Of sneak attacks and psychological warfare

I can't recall what technique it was. But there was a class that Tim was teaching and I was taking Ukemi for his demonstration. No problem there.
Then all of a sudden, with no warning, he produces a tanto from within his Gi and tries to stab me.
He had picked up the tanto from the kameza earlier in the lesson and stashed it in his Gi for later use.

I seem to have an unusually large amount of memories of people trying to stab me.

But anyway, the point is, it was a sneak tanto attack to check that I had good connection. In this particular instance I did and I remained unscathed.

A few lessons later Tim happened to be taking the class again. I noticed early on that there was no tanto at the kameza. Needless to say I was on edge. Every time I took ukemi I was getting ready for a sudden tanto attack. But none came.
This was scary. I spent the whole lesson watching Tim like a hawk, expecting him to strike at any moment.
It later turned out that whoever was doing the weapons had forgotten to lay out the tanto at the start of class and I had failed to notice.
Sigh.


I think most people have at least once seen Sensei suddenly attack a student as we've all been kneeling and listening to him tell us about the importance of connection.
Well he did it to me once too, pointing out that we never know what might happen. And again on this occasion my connection was good and was unscathed.
However afterwards for several months afterwards he would walk slowly up to me whenever he was talking and remind me that we never know what might happen.
I'm certain he was waiting for the one time I let my guard down. But I never did. Either that or he was waging intense psychological warfare on me. Freaking me out, always keeping me on edge.

I'm not exaggerating about this one, he did this most classes for several months. Slowly walking towards to me as he spoke, always working that sentence in somehow. You never know what might happen.

I'm still waiting for that attack to come. He's still saving it for me. He hasn't said it now for at least a year. But I know he's still waiting for me to forget, to let me guard down. And I'm still waiting for that attack.

I'm still waiting.

You never know what might happen.