Not Smashing

I really wanted to like Smash, the NBC show that purports to follow the production of a new Broadway musical from first rehearsals to glowing reviews. I’ve loved Broadway since my mother dragged me along to see Ethel Merman in a late-career revival of Annie Get Your Gun. My biggest thrill in the last year was taking my 15-year-old niece to her first Broadway show. I idolize Sondheim.

So you’d think that Smash would be right in my wheelhouse. But it never even crosses the plate, in spite of the baseball number that seems to be the only piece of song and dance they’re actually working on.

How come? As always, it starts with the writing—or, in this case, the list of clichés stood up like a troupe of paper dolls.

Is there any character to give a damn about? Let’s go through the list: The librettist/lyricist who can’t decide whether to adopt a Chinese baby or renew her adulterous affair with the leading man? The successful composer whose mother is still setting him up on gay blind dates? The sadistic director whose casting decisions are made by his prick?

The producer who’s going through a divorce? Anjelica can sling a Manhattan with the best of ’em, but the soon-to-be-ex actually seems like a decent fellow. The creepy assistant/spy now attached to her like a remora? Sorry, I can’t see much of a reason for him in this story at all.

The dueling divas? Frankly, Scarlett… Poison Ivy and Karen the Meek aren’t exactly contenders in the race for the cat-fight pennant. If All About Eve is supposed to be the template for this backstage bodice-ripper, they should have taken a closer look at the original.

So there’s nobody to like, some who are kinda repulsive, and a mismatch in the middle. Not a formula for capturing the hearts of Broadway fans everywhere. Strike one, if we’re sticking with the baseball metaphor.

Strike two, on my scorecard, is that Smash shows no respect for the actual process of creating a piece of theater. How is it that this production is at the point of looking for investors, apparently just a couple of weeks after our librettist has received some sort of magic creative spark from the cover photo of a Marilyn Monroe biography? Well, Ms. Monroe had a complex and tragic life. What part, exactly, are you going to turn into a musical?

The writers have evidently decided that Marilyn’s Kardashian-brief marriage to Joltin’ Joe Dimaggio is the focus, given that one number they’ve been working on, but it’s hard to see how we get a happy musical ending out of their divorce, preceded as it was by nasty public battles. And I can’t visualize a big finale built around her death by barbiturate overdose.

So there are story problems for the show within the show before we leave the dugout. I suspect that even Julie Taymor would walk away from a project this shapeless. A sculptor builds a human form from the bones up; there are no dramatic bones to Marilyn the Musical.

Strike three: The lack of respect for the process extends to the artists involved. It takes a hell of a lot of work, done with a professional attitude by people with incredible skills, to put together a show. But in the world of Smash, everybody’s too bitchy to actually rehearse—assuming they had anything to rehearse, since there’s still no book. Ivy couldn’t possibly have lost her voice, she’s barely used it!

If you need a template for a backstage musical, might I suggest A Chorus Line? You could develop a diverse cast, with lots of interesting story arcs. There’d still be plenty of room for dramatic conflict. It’d be sort of like Glee…

Resetting my shoulders

I’ve been dealing with sore shoulders lately. Aikido is tough on most of the joints, and I’ve never been terribly flexible, in spite of all the stretching exercises I’ve done since my first dance class 40-some years ago. Our pins often involve grounding the front of uke’s shoulder into the mat and controlling the arm, which stretches the muscles and tendons of the shoulder pretty hard. A pin that’s too harsh, or a pinning technique practiced for too long in a session, can leave my shoulders inflamed and painful. Ice, Aleve and a massage tool called the Theracane are my preferred treatments, along with soaks in a hot tub.

But there seems to be something else going on in my shoulders as well. Every aikido student hears sensei repeat “Relax your shoulders!” again and again. I feel like I’m just beginning to physically interpret that in a useful way.  For me, that now means relaxing them back as well as down, by releasing tension across the front of my chest. I think I touched on this earlier in my post “Opening the Heart Chakra.”

