A Clean Kill in Tokyo

indicated he’d been wearing it for a lot of years. It was hard to guess his age. His hair was full and black, but his face had the sort of lines I associate with the passage of time and a certain amount of experience. His movements were certainly young; he was holding splits without apparent difficulty. Several times I sensed he was intently aware of me, though I never actually saw him looking in my direction.
    I needed a break and made my apologies to the college students who were lined up, still waiting to test their mettle against me. It felt good to beat
judoka
half my age, and I wondered how much longer I’d be able to do it.
    I went over to the side of the mat and, while I was stretching, watched the guy with the tattered belt. He was practicing his
harai-goshi
entries with one of the college students, a stocky kid with a crew cut. His entry was so powerful that I caught the kid wincing a couple of times as their torsos collided.
    He finished and thanked the kid, then walked over to where I was stretching and bowed. “Will you join me for a round of
randori?”
he asked, in lightly accented English.
    I looked up and noted an intense pair of eyes and strongly set jaw, neither of which his smile did anything to soften. I was right about his watching me, even if I hadn’t caught him. Did he spot the Caucasian in my features? Maybe he did, and just wanted to take the
gaijin
test—though, in my experience, that was a game for younger
judoka
. And his English, or at least his pronunciation, was excellent. That was also odd. The Japanese who are most eager to pit themselves against foreigners usually have had the least experience with them, and their English will typically reflect that lack of contact.
    “Kochira koso onegai shimasu,”
I replied. My pleasure. I was annoyed that he had addressed me in English, so I stayed with Japanese.
“Nihongo wa dekimasu ka?”
Do you speak Japanese?
    “Ei, mochiron. Nihonjin desu kara,”
he responded, indignantly. Of course I do. I’m Japanese.
    “Kore wa shitsurei shimashita. Watashi mo desu. Desu ga, hatsuon ga amari migoto datta no de…”
Forgive me. So am I. But your accent was so perfect that…
    He laughed. “And so is yours. I expect your judo to be no less so.” But by continuing to address me in English, he avoided having to concede the truth of his compliment.
    I was still annoyed, and also wary. I speak Japanese as a native, the same as I speak English, so trying to compliment me on my facility with either language is inherently insulting. And I wanted to know why he would assume I spoke English.
    We found an empty spot on the tatami and bowed to each other, then began circling, each of us working for an advantageous grip. He was extremely relaxed and light on his feet. I feinted with
deashi-barai,
a footsweep, intending to follow with
osoto-gari,
but he countered the feint with a sweep of his own and slammed me to the mat.
    Damn, he was fast. I rolled to my feet and we took up our positions again, this time circling the other way. His nostrils were flaring slightly with his breathing, but that was the only indication he gave of having exerted himself.
    I had a solid grip on his right sleeve with my left hand, my fingers wrapped deeply into the cloth. A nice setup for
ippon seonagi.
But he’d be expecting that. Instead, I swept in hard for
sode-tsurikomi-goshi,
spinning inside his grip and tensing for the throw. But he’d anticipated the move, popping his hips free before I’d cut off the opening and blocking my escape with his right leg. I was off balance and he hit me hard with
tai-otoshi,
powering me over his outstretched leg and drilling me into the mat.
    He threw me twice more in the next five minutes. It was like fighting a waterfall.
    I was getting tired. I faced him and said
“Jaa, tsugi o shimashou ka?”
Shall we make this the last one?
    “Ei, sou shimashou,”
he said, bouncing on his toes. Let’s do it.
    Okay, you bastard,
I thought.
I’ve got a little surprise for you. Let’s see how you like it.
    Juji-gatame,
which means “cross-lock,” is an arm-bar that gets its name from the angle of its attack. Its classical execution leaves the attacker perpendicular to his opponent, with both players lying on their backs, forming the shape of a cross. One permutation—classicists would say mutation—is called “flying
juji-gatame,”
in which the attacker launches the lock directly from a standing position. Because it requires total