, Later in randoori I tried for ages to recreate it in grip fighting but can't. I wish I could have done it with a glove.

Preliminary details were agreed on. I took care to explain to him that I wished him no harm, and that I would only try to do to him what he consented to prior to us starting. We agreed that the first to submit lost. Having settled that, he grabbed both my shoulders, like I was a shopping trolley he was trying to compress inward. I had done enough gi-less exercises to know that that approach is worse than useless, especially when your opponent is wet and you have no friction for gripping.

I used my right forearm to pry his left hand grip outwards from the inside. Without that grip as a prop he sloshed through the water onto me. I swung my right arm inwards, and put my palm on the left side of his jaw. I used my left arm to entwine his right, my hand and elbow lifted his right arm into my armpit, where I buried it by sinking my arm down afterwards. I stabbed my head and shoulders into a parallel alignment to his, but more in the way of a rhombus, so that our connecting arms bent out at a 45 degree angle. He was anchored onto my hips. I pushed up with my loaded right hand, and swept his right leg out with my right leg. His head aligned with his right foot; I had control of both, and I flipped him 180 degrees into the water. I gave him a good dunking, and got him to submit to me in a few seconds. He gave me a few more splashings after i let him go, I asked him if he wanted another round. I got another answer, this time with clumsy allusions to Mordor.

As an aside, you may well validly express doubt when I can say that I was in such a state of confusion that I congratulated 4 people at that party on one persons birthday, and at the same time remember my O-Soto Gari to that level of detail. I will try to explain. Judo is a language, but instead of words it has throws. Someone cannot answer you with "I am good, and how are you?" unless you first validly pronounced "how are you?" Whats different between spoken language and this physical language is that it only takes one word to be understood in judo. If you see that your opponent has understood your judo , or, to abandon the comparison, got thrown, then that automatically requires valid performance of the technique. And so because I threw him I can reverse engineer the phonetic structure of what was "said". It took me the prior paragraph to try to explain the pronunciation of that technique. There is a famous Judoka that teaches at my host university, he has written a 96 page book on that throw.

We played a drinking game after that. It was a hell of a lot of fun. It felt exactly like what I imagined University student life to be like, fun and irresponsible. The rest of the night left me in a blur. I got home, went to sleep, woke up to my alarm maybe 4 or five hours later. I spent maybe 5 or so minutes blankly looking at the ceiling wondering why i had set it. Then I remembered I had a judo competition.

On the train heading toward the competition, I groggily looked out the window. ; I realized I had burnt out most of the emotions I could possibly have. I had left my law assignment as late as I did; and so I would fail. This was a complete certainty. I felt no stress. I resigned myself to the future I earned and deserved. When I walked, it felt like I was walking across a water bed; it sloshed and undulated underneath me, and made me feel a little sick. I had to compete while moving like this, and so I would lose. This was a complete certainty. I did not feel any embarrassment, any sense of foreboding of what was to come. I knew exactly what was to come.

At the competition people waited for their turn to compete; and then it became time to warm up. I went through the motions. I just wanted to leave that place, to get it over and done with. I did a warmup with another player, he was in my division. I would be competing against him soon. Conversationally I asked him a question about some kind of hip throw. He joked, but not without sincerity, that that isn't really the sort of question you expect from someone who will be your opponent in a few minutes. I reassured him it wasn't plausibly possible that I would give him any more than a few seconds of competition during our round.

I sat down next to another player from our club. She was quite nervous. We spoke together. I felt unnaturally calm, bored even, like I was in a waiting room for a government agency. I had something unpleasant to wait for, that was all. I had no more stress left to give, my mind was a wrung out sponge. My first round was called up. My opponent was (from memory) a 3rd dan black belt from Croatia. He was likely to be very skilled. I blinked slowly. I knew what I had done last night, and I knew what it meant. I was going to get my arse handed to me, because I deserved it. I shuffled up to the ring and bowed him on.

The match started. I threw an experimental hay-maker-y kind of O-Soto Gari in his direction. My movement was very half-arsed and casual. He pulled his right foot behind him to deny me access to his balance loaded leg. I did it again, he reacted in exactly the same way again. I remember the thought "O-kay...?" passing through my mind. His left leg was shining, like any object you find in a 1st person shooting game. It was glittering, I could see it, it was inviting me to pick it up. I didn't really think about it any more than that. I went for another sloppy O-Soto, but feigned and didn't commit to it. He shifted his right leg behind him again. In that movement, I threw myself at his left ankle. I loaded my right foot behind his left and swept it out from underneath him, using my own falling body weight as the force to do it. I landed on top of him and Ipponed him. It was the fastest judo round I have ever won. I beat an experienced dan grade in maybe 3 movements. I got congratulated by my opponent as we bowed off, then i went to sit with my teammates and they commented on the movement. I felt a mild feeling of disbelief, a little relief that it was over. That was all. It made me as happy as maybe finding 2 dollars in your wallet that you didn't know was there. I went to the sitting area and waited for my next round.

