Perhaps two or three weeks ago, I recalled a piece someone I once knew had written on the subject of kneeling iai seven, part a. In recalling said piece, I reflected on an old instruction from when I was training for ... green belt? brown belt? Awhile ago. Anyway, the advice was about picturing someone you cared a lot about kneeling before you, mid-seppuku (ritual suicide), waiting for you to sever their neck and hasten an already painful death.
For me it was always K., a constant act of vigilance and faith at the beginning of class, an ordinary moment made extraordinary simply by the fact that then, and only then, would I allow myself to see her before me. I carried that isolated feeling, the power of being her imaginary second, well past the days when we actually had to spend time together (slow, slow torture), past graduating from high school, past turning eighteen and the first half of college.
And then, one day, the girl under my sword changed into someone else from the past, lovely darkblonde hair turning deep brown, clear blue eyes turning greener. It threw me to see another there, welling up from my subconscious, making me feel strange and slightly sick after the kiai. But I took it, you know, because as long as the iai looks halfway to respectable, what does it matter what soft neck I need to pretend is under the katana?
Two nights ago I dreamed that K. broke into my room in Brown to find me eating a late dinner after a Thursday class. She tossed her long hair back, haughty, proud, and demanded why she wasn't in my kneeling seven anymore. I told her that there were so many other lost connections in my life by now that it was only natural. She slapped me once, right cheek and then left cheek, and told me not to give up.
It reminded me of how, right in the beginning when I was so young and raw and hurting, I would dream before the opening of class. I imagined testing for my first degree black belt (as I'm sure we've all daydreamed about), imagined righteously deep stances and beautiful partner work. In the midst of all of this, I imagined those two smooth glass doors opening, my pupils dilating at the sight of her, coiled tense and beautiful, with the deepest blue eyes fixed on me. A pointless dream, that a near-stranger would travel across the country simply to watch a black belt test in her hometown, but one that unashamedly motivated me.
So when we did kneeling seven tonight, and our instructor reminded us that it is appropriate to gaze slightly downwards, I was projecting the same pale white skin below me. In exchange I got the same feeling of intensity as we swept downwards as one, all slicing cleanly and honorably through the necks of people who would probably be horrified to know their role, however hypothetical.
I like to think you might shiver, even now, knowing this part of my experience is sunk so deeply in you.
