technical advice for a new movie. It was the third or fourth installment of a shoot-'em-up where the wisecracking star is eventually stripped down to a sleeveless undershirt and takes a volume of punishment that would disable a platoon of Navy Seals. When it hit theaters, you would be able to glimpse Ikagi's ghost as an extra in one of the group fight scenes.
But there was more to him than this. For all his success, Ikagi was a sensei who never lost sight of the real purpose of training. He was quoted in one article as insisting that the true pursuit of karate was not in perfecting fighting technique but in the spiritual development Ikagi referred to as "mirror polishing." The phrase had strong links to Shinto and Zen Buddhism, and Ikagi had even adopted the name "mirror polisher" when he did calligraphy. From the various things I read, I got the sense that Ikagi was both tremendously skilled and unusually balanced in his approach to the martial arts.
Kubata, the Phoenix victim, was already known to me by reputation. He had been in this country for only a few months before he was killed. Welcome to the Valley of the Sun. He was part of a concerted effort to popularize kendo here and had launched a series of ambitious seminars that attracted a nationwide audience. Part of it was the result of the impressive charisma the man obviously possessed they didn't call him the Jewel of the Budokan for nothing. But I also suspected, after a generation of training, that there were thousands of judo and karate students whose joints hurt too much to continue with their arts and were looking for something else. Not a week before his death, he had been prominently featured on the cover of one of the national martial arts rags with the caption: "Master Kubata Introduces the Art of the Sword." I knew of any number of teachers who had been laboring at this very goal for years, but modesty had not been one of Kubata's failings.
The two men were prominent and skilled martial artists. They were both Japanese. But other than that, I got no sense of how they were connected. And Reilly's connection was still unknown.
Which brought me to a dead end. So I considered Ronin. Micky looked at the basics. I followed that line of thinking from my own perspective. I thought that someone like Ronin needed not only a place to live, but also a place to tram, you don't acquire those types of skills like you buy a suit of clothes. It's a high-maintenance commodity, which is why so many people begin studying the arts and so few persevere long enough to learn anything. In a consumer society, where everything is fast and easy, learning the martial arts is not. To make matters worse, martial skill requires practice. Constant practice and constant conditioning. And then more practice.
I explained to Micky and Art that training would probably eat up a big part of Ronin's day and be expensive. It narrowed things down somewhat: we had a much better chance of trying to find him by locating likely places where he could train.
At this skill level, some of your training takes place alone: you run, stretch, lift weights, whatever. But if you're serious about dealing with people, then you eventually have to confront a live adversary. You need bodies to work with, muscle and bone to leverage around.
For Ronin, however, the kind of place he would need would be special. It would need to be tough. And mean. This type of place the City had in abundance. But he seemed to gravitate to the Japanese arts. I'd look for him in a dojo but not some storefront school that was part day care and part yuppie commando fantasy center. The people in it would also have to be very skilled, which cut down the potential number of likely places considerably. I also thought, given the type of things that he would be training in, that there would have to be a high tolerance for injury. When this man practiced, there would be a good likelihood of collateral damage. It narrowed the list down even
But there was more to him than this. For all his success, Ikagi was a sensei who never lost sight of the real purpose of training. He was quoted in one article as insisting that the true pursuit of karate was not in perfecting fighting technique but in the spiritual development Ikagi referred to as "mirror polishing." The phrase had strong links to Shinto and Zen Buddhism, and Ikagi had even adopted the name "mirror polisher" when he did calligraphy. From the various things I read, I got the sense that Ikagi was both tremendously skilled and unusually balanced in his approach to the martial arts.
Kubata, the Phoenix victim, was already known to me by reputation. He had been in this country for only a few months before he was killed. Welcome to the Valley of the Sun. He was part of a concerted effort to popularize kendo here and had launched a series of ambitious seminars that attracted a nationwide audience. Part of it was the result of the impressive charisma the man obviously possessed they didn't call him the Jewel of the Budokan for nothing. But I also suspected, after a generation of training, that there were thousands of judo and karate students whose joints hurt too much to continue with their arts and were looking for something else. Not a week before his death, he had been prominently featured on the cover of one of the national martial arts rags with the caption: "Master Kubata Introduces the Art of the Sword." I knew of any number of teachers who had been laboring at this very goal for years, but modesty had not been one of Kubata's failings.
The two men were prominent and skilled martial artists. They were both Japanese. But other than that, I got no sense of how they were connected. And Reilly's connection was still unknown.
Which brought me to a dead end. So I considered Ronin. Micky looked at the basics. I followed that line of thinking from my own perspective. I thought that someone like Ronin needed not only a place to live, but also a place to tram, you don't acquire those types of skills like you buy a suit of clothes. It's a high-maintenance commodity, which is why so many people begin studying the arts and so few persevere long enough to learn anything. In a consumer society, where everything is fast and easy, learning the martial arts is not. To make matters worse, martial skill requires practice. Constant practice and constant conditioning. And then more practice.
I explained to Micky and Art that training would probably eat up a big part of Ronin's day and be expensive. It narrowed things down somewhat: we had a much better chance of trying to find him by locating likely places where he could train.
At this skill level, some of your training takes place alone: you run, stretch, lift weights, whatever. But if you're serious about dealing with people, then you eventually have to confront a live adversary. You need bodies to work with, muscle and bone to leverage around.
For Ronin, however, the kind of place he would need would be special. It would need to be tough. And mean. This type of place the City had in abundance. But he seemed to gravitate to the Japanese arts. I'd look for him in a dojo but not some storefront school that was part day care and part yuppie commando fantasy center. The people in it would also have to be very skilled, which cut down the potential number of likely places considerably. I also thought, given the type of things that he would be training in, that there would have to be a high tolerance for injury. When this man practiced, there would be a good likelihood of collateral damage. It narrowed the list down even
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