One day my instructor came in with shinai (bamboo sword) and kendo masks and gloves. No chest protectors. He said that as long as we clung to form practice as our mainstay and in freestyle practice had to pull our blows, we would never know if our techniques had any integrity at all. He conceded that we ran the risk, using "safety" equipment, of covering ground already walked over by modern martial sports like kendo, but he felt we could counter this with two things: maintaining our kata training and freestyle work with wooden weapons, and making the whole body a target. In addition, by minimizing our protection, with no body or leg armor, we would not lose our flinch reactions, because bamboo weapons promised pain if not minor injury. This would keep us honest, as unlike martial sports, there would be no designated target areas for strikes. Just as in a fight to the death, the whole body was a target.

Training in traditional martial arts, whether for the acquisition of power or self-perfection, is a harsh process. It is often difficult to distinguish whether one is resisting out of fear of what one needs to learn, or resisting what one finds oneself required to do, in spite of profound and sometimes quite appropriate misgivings. I often felt myself pushed in directions that I wasn't sure I wanted to go in this particular dojo, and this was one of those times. Practice was already so severe, as much on a psychological as a physical level, that out of possibly one hundred people who had joined at one time or another, there were now only four of us left, including my instructor.

One man and I had become very close. He was my senior by about a year. I will call him Maeda here. For a period of several years, he and I met every Sunday morning for an extra period of practice. He had a 4th dan in Yoshinkan aikido, a 6th dan in Hakko-ryu jujutsu, a 4th dan in kendo, and some level of certification in Kashima Shin-ryu kenjutsu. Nonetheless, he was, innately, a gentle man. In the roil of emotions which this martial study aroused in me, a combination of pure adrenaline intoxication, fear, resistance, pride, and joy, I had become increasingly irritated by his reluctance to push himself out to the edge over that past year or so. This irritation was, in fact, an excuse for me to avoid facing my own reluctance to approach some of those same edges. I was often afraid, and I was also ashamed--pushed, less by my own true desires than by a need to conform to my teacher's will and to have him approve of me.

We began to practice, and it soon grew very intense. Each match felt like a duel; everytime the shinai struck one's body, it was interpreted as a wound. This was not only experienced in the abstract. Any part of the body was a target, and the split bamboo sent jolts of pain whenever it slashed on unprotected flesh. My instructor and my other fellow student, whom I will call Kawashima, were in the thick of things. All of us were in alien territory here, and it was frightening, and yet exhilarating. On one level, at least, we were testing if our techniques worked, if we had the skill to execute these techniques, and if we had the courage to try.

A couple of hours went by, at once endless and very brief, and as Maeda grew fatigued, his fear began to master him. Called out to face me again, right after Kawashima and my instructor, he began to whine. My instructor curtly told him to take the floor. He complained again. This was ugly to me. "Amdur and Kawashima haven't practiced nearly as much as me. It's not fair," he said.

"Maeda-san," I roared. "Onegaishimasu!" (if you please!) And at that second, I came at him, slashing at his head. He blocked my weapon with his, but being much larger, I twisted and smashed him with my shoulder, sending him falling to the mat. He didn't get up, and said something about wanting to stop. Angry, I began to hit him, full force in the body with my weapon, again and again. I could hear the blows thud, then crack, depending on whether I struck bone or muscle. He somehow rolled and came to his feet, but I continued to rain crushing blows upon him, so powerfully that they smashed his own weapon into his face protected by the kendo mask. Once again he blocked me and I knocked him over. He rolled uncontrollably for a moment, and ended up crouched on one knee about ten away. I sprung forward to slash him with all my might. Like a cornered rat, curled protectively around himself, he suddenly leapt upwards, teeth bared and screaming, and swung his shinai up from the ground, whistling through the air. The very tip of it hit the very tip . . . of my penis. To say it hurt is meaningless under the circumstances. For a moment, I was in total shock, every nerve in my body screaming, no, gibbering in burning, scraping agony. I bent over myself, thinking that my instructor would stop practice. "I need a break," I thought, praying for release from the pain, (easy enough for me to say once I was the one hurting), but Maeda sighted along the line of my bent-over neck, and raised his shinai, rising on tip-toes to smash at right angles to my exposed spinal column, and my instructor yelled, "Maeda!"

This shout, so powerful, caused him to pause a fraction of a second (the whole exchange had only taken two or three) and I whirled and butted him under the chin, rammed him against a wall, and then down to the floor, me on top pinning him. I had lost any sense that this was practice.

He was a coward, I tried to help him by fighting him hard to bring him through his fear, he hurt me, and now I would destroy him. (No, these were not my thoughts. That was the curve of my rage.) I head-butted him several times, mask upon mask, and frustrated with this, ripped his mask off of his head.

He was absolutely helpless. His eyes, wide, were vulnerable as a baby. I raised the butt of my weapon to smash him between the eyes, and my instructor grabbed me from behind, hauling me off, yelling at me for losing control, as if to say "What's your problem, it's only training!" Yet I felt he approved of all I did, except for the moment I doubled over in pain. Maeda was more or less ignored.

We practiced a while longer, me against my teacher and against Kawashima, but the intensity was thankfully gone for that day.

This method of training became central for us over the years ahead. On one hand, what I learned was invaluable. I acquired knowledge about myself, my skills, my weaknesses, my own fears and strengths. I even had several wonderful experiences doing similar sparring with men from other schools. Not dojo invasions, but agreed upon, respectful training. Through this training, one man, Meik Skoss and I overcame years of rivalry and became more than friends. He is the godfather of my younger son.