It’s a subtle shift in posture, shoulders relaxed back and chest opened up, that seems to resonate with an equally subtle emotional shift. Mary Heiny Sensei often speaks of filling your heart with gratitude toward your attacker, who brings you a gift of energy. I hope I’m not too far off the track to think that the physical and emotional shifts are linked.

What I think (hope?) I’m coming up against at this point in my training is to integrate this physical shift into my muscle memory. I’m not quite there yet, which is another reason my shoulders are sore—I’m using them differently, so the muscles have to adapt.

In the next couple of weeks, I need to arrange a practice exam. It’s a chance for feedback from senior students, and maybe to quell a few anticipatory butterflies in my stomach. I’m looking forward to it.

 

 

Shin ken

Raising the razor-sharp katana over his head, a black belt steps forward and cuts straight down at Glen Kimoto sensei. In an instant, Glen pivots out of the way of the deadly blow, reaches between uke’s hands to grasp the hilt of the sword, and throws his attacker into a forward roll, safely disarming him in the process. I try not to let my mouth hang open as I watch him repeat the demonstration several more times.

Three feet of honed steel focuses the mind remarkably well. Glen sensei is the only teacher I know who regularly demonstrates with real edge weapons. As a retired middle school science teacher, he understands the impact it makes on the class. (And as a weapon collector, I think he also enjoys sharing his blades with us.)

I’ve only handled what we call a “live blade” (“shin ken” in Japanese) a few times, but the experience is like holding lightning. There’s a real energy that travels from sword to hand to center and back. A samurai considered his sword inseparable from his soul, and as you feel the weight and balance of a live blade of the Japanese style you begin to understand why. Life and death rest on its edge and your skill.

Sword technique is one of the foundations of aikido practice, and almost all our usual throws and pins are based on sword work. When it’s our turn to practice this sword-taking technique, we use wooden weapons that won’t accidentally remove fingers—or feet. But the demonstration has served its purpose—a bokken gets treated with more respect once you recognize that it represents a live blade.

The expression “shin ken” has a deeper meaning as well, and I’m just beginning to wrap my head around it. The attributes of a live blade are desirable, and we are encouraged to cultivate them within ourselves in our training.

I think it’s going to take a lot of polishing to get that sharp, so I better get to class…

 

 

 

 

 

 

Randori

David sensei nods to me. “OK, your turn.” I stand, walk across the mat and kneel in seiza. David calls for volunteers, and three of my classmates scamper to kneel in a line facing me, probably 20 feet away. They bow to me, and I to them, saying “Onegaishimasu.” David calls, “Hajime!” and the three of them charge toward me in simultaneous attack.

This exercise is called randori, which I believe is Japanese for “chaos.” If it isn’t, it should be. It’s characteristic of aikido practice, although going full-out is generally reserved for brown and black belt level. It’s the highlight of a black belt test.

As nage in this exercise, my goal is…

Well gosh, I had to stop right there and think about it. What exactly is my goal? I could say survival, but these people are friends and this is mock combat. So I’m not really in danger. As best I can explain my limited understanding, my job is to deal with the energy of each uke while maintaining my own center. At least, that’s the primary one. Accomplishing that goal involves using aikido techniques to throw my three opponents in turn, repeatedly.

Sometimes this all goes well, and sometimes not so much. One thing I can say for certain is that it’s never the same twice. And there isn’t time to think. Muscle memory and basic principles—get off the line, blend, turn your hips, keep moving forward, bend your knees, RELAX, to name a few—are practiced under pressure. Lots of pressure.

“Yame!” sensei calls, and the action stops, after perhaps two minutes. We all drop to our knees and bow, then return to our original places. David offers me some tactical advice, and I try to absorb it while catching my breath and wiping sweat out of my eyes.

