In May, 1995 all members of the Houston Budokai traveled to Japan to train under Furuoka Masao, National Living Treasure and founder/headmaster of Hiken Musô Ryû Iai-giri Dô (this is one of the few styles that cuts makiwara as part of daily iai training).

It was my first trip to Japan and I best remember the daily events as a series of vignettes. These are my “Snapshots of Tôkyô.”

• This gray morning our train is stopped at a station and I am looking out the trackside window. Another train moves on an adjacent track, the mist swirls, and a woman’s face snaps into sharp focus. A beautiful, white oval, floating above a splash of red fabric.

• The proprietress of the noodle shop is 94 years old and she says, “I have never been to see a doctor.” She can’t hear but she takes our orders anyway. Her 70-something daughter follows her around and makes sure we all get something to eat. The noodles are hot and tasty. The Kirin is frosty.

• The jûdan, National Living Treasure, is in seiza, patiently showing me the correct way to fold my hakama...for the second day in a row. He is unhurried, attentive, and extremely courteous. My embarrassment is complete.

• A Cosmic Truth: No matter how much a Japanese interpretation of western food looks like the real thing, it usually isn’t. Example: Pizza with squid, soy sauce, and rice.

• The graves of the 47 Ronin are wreathed in the smoke of the incense that we and others have purchased at the small entrance pavilion. The wood grave markers are ancient. Through the leaves of the overhanging trees—and over the tops of the weathered, handcrafted timber structures—mirrored, high-rise office buildings surround us on the adjacent streets and reflect the afternoon sun.

• The old woman at the neighborhood bus stop is not dressed for janitorial duties. She picks up scraps of paper and other refuse, mutters to herself, and shakes her head. I don’t know what she is muttering, but I do know things were different in her day.

• It’s a weekend night at Gotanda subway station. A burly man in a shiny brown suit is verbally harassing and physically abusing a slight, bespectacled, salaryman-looking fellow. The salaryman’s associate keeps trying to intervene by inserting himself between his friend and Brown Suit-san, who carefully avoids touching the associate while still managing to shove and manhandle his victim. Salaryman shows no sign of aggression or of defending himself rather, he is painfully submissive to the abuse. A crowd gathers and the police soon arrive to escort Brown Suit-san to the nearby police kiosk.

• The man standing in front of me got on the train several stations back. With each stop the train has become more crowded and, as the crowd grows, this man has continued to withdraw into himself. It’s amazing. He’s almost disappeared.

• Even the taxi drivers get lost here. Their driver unceremoniously dumped Mr. Fontenot and Ms. LaSoya when he couldn’t find the Shindô Musô Ryû dôjô after being given the street address.

Another time, we’re trying to find a store that sells shakuhachi and related supplies. This driver is in his own neighborhood, and still has to stop at least three times to ask directions from people on the street.

On our last day it takes a 20-minute conversation between three taxi drivers to make sure they all agree about how to get us and our gaijin mountain of luggage from our ryokan (hotel) to the correct station for the express train to Narita Airport.

• Getting around in Tôkyô can be daunting. Few of the graphics or signage in the train or subway stations are romanized so, if you can’t read Japanese, even the simple task of determining the cost of a ticket is extremely difficult. Mr. Scott realizes that most school children study English and might welcome the opportunity to practice with a real live English-speaking person. Happily, this seems to work most of the time but, unfortunately, not all of the time.

• Dr. Rahlfs and I board a subway train at Asakusa Station during rush hour, anticipating our arrival at Gotanda in about 30 minutes. Time passes and we are in the middle of a suitably esoteric conversation when we notice we’ve been on the train for about 35 minutes. We begin watching the station signs to determine our location. We see nothing that remotely resembles where we think we are going.

We get off the train and begin to look for school children. I finally find one who can’t understand a word I am saying. She seems both fascinated and slightly frightened by my beard and my size. I mutter “Sumimasen,” and sit down on a bench with Dr. Rahlfs. After several minutes we brilliantly deduce we are about halfway to the port city of Yokohama.

No one had explained about the express trains during rush hour.

• Mr. Busan and Mr. Fontenot have made arrangements for us to observe an evening class at the Machida City dôjô of the Katori Shintô Ryû.

On the specified night, Mr. Fontenot and Ms. LaSoya have an early jodô class, Dr. and Ms. Rahlfs are in Kyôto and Mr. Scott and Mr. Haskins are attending the dedication of a neighborhood park. I travel to Machida City to be there by the appointed time and wait for Mr. Fontenot and Ms. LaSoya to arrive.

Armed with a map of the train system, Sugawara Sensei’s phone number and an incredibly incomplete book of handy phrases I set forth into the maw of rush hour traffic with instructions to, “Wait for us on the train station platform until 6:30. If we haven’t arrived by then, call Sugawara Sensei and tell him you’ve arrived.”

As an aside, Mr. Fontenot and I both reason that Machida Station is far enough west of Tôkyô that it will probably be a rural station with a platform on either side of the track and a small ticket office.

I exit the train into something substantially larger than London’s Victoria Station and despair of ever seeing a familiar face or finding a western-style toilet again. At 6' 4" I have an unobstructed view from one end of Machida Station to the other. It looks to be a half mile or so long and I am awash in a sea of black hair lapping at my waist. I’ve arrived in the middle of a combination of Disney World, train station, intergalactic shopping mall, and mega-hotel.

It’s only 5:30, so I meander for an hour. At 6:30 I return to the train station and still see no familiar faces. Remembering a phone I had spotted earlier I feed it copious coins of the land, dial the number, and cross my fingers.

