This is how I met Aiki-Doh!-ka.
I arrived for class a little early the other day, and as I neared the building I noticed Aiki-Doh!-ka standing in an open area adjacent to the door. He was knee-deep in snow, well trampled here and there as if a giant flounder had been flopping around. Trailing from his hand was a length of rope that disappeared under the snow.
I was intrigued.
I wandered over, and as I got closer I could see that he was red-faced and panting, a look of frustrated determination painted on his face, a face that sported a large, angry welt in the shape of a —
“Hi!” he piped up when he saw me approaching.
“Hi yourself. What’re you up to?” I replied.
Aiki-Doh!ka grinned at me and hauled on his rope as if he was long-liner from down east, wrapping the rope from hand to elbow, and around various other parts of his body as he drew in his ‘catch’. He looked like a marker buoy on which someone had cast a tattered net. It gave me time to examine his face and puzzle out the shape of the mark on his forehead. Why, it looked just like a—
At that moment the object on the end of the rope broke the surface and smote him mightily on the knee.
It was a horseshoe.
Now I was sure about the ‘tattoo’ on his brow and had a pretty good idea as to how it came to be there, but I needed verification.
I asked him again what he was doing, and he insisted on a demonstration. I moved back a few paces and held my gym bag in front of my groin.
Aiki-Doh!-ka leapt straight up, spinning like the Tasmanian Devil, and released the horseshoe as he hit the ground. It careened wildly towards a bike rack, a target that I could only hope was intentional, and ricocheted away with a loud clang. Immediately, A-D jerked the rope smartly, making the horseshoe whistle back towards us at an alarming rate. I ducked and was happy to see that he did too. It rocketed over our heads and Aiki-Doh!-ka chased after it, gathering in the line by wrapping it around himself, bringing the horseshoe (did I mention it was made from iron?) closer and closer in shorter, rapidly accelerating arcs.
I wanted to close my eyes, but I couldn’t. It was like watching a python coil around it’s prey; it was only a matter of time before—
Thud.
He took it straight on the forehead, partially overlaying the previous welt. Perhaps that’s good luck in some places, but I was beginning to be concerned for my friend.
“Aiki-Doh!-ka, what on earth are you doing!”
“I saw it in a Jackie Chan movie,” he said, rubbing his forehead briskly with one hand and looking at the horseshoe in consternation, “he ties a horseshoe to a rope and defeats all his attackers with it. It’s really cool! He moves like quicksilver!”
“Yeah, I’ve seen it. Speaking of quicksilver, I’ve got some Mercurochrome in my bag, maybe we should have a look at your head…”
He agreed with some reluctance, explaining to me on the way to the locker room that he wanted to be a stunt man in martial arts movies, and he thought that the horseshoe thing would be a good gimmick for auditions. I helped him get disentangled from his ‘gimmick’, and got him patched up well enough for class, vowing to get to the bottom of his scheme later on. I’ll keep you posted…
Kevin Love, 2009
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