Chapter 7

Prologue 7

So I trained for two months in Japan. It was pretty intense, but I thoroughly enjoyed the experience.

It wasn’t just the Ninjustu thought. When I wasn’t training, I was given a cultural tutorship in the Japanese history and way of life.

I was now almost as fluent with my Japanese as the natives.

This made the training in the dojo easier, since that was the language it was taught in.

It would have been difficult for the instructors to teach me if it hadn’t been for my ability to understand them. Otherwise I would have needed separate classes from everyone else, just so I could be taught in English instead.

As well as the forms and fighting techniques I was used to, I was taught the finer points of the art.

Lock picking, hiding weapons in plain sight and moving in the shadows without being discovered. As well as many other skills were taught to me, which normally are not taught to students until they are much older.

Learning the cultural side actually took up more of my time than training did. There was so much to learn. I had only a couple of months, while the residents lived it their entire lives.

Although most children now wore a lot of western clothing, jeans, t-shirts and the like the older generations would also wear more traditional clothing.

I was outfitted with a number of kimonos for formal wear when going to meet elders. They would show me more respect for following the old traditions. It was also to be worn at meetings at the dojo.

I had a number of meetings with Master Tanaka. He wanted to know everything about me; he was struck dumb when I told him of my ease at learning something immediately after only seeing it done only once. It might take me a few tries to replicate exactly what I had seen. But that was a lot quicker than the months it took his students to learn something new and be able to perform it as effortlessly and precisely as it took me to do in a few hours.

He didn’t teach lessons himself that often anymore. His most senior instructors would do that, while he watched and commented, complimenting or reprimanding as he saw fit.

But he did do a couple of one on one instructional sessions with me, as a personal favor for the service I had done for his family.

He was now an old man, well to my eyes he was. He wasn’t flexible enough to do a number of the kicking techniques any more, but he was still strong and experienced enough to not need to in order to subdue an opponent if necessary.

At the end of the six weeks I was asked to meet with Mr. Tanaka in his temple. I observed the traditions of the temple as I entered, removing my shoes and giving a prayer to the statue at the head of the room before fully entering the temple.

I moved forward and sat on my heels while I waited to be addressed by Master Tanaka. When he had finished his worshipping or just contemplation, he turned to me.

“Mister Owen’s you have now shown me in person, what I had been able to see only on video up to now. I am very impressed with your dedication and knowledge of the art, so I am going to give you a boon which is very rarely if ever given. In two weeks’ time there is a grading taking place at my dojo, I wish for you to grade for your second dan at that time.”

“Sir I am honored by this great privilege you are granting me.” I bowed low from my position on my heels.

“Mister Owen’s you privilege us by showing us how the art can be mastered by one so young.” Master Tanaka replied.

My last two weeks before the grading, I concentrated on all my training. Both the cultural side and in the dojo even more than I had before then, making sure I didn’t disrespect this honor that was being given to me. I didn’t want to make any gaffs in either the traditions of the grading or in my performance.

The grading was really tough. Because I had an American first Dan, the grading panel wanted me to perform every grade up to second Dan. This was a lot more work than what was normally required, normally you could be asked to perform a level, but not every level like I was going to do.

For an adult, which is normally the age required to move to second Dan, the physical requirement is hard. For a nine year old to do that plus the extra levels that the grading panel were requesting, was going to test me to the maximum.

Like I had done previously in my first Dan grading, I paced myself the best I could. That wasn’t to say I wasn’t putting my full effort into every movement, but I did try and take as much time as was allowed between levels, in order to get my breath back.

Even so by the time I had completed all the junior levels I was pretty worn out. My Shinobi was soaked though in my sweat.

I was given a ten minute rest period before my theory test. This allowed me to rehydrate and re-focus my thoughts. The theory test was intense but not difficult, so I was confident I had passed easily.

The forms for the actual test went well. The rest period and the time taken in the theory testing had allowed me to recuperate somewhat, so I was able to perform to the best of my ability.

The final segment was the free form fighting. Obviously they didn’t want me to fight an adult, though I would have been happy to attempt to. No instead they brought in three junior first Dan students. I had to fight all three in sequence, and then if they were happy with that, I would have to fight all three at once.

The individual sparring was fine, I took some knocks, but had moved to reduce the impacts when necessary. The three on one was much more difficult. The three students made sure to move around a lot, making it hard for me to concentrate on just one at a time. But I didn’t get beaten to the floor, so I was pleased with how I performed.

I then sat through the rest of the adult students who had to fight to progress to the next level.

When that was completed we formed up in grade to complete the grading.

Normally students are not informed if they had passed or failed at the grading, that was unless they had performed exceptionally.

We all sat again whilst the panel deliberated the students who had excelled and deserved mention.

Those who had excelled were asked to stand, so we could all applaud those mentioned.

I expected that to be it, but Master Tanaka stood forward from the panel to address the group of students and the spectators watching to address us.

“Congratulations everyone on your efforts in this grading class. It’s very rare but sometimes a student will perform far beyond the standard of any other student at a grading, today I am pleased to announce that we have one such student. This young man has come to us from far away, having learnt our artform from those we would normally deem inferior teachers, he has however shown us the art in its purest form. It has been a pleasure for me, and I think the rest of the panel to witness this grading today, just knowing that there are those who will preserve our teachings in the youth of the future. I wish you all to applaud as I present the grading award today to Mister Jack Owens of America. A Nine Year Old who has passed the rank of second degree black belt, a rank normally only held by adults.”