Knock, knock!

There is no Easter as we know it in Japan. The few Japanese Christians that exist sternly put ash on their foreheads and wish each other a happy resurrection. No old Pagan fertility celebrations of death and resurrection involving eggs searches and fast-breaking gluttony . What a cultural coincidence, therefore, that on good Friday, Shihan chooses a chick and egg topic for his morning speech.

“Knock, knock! Goes the parent bird’s beak on the outside of the egg. But not to break it. The egg has to be broken from the inside. The chick has to do it. With its own soft beak. A task assigned by nature. But the parent bird has to plant the idea in the chick’s head.”
After you have planted a seed, fertile ground grows for ideas. And if you don’t plant any ideas, it will go to waste, barren land from which no sustenance can spring.
“Without the parents’ knocking, the chick would never think of breaking the shell. The parent knocks, the chick responds. Parent nurtures child. Effort brings forth effort, until finally, the chick hammers its way through the shell and smashes into the world, and parent and child meet for the first time.
This is sottaku dōji. Both kanji in sottaku have a mouth on the left side. The first one has the kanji from “graduate” on the right. The second one the kanji for “pig”. Dōji means at the same time. Parent and child put forth their parental and filial spirit at the same time and meet where nature is at its purest. This kind of mutual stimulation, respect, attention, and response is what we are aiming to achieve in aikido.”

An irimi-nage demonstration follows. “So if he delivers a parental yokomen-uchi, I take it in with all the filial curiosity and attention I have and respond like this, bringing the technique to life between us.” Uke lands on the floor in an elegant wave-shaped ukemi. Then we get to try. Parent and child. At the same time. If only I could do it. If pigs could graduate.

We move in circles, spinning, with nothing but the ground and the sky for reference, guided by faint knocking sounds. Chronological order, dear reader, is an order not adhered to in Anna’s world. I am confessing here, now, with nikon in my heart, and an arrow at my throat, hoping to have you confused into forgiveness in the midst of the blurred chronology of chick and egg and what comes first. I am, like the voices on the train each day, sincerely hoping for your understanding and cooperation. In filial piety. Yours truly. Chick.