Chapter 220: Julia Thinks About My Image; I Think About My Proximity Range

Monday, May 16, 2005 (Continued)

I drove home puzzling about why Sensei's range limit worked so unlike mine.

I had absolutely no doubt that mine was a three-foot radius sphere centered on my belly; that'd been proved countless times. For example, when the bell rang at the end of a class and everyone tried to get out the door at the same time, I'd be in a throng of jostling people. Between their leg, arm and head movements, there was enough ki flowing around me to 'paint' what was very clearly a belly-centered sphere in my proximity sense.

I also had no doubt about Sensei's limit's shape. The experimental evidence was clear, and I didn't for a moment believe he was faking me out in any way. For that to be the case he'd have to be deliberately lying, which was ridiculous, and his belly centered range would have to be larger than mine as the experiment in which his arm was held out to the side at shoulder height showed him generating ki over four feet from his center. I knew for a fact that his ki was significantly weaker than mine, so a longer range seemed unlikely, especially because I was the one with all the special abilities.

Whatever the rule is that governs how far away from our bodies that we can create ki, it must surely operate the same in both our cases. I knew older people's bodies sagged more than younger people's because of the loss of muscle tone and gravity's stretching action over the decades, etc. Those actions and their effect make logical sense. But Sensei's limit outlining his body rather than being a sphere had no possible logical cause that I could imagine, whether age-related or for any other reason. I thought about it while driving back to Julia's, but I gained no insights and only frustration.

At Julia's I socialized with her family and Carol in the living room. Chatting about various things for a while, until Julia went upstairs and returned with information on various car models for - she said - "us to consider."

Julia was well prepared - no surprise there - with a few pages printed out for each model, including a color picture, the manufacturer's sales claims and list of major features, independent safety reports, and second-hand sales prices.

Andrew and Robert knew quite a lot about cars, and their comments eliminated about a third of the models from the list. I looked at the prices and wanted to eliminate the remaining two-thirds. My failure to eliminate any at all taught me that Andrew and Robert had more say about my new car than I did, with Julia having by far the most say.

There was no point whatsoever in me protesting, "You CAN'T be serious about spending this much money!" because it was abundantly clear that Julia was both serious and determined. I protested anyway, and as predicted, there had been no point whatsoever.

During the car-by-car discussion, my mobile rang. It was Sensei, who excitedly told me, "I enlisted my wife's cooperation when I got home. I am very happy to report that your new technique worked wonderfully on her. This is a profoundly important discovery, Mark, the most important advance in Aikido in many years. We need to write up a very detailed article describing everything you told me in class and as much extra material as you can. I can add sections on its consequences on the techniques and how to teach..."

"Whoa there, Sensei! You're charging ahead too fast. I could only deflect my classmates a couple of inches at the most, but you're talking as if you could spin your wife in circles?"

"Haha. No, nothing like that. About an inch was all I could achieve and that was under quite artificial circumstances. The magnitude of the effect is small, but the implications are nonetheless very profound. It adds an entirely new fundamental technique on top of Aikido's existing practices, it validates and expands on claims about Aikido that many aikidoka have trouble accepting, and it will improve many of our existing techniques and lead to the creation of new ones. It will create a furor among aikidoka all over the world.

^-- "One reason you might be underestimating its significance is because I have been teaching you the forms statically. At the higher grades the training is much more free-flowing and with less physical contact, so your new technique will be much more useful. You will see that on Wednesday. I have been reviewing all the techniques I teach, and nearly all of them can be improved by incorporating your idea. It is marvelously flexible too, so I am sure there will be some very interesting new techniques developed from it. I honestly cannot think of any other development in Aikido which has been as important as I think this is."

"I'll take your word for it. I don't mind writing up my thoughts on the technique for anonymous publication, but I'd like some time first, to see if I can figure out why your and my limits were so differently structured. Ideally, the article should describe the constraints correctly, and I'd like to solve that problem first in case the solution gives new insights into the process."

"That makes sense. I intended to talk only briefly tonight. We can talk about it more on Wednesday."

"Provided no one can overhear us, that's fine. I'll call you if something comes up before then. Give my apologies to your wife for turning her into a helpless guinea pig, and goodnight."

"Thank you very much for your idea, Mark. Goodnight."

When I hung up, there were several curious looks around the room. From my lap (as from there she could better supervise my reviewing her car information) Julia asked, "That sounded interesting?"

"I taught Sensei a new technique this evening. I didn't think it was a big deal, but he's quite excited about it. It looks like we'll be writing up an article describing it for publication in several Aikido journals in order to spread the word. Anonymously though, because I'd prefer to keep a low profile."

Prof said, "I thought your sensei was meant to teach you?"

"He teaches me a great deal. This was the first time I've taught him something useful. It was just an unusual, little idea that occurred to me a few days ago. To tell the truth, I'm somewhat surprised that Sensei could do it." [[He could because it involved the projection of Intention Ki, which was something Sensei was very experienced with. I was correct in my impression that Sensei couldn't create NP-fingertips or blobs, as they were new forms of energy beyond his single mind's capabilities.]] "One reason I'm glad I taught it to him is that his way of doing it has a puzzling difference to the way I do it. I might learn something interesting if I can figure out why we're different."

Robert asked, "What was it you taught him?"

"It's too difficult to explain because you don't have any of the background, but I can easily demonstrate it to you if you want?"