A Japanese-speaking person answers the phone. What a surprise. I ask for Sugawara Sensei and, after a slight delay, he answers the phone. Happily he speaks excellent English (albeit with an accent I can’t quite identify). I explain who I am and he tells me to wait for him in front of the flower shop and hangs up. What flower shop? In a place this size there must be a hundred flower shops. I meander again. Finally I see a FLOWER SHOP with dozens of people waiting in front.

Sugawara Sensei arrives in about 10 minutes. I’m easy to spot. He looks much like the other 15 or 20 thousand people milling about except that his hands are more callused than normal and his wrists and forearms are thick and heavily muscled. We bow, shake hands, walk to his car and drive to the dôjô, which is connected to his office and home.

He ushers me into his office and asks what I am going to teach his students this evening. I remember having this same feeling about 6 months after I began studying kenjutsu with Mr. Fontenot. Acting as uchitachi, he launched himself just as the words “kote-giri” cleared my lips. I was totally unprepared for the rapidity with which he closed the maai. My mind screamed “Get out of the way!” while my body leisurely took inventory of which parts to relocate and in which order.

While all of this flashes through my brainpan Sugawara Sensei is expectantly waiting for me to reveal the evening’s lesson plan. I look him coolly in the eye and explain that I am quite certain that there is little I can teach his students and that if permissible I am happy just observing. I see a glint of what I perceive to be a smile in his eyes as he assents by nodding his head. We talk about Texas and, as I look around his office, I notice that he has many of the same books I have in my library. I comment on this and he smiles again as he thanks me. He is the publisher. He shows me a new book he is editing that traces the impact of Chinese weapons and strategies on the evolution and development of Japanese weapons and strategies. (The first two books of the trilogy have been published and are currently available).

Mr. Fontenot and Ms. LaSoya arrive. We visit for a few more minutes then go to the dôjô and are invited to take seats on the floor. Sugawara Sensei introduces his students and explains they are seniors who have been training with him for several years.

Class begins and over the next 90 minutes there is constant rotation between the students for kata and kumitachi. There is very little rest time between sets and I appreciate their level of aerobic conditioning. They are also blindingly fast with excellent control. All seem to be in their mid-20’s to mid-30’s.

The kumitachi sets appearto afford the opportunity for ai-uchi at any time or for either side to cut the opponent at any time. Noteably, everything is being done at about triple the speed we normally use. Sugawara Sensei later explains that he has speeded everything up to more closely approximate what would happen in a real sword fight.

• Class is over. Sugawara Sensei changes back into his street clothes and suggests we head for the train station. I finally place his accent. It’s French. A Japanese martial artist speaking english with a French accent strikes my funnybone in exactly the right place and seems the perfect end to our visit.

• We are at the Asakusa Shrine. A small pavilion in front of the shrine appears, at a distance, to be on fire. It is smoke from the incense burning within. People are “bathing” in the smoke. I join them, for the cultural experience as well as for the practical benefit of its use as a surrogate deodorant. It has been a long, hot day.

• We’re all sword nuts. If we weren’t, we wouldn’t be studying kenjutsu. We have been using the “house” blades since we arrived. They are razors, beautifully polished, and we use them when we cut makiwara. The rest of the time we train with the mugeitô (blunt iaitô) we have brought with us. Occasionally, a senior student will loan one of us a personal blade. These acts of generosity continue to instill in me equal parts of gratitude and anxiety.

• During the final cut on test day I am cutting down through several bundles of wet rice straw and, at the last bundle, I feel the blade begin to move sideways. I am told later that I am using too much “right hand.” The result is a bent blade. I feel terrible as I show Handa Sensei what I have done to his sword. He looks at the new realignment of his katana, takes it from me, places it on the floor, pushes down on the blade in several places and bends it into shape, gives it back to me, smiles, and walks away. I begin to wonder whether my anxiety has been justified. I decide; probably.

• An 84-year-old hachidan has just performed Seiza Hish O Giri. This simple maneuver consists of leapfrogging forward from seiza, executing the battô, slamming both knees to the floor, and cutting through 3 or 4 bundles of wet straw, all in one movement. I’m still trying to decide if I can get out of seiza half as quickly as he did.

• Another Cosmic Truth: There is nothing like the sound and feel of a properly executed cut. People in our group compare it to many things. I can’t compare it to anything because, as I say, there is simply nothing quite like the sound and feel of a properly executed cut.

• The party after the rank test is getting raucous. We’ve been sweating since about 9:30 this morning. It’s now after 5:00 and we’ve been drinking large quantities of beer and sake to try to re-hydrate our bodies. I know this is scientifically ridiculous but the beer is cold and wet and seems to satisfy my body’s need for fluids.

• The man next to me has heavily callused knuckles on both hands and I ask if he is “Karateka?” He answers, “Hai!” Through the interpretive assistance of a young woman in the group I learn that he is a Gôjû-ryû instructor. He also lived many years in Madrid and is a Flamenco dance teacher here in Tôkyô. He asks, “Hable español?“ and I answer, “Si, un poquito.” For the rest of the evening, and during our final class the next morning, he and I communicate via a combination of English, Japanese, Spanish, and sign language. Much of the time we are laughing at our attempts to convey the simplest information with this impromptu pastiche, but it works well enough.

• It is our last morning. We are waiting for Yamazaki Sensei and Goto Sensei to collect us at Ichi Kawa Dai train station and take us to the dôjô. This has been our routine for almost two weeks. This morning Mr. Fontenot asks if we would like to see the neighborhood Shintô shrine. A couple of us say yes, and he leads us around the corner and up several flights of steps. At the top of the hill, shrouded in the early morning mist, a young woman dressed in her corporate costume claps her hands and bows her head. I’m disappointed to learn that, although the twenty or so sake casks stacked in front of the shrine are very colorful, they are empty.

• Vending machines are on every corner and the wacky use of English phrases is nowhere more evident. “Blendy Coffee; for you (sic) luxurious relax.”