Horii Sensei is a 7th dan Shihan from Honbu dojo and led the 2013 Summer school.
He is the most senior teaching I have ever taken Ukemi for.
In Summer School the teachers will in general, mostly use hakamas to demonstrate to the class. The previous I had entered with entirely the wrong mind-set and had been more focused on locating senior teachers than actually paying attention to the demonstration, which as I have mentioned was a big mistake. So this year I was quite keen to get as close to the demonstrations as possible so that I could absorb as much knowledge as possible. I think as a result, for the first day or two, I was sitting noticeably nearer the demonstrations than the other juniors who seemed to move in closer as the week went on.
Now I did not want to take Ukemi for Horii sensei in front of the whole summer school because I knew I would somehow bugger it up. But the more you sit in the front row of students the more your chance of getting picked for Ukemi increases. And I think I may have come across in the first two days as being a keen bean who was determined to be used for Ukemi. Nothing could have been further from the truth. But of course it happened.
You know how every teacher has their own way of signalling to a person to come up for Ukemi, or to sit down again, or that they want to perform the technique from a different angle so that the class can see some subtle thing. It can be a bit confusing at first when a teacher makes these signals in a way you are not used to.
So when Horii sensei signalled to me for Ukemi I was up in an instant, presenting the image of a calm student who was ready for this. I was of course absolutely terrified.
I took Ukemi acceptably well twice. But I was trying so hard to spot any kind of subtle signal, so as to be perfectly on the ball, that I completely imagined a signal for me to sit down.
A signal so subtle that only I saw it, and Horii Sensei didn't even make it.
I knelt down and bowed to Horii Sensei who just stood there and looked at me confused. I then took Ukemi twice more, feeling like a prat. To be honest it wasn't that bad, I had taken Ukemi acceptably well which was the main thing. But damn it I was so close.
You know the feeling, when your training and you get so close to getting it right. So close to doing some vaguely impressive. And then you mess it up at the last hurdle.
Well anyway I'm very honoured to say he then used me for Ukemi a second time that day. I think by this stage I was the only none hakama that he had used for Ukemi and he used me twice! I felt like bloody royalty. But with that came a scarier thought. What if seniors who didn't know me had noted this occurrence? What if they thought I was good at aikido? This was not going to work in my favour.
Luckily this didn't seem to happen. However the juniors did seem to have noted this and were far more insistent to be the first to take ukemi first when training with me. They eventually realised that they were wrong to think I had any level of skill but it was amusing that there was a noticeable change in the way the juniors treated me for a while.
Nearing the end of the week there was a lesson in which Horii Sensei was taking a lesson just for the juniors. By this point most of the juniors had taken Ukemi for Horii Sensei at least once. But what was special now was that we were doing Nikkyo.
And we all know how I feel about Nikkyo.
Every demonstration I sat as near as I could, mentally screaming at him to take me for Ukemi. I had to be Nikkyo'd by Horii Sensei. If I missed this chance I wouldn't be able to live with myself. I think my attempts at looking fired up actually worked.
He took me for Ukemi and Nikkyo'd me. Oh sweet bliss and glory. My wrists had been touched by a God. I wanted the Nikkyo's to go on forever. But alas, like all good things, that too did eventually have to come to an end.
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