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February 20, 2005
Third Meeting - Angry White Pyjamas
We met today for lunch and to discuss Angry White Pyjamas by Robert Twigger.
The story is a humorous autobiographical recollection of the transformation of Twigger from slob to fighter through a year's riot police training in the martial art of Yoshinkan aikido. Twigger is adrift in Tokyo, translating and teaching English, whilst living in a situation reminiscent of "men behaving badly" with two other men in Fuji Heights. On witnessing a frightening road scene, he decides that he should become better able to fend for himself. After some basic training, he enrols in the foreigners' version of the Tokyo riot police training course. The story weaves his teaching, girlfriends and experiences as a Westerner in Japan with the detail of a year of relentless, brutal and ascetic training.
Our group had mixed views on this book. Ron, who suggested it, found appeal in the combination of martial arts and an insight into a Westerner's life in Japan. Richard and Andrew found the characterisation thin and would rather have had a greater emphasis on the (for them) more interesting perspectives on Japan. We all felt that the strength of the first few pages had captivated us and that the book rather fizzled out at the very end. I felt that Twigger had introduced far too many characters and left me so confused that I had to write them down in a list. Nevertheless, I found it an enjoyable read.
Confucius was a sage because he had the will to become a scholar when he ewas fifteen years old. He was not a sage because he studied later on. First intention, then enlightenment.
From the seventeenth-century Samurai handbook Hagakure p93
I was sure that one reason the Japanese sensei liked mammoth training sessions, where two hundred press-ups or an hour of hajime were done, was that during these sessions a rhythmn could take over. Somewhere, dimly, I grasped matery at aikido as the ability to use rhythmn to your advantage: fit your defence around the rhythmn of another's attack, or make your attacker dance to your rhythmn. p98
Posted by nathan at 10:02 PM | Comments (0)