Then we start over. Another round, and I can’t tell if I’ve actually taken the note, but David says “good” as we bow again to each other and rejoin the line of students at the edge of the mat.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Mary Heiny Sensei

“Please welcome one of the treasures of Aikido, Mary Heiny,” says Linda Holiday sensei to the assembled class, lined up in formal seiza around three sides of Aikido of Santa Cruz’s large mat. A short, gray-haired woman walks to the center of the space, facing Osensei’s portrait on the shomen wall. Standing due to recent knee-replacement surgery, she leads the bow that opens every Aikido class, then turns to the class. “Onegaishimasu,” she says, and we all respond with the same phrase, Japanese for “please” or “I ask a favor.”

“Let’s get started,” says Mary sensei, kicking off two hours of deep physical and philosophical exploration in today’s seminar. After nearly a half-century of study, her demonstrations are laser-sharp and her explanations have the ring of truth. She calls up an advanced student as uke and shows what looks like a simple technique, katate-dori kokyu-nage, breaking it down and pointing out the principles at work at each point. “OK, you try it.”

We all pair up and begin reaching for one another’s wrists, attempting to translate what we’ve just seen and heard into action. This isn’t so simple after all—there’s a subtle movement of the hips that needs to occur at precisely the right instant, and Mary sensei circulates through the dojo, stopping here and there to clarify a point or make a correction. In the course of the class, she’ll connect at some point with everyone on the mat.

And by “connect” I don’t mean eye contact and a smile. Mary Heiny looks like a retired librarian, but when you grab her wrist you realize that she’s aligned with the forces of the universe. Effortlessly, she takes control of your center, and you fall.

I can’t begin to list all the insights that this remarkable teacher brings to our practice, and every time I’ve trained with her I come away with something different. But one thing seems to resonate with me from this visit. “Aikido is both a martial art and a spiritual path,” she said. “Our aim is to neutralize violence, not to do violence more successfully.”

Seems like a worthwhile goal to me.

(For more info about Mary sensei, including her seminar schedule, visit www.maryheiny.com.)

Road work

If I’m actually going to make it to my shodan test, I have to give much of the credit to our road. A mile long and the width of a grader blade, it switchbacks up the steep side of our ridge here in the Santa Cruz Mountains. Originally a logging road, it’s now lined by second-growth redwoods, sometimes in families standing fairy-ringed around a huge old stump. Live oaks and madrone, bay and buckeye are mixed in, too. Our trees often speak when there’s a breeze, rubbing their limbs together to produce loud squeals and mournful groans of conversation.

Most mornings, I’ll tie on my shoes and pop in my earbuds, with my favorite Timba bands playing on the iPod. It’s relentlessly uptempo dance music, with funky bass lines and lots of percussion—plus all the lyrics are in Spanish, so I don’t have a clue what they mean. I think this is an advantage, but I’m not sure why. I mambo out the door, grabbing the bokken that’s leaning against the doorframe with my left hand and closing the door behind me with my right. This is mountain lion country, and though I’ve never encountered one of our local cougars, carrying my wooden sword makes me feel more secure.

My house is almost exactly halfway up the road, and I get a choice of up or down to start my constitutional. I’ve been leaning towards up lately, so I hang a left out the driveway.

Taking my pace from Los Van Van, I start up the hill. Stellar’s Jays scream at me, and chickadees flit about in the bushes. After a hundred yards or so, I feel my breathing start to deepen as my leg muscles wake up and demand oxygen. The first beads of sweat form. Arnie’s elkhounds bark at me as I pass his place. I call out to them, tell them they’re doing a good job guarding the house.

The grade gets steeper, and I bypass the turn into the vacant lot. When I walked this road with my dear departed dog Tucker, we’d often stop there because it had a nice view to the east, but it’s gotten all overgrown with Scotch Broom in the last year. Fully warmed up now, I push a little harder, heading for the top of the ridge.

At the crest, there’s a view of Empire Grade to the southwest, and on a clear morning I’ll take a few moments to admire it. Then about face, and back down the hill. Working with gravity instead of against it, I don’t have to work as hard to keep up with the music, but my quads and knees get a good workout as I let my hips move with the beat. Greeting the elkhounds once again as I pass, I continue past my house and down the road.

