Honors and Ambivalence

When I earned my black belt in judo, the paper in Nagasaki, Japan, where I was living for a year as a Rotary Club exchange student, sent a reporter to my home for an interview. My host mother and father and I met with the reporter in the living room of our house—the only room that contained western furniture. I remember feeling proud and uncomfortable.

Earning a black belt in judo in Japan was not such a big deal. Most young people of high school age were able to do it in several years of intensive practice. It was the equivalent of being on the varsity sports team in your local high school, a mark of dedication and modicum of talent, but not much more.

We usually think of judo as the standing throws that are so quick and flashy. Two people stand facing each other grabbing onto each other’s jacket and suddenly one goes flying and lands with a thud on the mat. These throws are called nage-waza, throwing techniques. If the throw is clean and well-executed, the thrower wins the match, but if it is less than conclusive, as it usually is, the match continues on the ground, which is where ne-waza or grappling techniques come into play. It’s not as dramatic or elegant as nage-waze but ne-waza wins a lot of matches. And having been a minor star on my American high school wrestling team. I was very good at ne-waza.

My black belt competition was a city-wide event with students from all over the region coming to compete with each other and earn points toward earning a black-belt. As I remember, we had to demonstrate a certain number of required throws and then we competed in five matches to demonstrate our skill. I won all my matches, even a few with throws, but it was the final one that drew attention to me.

My opponent was skilled and tough though considerably smaller than me. I couldn’t throw him but eventually got him down to the mat where we grappled. Now part of ne-waza is joint immobilization techniques and chokeholds. When your opponent locks you in such a hold, you ‘tap out’ and the match ends with the other person winning. After a lot of back and forth, I managed to trap my smaller opponent in a strong choke-hold. I held on tight and waited. He refused to tap and finally, the referee called the match, but my opponent did not get up. He had passed out rather than surrender. Worse than that, he began convulsing. He was taken to a hospital and recovered fully, but at the time I was quite shaken though my coach patted me on the back and I said I had done well.

I earned my black belt, but the article written about me in the paper was mostly because I was an American. Out of the other twenty or thirty other black belts awarded that day, I was the only one who got his own newspaper article. I sat uncomfortably in the rarely used western chairs, in my judo uniform with my blond hair coming down over my forehead.  No one mentioned the convulsions or the chokehold.  My host mother was clearly very proud of me and, as usual, I couldn’t tell what my host father made of the whole thing.

About a week later, the coach of my judo team told me that the coaches of the other high school judo teams had gotten together and decided that since I wasn’t a fully matriculated high school student, I could not represent my high school in the upcoming matches. He said they were just afraid because I was so good. Whatever their reasoning, I was happy to not have to choke anyone else and never practiced judo again.