LITMIR.BIZ

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The door was ajar and I peered in. Miyagi wasn’t there, but there was a small group of boys chatting and three other boys were practicing punches and blocks. Among them I saw Jinan Shinzato, the talented gymnast from my school. One of the boys ambled over to me. “Are you lost?” he asked.

      “No, I’ve come to learn to-te,” I answered.

      “You can’t just turn up like this. You need to make arrangements with Master Miyagi. He’s not taking any new students at the moment.”

      “I have made arrangements with Master Miyagi,” I blurted out, praying Miyagi would remember me after such a long time. The boy shrugged and returned to his friends. I stepped a little way farther inside the training hall and stood with my back against the wall. Jinan Shinzato glanced over at me, but if he recognized me from school, he didn’t let on. Like the other boys, he was bare-skinned save for a pair of rough cut-off pants and his body was already covered in a sheen of sweat. He was the shortest in the class, but his muscles were broad and well defined and he looked the most powerful of them all. It was clear that Shinzato had trained hard with the iron weights that lay around the edge of the room.

      I took a closer look at the equipment. Among the barbells and dumbbells, I saw several curious pieces: a short wooden handle sticking out of a stone, a set of iron rings, a giant oval ring about three feet long, two pairs of iron clogs, and several tall earthenware jars. Suddenly all the boys came to attention and I turned to see Miyagi’s broad frame in the doorway. They bowed and he returned their bow. I bowed hastily and opened my mouth to speak, but my carefully prepared speech had deserted me. Miyagi waited expectantly. “Master,” I stammered finally, “I’ve come because I am fourteen.”

      Miyagi peered at me in the dim light. There was no indication that he recognized me. “It’s your birthday today?”

      “Yes.”

      I heard the faintest snigger from the other boys behind me, but didn’t turn around, “You said, when I met you before, that I should come when I am fourteen…”

      “You have come to celebrate your birthday with us?”

      “I have come to learn to-te,” I corrected him.

      “Ah, well why didn’t you say so in the first place,” Miyagi said, “because we do not hold birthday parties in here.”

      The older boys laughed openly now and I felt my cheeks burning with shame. “I can pay,” I said quickly.

      Miyagi ignored this remark. “Remove your shirt,” he said instead.

      “Can I wear a headband?” I asked.

      “If you think it will help you,” he said.

      “It will keep the sweat from my eyes,” I told him.

      “Then wear it,” he said, and tiring suddenly of our conversation, he turned and clapped his hands loudly for the class to begin. The boys hurried to form a circle in the hall. There was no space left for me to stand, so I stood apart, in the corner, and aped their actions. Miyagi led the class through a series of warming up exercises that stretched every part of our bodies, starting with our toes and finishing with our heads. By the time we had finished, there was a puddle of sweat on the floor beneath each of us. Next, each student took up a different piece of training equipment and began to work out. I’d no idea what to do and turned to Miyagi with a question on my lips.

      “You can train with me,” he said before I could ask, “since it is your birthday.”

      He led me outside, to a small area of rough ground behind the dojo where two wooden planks were sunk into the ground. Each one had a straw pad near the top, positioned at chest height and covered with tightly wound string. Both pads had a dark red-brown stain in the middle that spread out and down, getting lighter at the edges. Miyagi placed his fist against one of the pads and planted his feet firmly on the ground. He waited until I’d done the same on the other, then stepped across and adjusted my fist until only the front two knuckles touched the pad.

      “Now punch,” he ordered.

      I struck the pad. The straw offered little padding and the plank didn’t bend.

      “Again.”

      I struck again.

      “Harder!”

      I struck a third time.

      Miyagi shook his head in disappointment. “The first and last weapon of a to-te fighter is his punch,” he told me. “One punch, one kill. That is our motto. Again!”

      I hit the board as hard as I could. A sharp pain shot through my hand.

      “Grip your hand tightly when you strike,” he told me.

      I did.

      “Again!”

      I struck again.

      “That is how you must punch,” he told me.

      I stopped, eager to leave the painful striking post and move onto the next exercise, but Miyagi didn’t move, and it dawned on me that the exercise wasn’t over.

      “One hundred times, with each hand,” he said.

      I stared at him dumbly, hoping he was joking. “We’ll do it together, since it’s your birthday,” he said. I realized he wasn’t.

      Miyagi readied himself before the other striking post, then waited for me to do the same. I placed my trembling fist against the pad. He nodded for me to begin. I drew my hand back and struck. At the same moment, there was an explosion beside me. I jumped away in fear, the pain in my hand forgotten. Miyagi had hit the post. He smashed it again. The plank bent back at an impossible angle, then righted itself, only to be driven back by another tremendous blow. Each time he struck, there was an ear-splitting crash and the groaning of wood as the plank bent back. The pounding went on and on until, after perhaps fifteen strikes, he stopped and glared at me. There was a look in his eyes that can only be described as predatory—he was ready to tear me apart like some savage beast from the jungle. I took an involuntary step back. He held me in his gaze, until I realized he was waiting for me to punch and returned to my position.

      We struck up a rhythm together. With the sound and fury of Miyagi’s punches, I couldn’t concentrate on the dreadful pain in my hand. To my astonishment, Miyagi’s punches got harder and harder, until the plank began to split and soon broke in two, leaving only a jagged stump sticking up from the ground. Miyagi turned and went back inside the dojo without a word.

      I continued tapping my pad, the blood from my torn knuckles adding fresh color to the old brown stain. When I reached one hundred punches, I checked to see if Miyagi was watching. I couldn’t see him, but I didn’t dare to cheat—he had a sixth sense, after all. I placed the front two knuckles of my left hand against the pad and punched as hard as I could.

      When I’d finished, I took a leaf from a nearby tree and dabbed at my bleeding hands to avoid getting blood on my clothes. Mother would be angry, or worse, she might prevent me from training.

      I went back inside the hall and watched the older boys. Their training didn’t resemble fighting. Jinan Shinzato was holding a heavy earthenware jar in each hand, fingers splayed around the rim, and was walking in slow deliberate steps. Another tall slim boy was training with the stone-hammer known as the chiishi. Squatting low with his arm extended, he turned the chiishi up and down to build strength in his wrist. Another boy was moving the giant oval ring called the kongoken around his body. Beside him, an older boy was practicing with heavy iron rings on his forearms, while the last of them held a barbell across his shoulders and, leaning forward, rolled it down the length of his back, controlling it with his arms.

      Miyagi saw me and came over to inspect my knuckles. Without a word, he led me to a tap and ran cold water over my hands until all traces of blood were gone. Taking a clean cloth from a cupboard, he dabbed my hands until they were dry. He reached for a bottle of dark liquid and splashed a little into his palm before rubbing it gently into my shredded skin. I clenched my teeth to avoid making a sound. Finally, he cut two strips

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