Robert suspiciously asked, "You're not going to break my arm like you did the kids at your school, are you?"

"Only if you try to cut off my crown jewels with a pair of scissors. To show you what I showed Sensei, I don't even touch you, so it's totally safe."

"Go on, Robert," urged Julia, without volunteering herself.

Julia got up to let me up. I positioned Robert at the right distance in front of me and I extended one arm toward him, holding my hand as an offer to shake hands. "I'm not going to move a single muscle Robert, so you don't have anything to worry about. I'm going to be a statue. In your own time, casually reach out and shake my hand, the same as you would for anyone else. Don't think this is any sort of combat, because I'm not going to hurt you even a tiny amount. Just think 'handshake'." I gave him those instructions because I thought the usual Aikido instruction of "Grab my wrist" might have caused him to stare at my wrist while he was doing it, which would make deflecting his hand more difficult as he'd be more focused and would automatically correct any deflection. I also tried to maintain eye contact with him, as a way of encouraging him to keep looking at my eyes rather than my hand.

^-- He paused, so I prompted, "How do you do, Robert? Nice to meet you."

That worked nicely. He relaxed, then reached out to shake my hand. His hand passed behind the back of my hand, so he closed his fingers on nothing. He looked down, and was surprised to see his hand a couple of inches away from mine.

"That's what I taught Sensei."

I put my hand down and walked back to my seat because I didn't want to get into a repetitious demonstration or a detailed explanation. "Deflecting someone's intended movement" sounded too much like magic.

Robert said, "I don't understand. What just happened?"

"Your hand missed its target. That would be quite a useful thing to be able to do to your opponent in a fight - so all his punches missed, for example - but unfortunately it only worked on you because you were relaxed and moving slowly. In a combat situation it'd only make you veer off target by half an inch or so, which wouldn't make any practical difference. That's why I said I didn't think it was a big deal, but Sensei likes it because he likes the reasons behind why it works." Not strictly true, but it'd do.

"That's what I don't understand. How did you make my hand miss yours?"

"I used a modification to an advanced Aikido technique. Last week Sensei showed me how to pull an attacker's hand farther forward than he intended. I invented a way of moving an attacker's hand sideways rather than forward. I know I'm not explaining how, but you're like a blind man asking me to explain an advanced color technique; you don't have the necessary understanding or vocabulary. If you joined Sensei's Aikido class you'd be able to do it too, after training for ten or twenty years."

"I'm not THAT curious! How long have you been doing Aikido?"

"Less than two months, but I learn some things very fast. You spent ten or twenty years learning 8-ball, but it only took me half an hour to get up to your level."

"It only took you QUARTER of an hour to get BETTER than our level, but I take your point. I still think how I missed your hand was bizarre. That you could deliberately make that happen was like magic."

"That's the trouble with trying to explain it: it seems like magic to someone who hasn't done Aikido for a few years. Sensei wants me to write an article about it for publishing in Aikido journals around the world. He's sure my idea will catch on, so in a few months there'll probably be millions of Aikido students all over the world being taught what I just did to you, which obviously means it's not magic. I want to keep my involvement in inventing it secret because I don't need all the time-wasting crap that goes with being famous for something. The last thing I need is hundreds or thousands of Aikido students running all around me wanting to ask endlessly stupid questions, the way excitable people do when they get in a crowd. And I CERTAINLY don't want the general public to know about it, because they'll think it's magic. The consequences of that horrify me!"

"So we don't talk about it?" asked Robert.

"Not a word please. As far as you know, Aikido is a way of folding paper into funny looking swans." Everyone got my joke and point.

Julia said, "Can we go back to the more important question of what car will help create the best new image for Mark?" Which is, as everyone knows, the way cars should be chosen.

Certainly price didn't seem to be one of Julia's concerns. Fortunately her parents stopped Julia from being 'too' insane. Some of her cars were over $100,000, which - in my humble opinion - left mere insanity in its dust.

I reinforced her parents' cautioning, by exclaiming, "Do you know how many dresses I could buy for that sort of money!"

It must have worked, because all the cars over $100,000 were discarded. That didn't cheer me up much, as it was impossible to cheer me up when 'we' were still seriously considering cars worth over $90,000. Knowing Julia, if the limit is $100,000, she'll spend $99,999 + on-road costs.

We ended up with a list of about twenty cars to investigate further. The CHEAPEST was $40,000! I never thought I'd see the day when I WANTED to spend $40,000 on a car.

We chatted a bit more, about considerably less expensive topics, then headed upstairs.

In the bedroom, I told Julia, "We better have lots of sex while we can, because pretty soon I won't have enough money left to buy the gas to drive here from home."

"It's not that bad. A brand new car will last you several years, by which time I'm sure you'll either be earning big money or have had one or two more quick-money schemes like Binion's. You've had only half a dozen Aikido lessons and you've already taught your instructor something he's excited about. You're an amazingly capable and intelligent guy, so I don't have any fears about that. But can I still take you up on your suggestion that we have lots of sex?"

Julia's, "No worries, you'll earn money later" attitude was very different from the frugal way I'd been brought up, but I was distracted from arguing about it because Julia had assumed the answer to her last question was "Yes." (To be fair, that's my usual answer to Julia, especially on that topic). Carol joined Julia in making the same assumption too, so what was a guy to do?

I did it six times, because I think Julia was excited by the prospect of spending lots of money on a high quality fashion statement.