One of the Sensei from the dojo recently said to me that he is not a "father figure". I told
him I didn't see him that way, and I thought to myself that I didn't really view anyone except
Shihan as such, it's more like I have a bunch of big brothers. Then I realized that wasn't
true, there
is someone else at the dojo who I do kind of see as a father figure; our Judo
instructor, The Captain Sensei. The reason for the nickname is because he is an LPD
captain, and our women's Jiu-Jitsu teacher Amy (who used to work with him) always calls
him Captain, because she knew him as a captain before she knew him as a sensei, so I
started calling him Cap'n Sensei.
A couple of winters ago I was involved in a fender bender in which a woman was
following me too closely on icy streets and couldn't stop when I slowed down to turn, so
she rear-ended me. That minor accident totally sucked because her car became hooked on
the hitch on the back of my Jeep, and it literally took hours in the freezing cold to get it off!
The police officer who responded to the accident, and some helpful McDonald's workers,
tried unsuccessfully to get it unhitched. Since the officer's name was "Bauer" I figured he
would just commandeer a tow truck at gunpoint, but in order to get one to assist
someone had to pay for it, and even though it was the other driver's fault, she had no
money, so I had to cough it up or be stuck dragging her car all over town. But I digress...
When I saw Captain Sensei a few days after that, he sternly said to me "So, I saw you got
into an accident." OMG, it was like being interrogated by my father, a dojo sensei,
and a
police captain all at the same time! What I was thinking was "Why are you all up in my
business?!", but what I said was "I swear it wasn't my fault!"
 |
This is from a Judo/Jiu-Jitsu seminar we had in 2008.
That day was the first time I ever did any straight grappling!
The Cap'n is standing to the right of Shihan (who is in the red belt). |
|
The Captain knows I am intimidated by his authoritah (or at least I
used to be), so he likes
to mess with me by saying crazy things with a completely straight face, so I never know if
he's joking or not. One time I had put a box in the wrong place in the storeroom, and he
was very upset that it wasn't where it was supposed to be, and he asked me "Who put this
box here?!" I didn't say a word, but my guilt must have been apparent, because then he
growled "If I ever find out who moved that box, I am going to rip every limb from their
body, and it will be very painful!" I'm pretty sure he was just joking about that, because I
still have all my limbs, and I am fully confident he could easily disarm and disleg me if he
wanted to.
I've previously mentioned his efforts to turn me into a Judoka (and my stubborn
resistance to them), but I think he has finally given up, because he no longer tries every
trick in his extensive book to get me to go to Judo class. Although last week when I was
talking to him he did say that he didn't understand why anyone would want to do Jiu-Jitsu,
because it seemed "boring". I can think of many words to describe Jiu-Jitsu, but boring is
one that would
never cross my mind! It might be boring to watch if you don't fully
understand what's happening, but to me grappling is one of the least boring things in the
whole entire world! I was always a rebellious child, and Jiu-Jitsu is "not your father's
martial art". ;)
The Cap'n Sensei: "Where do you keep your armies?"
Terrified little kid in Judo class: ???
The Cap'n Sensei: "In your sleevies!"