My second opponent was a rank higher than me. I had trained with him before; I knew him to be very strong and quite skilled. We bowed on and started the round. It was a long and hard round. I felt like vomiting a few times. His grips were strong, and he had a strong loading stance to fortify it. His body felt like stone. Mine felt like a garbage bag filled with water. Then;

Suddenly, gentlemen of the jury, I felt a Dostoevskian grin dawning (through the very grimace that twisted my lips) like a distant and terrible sun." 

Every force he exerted radiated through me like ripples on a dirty puddle. I realized I could feel the movement through his hands, telling me what he intended to do next. I knew before he committed to any particular attack what it was he was going to do.  They call this the "feel" of judo, that people telegraph what it is they intend to do to their opponent by letting their balance flow into their hands. I have felt it less than 4 times in my life. I was standing as if I needed my opponent to support me, he was leaning into me like a 45 degree support girder. It was like, just for a short period, I learned how to read his mind. I knew i would become aware of what he was going to do next the very second he had the idea himself.

I was feeling ill, and wanted the round to stop. I threw him for wazari, or maybe yuko, from a O-Uchi/Ko-uchi combination technique. I won the round, but I cant remember how or why. The win wasn't that important to me. What will be forever framed in my memory is that for a short while I felt his movements, as if they were mine, as if they were forces that I could take and command and use against him. I don't often feel this, something that feels like Judo. If you can do it, you take your opponents force and use it at your own discretion. This realization burnt through my indifference; I had to acknowledge that i had done judo, or something like it, and not some cheaper imitation as I normally do. I started to beleive i had a chance of winning my division.

The third person I went against was a 2nd dan (from memory) that is quite competitive in interstate competitions in Australia. I knew he would be the hardest opponent I had to face. He was the guy I spoke to earlier, the one I reassured that I had no chance of threatening him in this round. We bowed on and started the round. It was hard, harder than the last, and I came closer to vomiting. But there was something about my body that I hadn't felt before. As he attacked me, I slopped off him like a limp, dead, slimy fish. I wasn't doing well, but I was making him work to get me. I would have been amazed that I had gotten this far at all if i wasn't using all my concentration to stay standing and keep the contents of my stomach to myself. I think I got a Yuko for a dirty but acknowledgeable throw on him, he had a Wazari on me for a better one. I started to run out of breath. We went into groundwork. I balled up in the turtle position, trying to buy myself some time and oxygen. I very nearly puked onto the mat (which incidentally results in a disqualification). He took advantage of my distraction, and pried my left arm behind my back with his right arm. He was going to turn me over and submit me on the ground.

It is going to be hard for me to try and explain what happened next, but I will do my best. In that moment, I recognized what was happening to me. He had a strong position on me, and he was about 1 second away from winning the round from it. I was Schrodinger's hungover cat, locked in a box with him. I peered at the dynamite (or acid, depending on which version you use) and knew one of two things would happen. Either the technique would succeed and I would lose, or it wouldn't and I would continue to get thrashed. There were only two possibilities, no more. All other probabilities had been eliminated apart from this binary fork in the road. And so, I existed in two states at once. I had already lost the match right there and then, and I had also lost it later by somehow escaping and being beaten later. I had no control over what was happening. I peered at the dynamite/acid, and one idea went through my mind. One probability would eventuate once this idea was acted on and observed by everyone watching. I acted on my idea and let it flow through my body.

I suicided my balance into cooperation with the direction of his force, and rotated around and behind his grip. Continuing the movement, I rolled through him, got him into Kesa Gatame with a double arm grip and held him out. I do not know this technique and I have never seen it done before. I watched myself do this in the third person. I had no control over it, it wasn't my movement. It was something external to me, happening to someone else. It was as if i had cast a die, with only two faces, and all I could do was watch and wait for the result. The result was that a complete stranger beat my opponent and won the round and the division. Its one of the weirdest things I have ever felt.

I fought 5 rounds that day and won 4 of them. I am not really sure what happened or why; but i think alcohol must have something to do with it. Since then, i have been experimenting with alcohol to see how it affects my judo. The results are hard to replicate, but it does work. At a later competition, I won by doing the most complicated and otiose newaza turnover into san kaku I have ever done, And i think i did it because I took care to drink the same amount I did during the first competition.

A few days ago I drank maybe 3.5 litres of beer, slept 5 hours, and then went to training. I had a 6 minute round against an 100Kgs player from the Israeli national team. In that interval, he threw me once. I unbalanced him several times and was moving in a way unlike normal judo. I moved with him, I felt his balance. Afterwards, the coaches from the Israeli team came up to me, wanted to know my name, where i trained. They told me my style was unusual.

At the beginning of the year me and my sister went to some temples in Kyoto. There, you can buy fortunes from paper vending machines. If you get a good one, you keep it, if you get a bad one, you tie it to a tree. It was snowing heavily, we were standing near the temples and reading our futures from small paper slips. Mine had several things writtten on it. Amongst them was this.

"You will win, but you will be thought ill of" and

"Study hard. Destroy your weak mind"

I didn't tie my fortune to the tree.