If you haven’t read it, the best loved aikido story (after Ueshiba getting enlightened after taking a challenge from a military man who attacked him uselessly with a sword) is Terry Dobson’s “Train Story.” I used to have people come up to tell me the story, and I’d tell them I knew it, knew Terry, was hanging around when he wrote it, and they’d insist on telling me anyway. Look – it’s a wonderful story. It influenced me profoundly and I hope, one one occasion or another, I have exhibited the compassion of that old man. But somehow, I’ve always had bad luck on Japanese trains.

Train Story #1

Riding home from Muay Thai. Hanging on a strap. I’m really tired and just want to get home. Don’t want to talk to anyone.

Three really drunk guys, loud and stinking – laborers – stagger onto the train. One guy loudly wants to be my friend, wants to practice English, can say about five words, won’t leave me alone, breathing on me. He asks me, with dull innocent eyes, “Why don’t you want to talk with me?”  And I look him dead in the eyes and say, “Anta nya, hanashitaku neh zo.” (“I don’t want to talk to some thing like you” said in rather ‘colloquial’ Japanese).

He punches me in the stomach. It doesn’t hurt. I was doing three hundred opposite knee-to-head crunch sit-ups in a set. But I am tired and pissed. I have no desire to engage in the ‘resolution of conflict.’  I give him a two-handed shove, and he flies through the air just as the train has pulled into a station, and the doors open. He lands – sort of. One leg is out of the train on the platform, bent double, the other sinks down to mid-thigh between the platform and the train. Everyone is staring with their mouths open. He’s screaming in terror, and perhaps because he’s so low, the conductor at the end of the train doesn’t see him and whistles that he’s closing the doors and the trains about to depart.
I leap forward like a tiger (hey, it’s my story and I’ll choose to describe how I leap!), grab him under his truly stinking armpits, yell, “STAND!” and pluck him up and out of his dilemma. He was dangling in my hands, and I thought, “Where the hell do I put him?” My first instinct was to drop him on the platform and then the doors would close and we’d drive off, but his two friends, mouths open and drooling drunk, were still on the train. So I put him back on.
Everyone heaves a sigh of relief in that typical “I’m not really watching and didn’t see anything” Japanese way – . . . . . and I had a new friend. He was all over me. “You saved my life. I love you. You are the best gaijin who ever lived. Let me hug you. Please, just one hug. We can go out drinking. We still have money left, right guys? (two nods, drool training off one chin and snot off the other’s nose). C’mon gaijin-san. Drink with us. You saved my life, I owe you forever.”
The doors to the train opened. It was the last train. I was fifteen stops from my home. I RAN off the train. The doors closed. Walking, I arrived home at 3:30 in the morning.

Train Story #2

I used to carry my training gear in a furoshiki (a large handkerchief, really). Very old-school. I was coming home from the Aikikai one night, and I was tired. It hadn’t been the best day. I’d had an unpleasant hour practicing with Miyamoto-san, the dojo thug, and Yamaguchi-sensei had found fault with every thing I did. And I was tired.
I got on the Seibu Ikebukero line, and all the seats were full. But then, as I walked down the car, I saw this guy with a “punch pama” (his hair in tight little curls, the vogue among gangsters), with his legs widespread, taking up two seats.

I was too tired for this. I was not going to stand the whole way home. So I put my furoshiki up on the rack above him, and sat on his right leg.

At the last moment, he yanked it back, and I sat down on the seat.

He stared at me and I   ignored him.  I sank into my own thoughts. The guy started talking, and I glanced over and saw that he was leaning over a very pretty girl sitting on his other side. I wondered what a refined beautiful high-class girl was doing with a punk like that. Then I realize that he’s talking to another chimpira (low-level gangster) across her. They have her bracketed. They were ‘ignoring’ her, both leaning in, talking about what they liked to do to women and then, shifted to what they were going to do to me. “F..king gaijin. They may be big, but we got Japanese spirit. They are all flesh, whereas we are all heart. We can take him. We can take him. We can TAKE him.!” I know it’s just about to go down and I’m ready to throw down. The train is shaking, the train is shaking, my hands are shaking, the train is shaking. The girl is shrinking into herself, trying to disappear. The train is shaking.

Somehow through the swaying of the train, my poorly tied (I was so tired
my fingers hadn’t worked when I tied it), sloppily folded furoshiki slips
open, and my well-worn black belt, which was actually grey (which means “he’s been around awhile”), uncoils like an anaconda from overhead
to dangle swinging right in front of the near guy’s eyes. His eyes pop
out, he looks at his buddy.  I get a big grin, and say, “Oh, I’m sorry,
how rude of me” and stand up and stuff it back in the bundle.  Sit down
again grinning. He looked at the belt, he turned and looked at me. He looked at his friend. They looked at the belt. They looked at me. I smiled. They got up and ran off the train.

I’ve waited my whole life for this.  I have rescued a beautiful girl, with elegance and style. I could see our future before my eyes.  Camel rides in Turkmenistan, sunsets in Fiji, three kids and a home by the sea.  As I turn to her, smiling, her eyes widened, and she squeaked like a little mouse – – – in terror.

And ran off the train.

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