Max the Weimaraner lives with Barry in the cottage by the next switchback, but the only evidence of him most of the time is the piles of dog shit on the side of the road. This is a relatively flat section, and I’ll often practice with the bokken here as I walk, raising the blade above my head, cutting straight down, then raising and cutting again. There’s not much traffic on the road, but I try to keep my awareness extended in case a neighbor drives past. I guess I’d be a little abashed if I got caught at it, like a kid playing Luke Skywalker with a stick.

There’s another switchback where the road crosses our little creek. It’s been a pretty dry winter so far, so the creekbed’s just got a few stagnant puddles in it. If we get a good storm it’ll run fast for a few days to drain the water from this portion of the ridge. This last section runs down to the state road and it’s one of the steeper pitches, so I need to pay attention to where my feet are landing.

Reaching the bottom, I pause to pull our newspaper out of the tube and glance at the headline. I usually hang it over my bokken to carry it back up the hill. With a shower and breakfast on my event horizon, I start to climb again, leaning on the Timba beat.

The “relatively flat” section where I swing my sword is only relatively flat when you’re going downhill; in the other direction it’s still a challenge.  I’ve got a good sweat going now, if I’m wearing my jacket it’s been unzipped. Past Max’s house it gets steeper again. When I started walking this hill alone after Tuck died I usually needed to stop and take a breather here, but not anymore.

Reaching the house, I hang my jacket on the hook, pull out the earbuds, and deliver the paper to Renée. I shuck off my sweaty T-shirt and grab my robe. Time to shower and start the day. My advice to you: If you want to get fit, find a hill and take a walk.

 

Kami no Kokoro

I’ve been rereading John Stevens’ biography of Aikido founder Morihei Ueshiba, known to aikidoka as Osensei (honored teacher). Titled Invincible Warrior, it provides an interesting overview of the chaotic state of the world in general, and Japan in particular, during Osensei’s early life. The beginning of the 20^th Century had more than its share of war, economic disaster, and social displacement.

One of the cultural responses to this situation was a resurgence of Japanese religious mysticism, and the young Morihei embraced it, becoming a disciple of Onisaburo Deguchi, the charismatic leader of the Omoto-kyo “New Religion.” Many of the meditative practices we incorporate in aikido training are rooted in this sect’s teachings, which is why middle-aged white people in Santa Cruz, California, can sometimes be found chanting to “Amaterasu okami” (literally, the goddess of the sun; symbolically the spirit of love shining on all equally).

The book also includes stories of Osensei’s wondrous feats. He could toss huge boulders aside like pebbles, it’s said, and magically transport himself out of danger when attacked. His fields always produced more rice than his neighbors’ did, and he could even read minds.

Hmmm. I generally consider myself a rational person, and I don’t usually buy into supernatural powers. By my usual standards, I’d dismiss this stuff as impossible. Come on, teleportation? Dodging bullets? Nice stories, but nothing more.

So why am I spending all this time and energy studying aikido? It’s not like I believe I’ll be attaining mystical superpowers to match Osensei’s miraculous acts, and if I need a boulder moved, I’ll likely hire somebody with a diesel backhoe.

But I have trained with teachers who were thrown by Osensei; they all testify that it was a world-changing personal experience. And every now and then, when a blend goes exactly right and uke goes flying, I get a firsthand taste of the magic. Usually a tiny and fleeting one, but enough to know that yes, there is something there.

My kangeiko certificate for this year, calligraphy brushed by Linda Holiday Sensei, reads “Kami no Kokoro,” which she translates as “The Heart of Kami (Nature, Divine Spirit).” I take that as my assignment for the next year of training—to connect more strongly with the heart of Kami.

Kami no Kokoro; The Heart of Kami (Nature, Divine Spirit). Calligraphy by Linda Holiday

This is going to take some work. I’d better get to class…