"Donahue, John - Sensei" - читать интересную книгу автора (Donahue John)

ruefully and we bowed just as Yamashita called the class to order in
preparation to bow out.

He glided to the head of the room and waited for us to line up. He was
studiously avoiding looking at the gang of four in the back of the
room, but you could tell from his body language that he was annoyed.

You don't come dressed to play unless you've been invited. Only the
sensei can give permission for a student to train in the dojo. If you
show up uninvited and suited up, it means that either you don't know
anything about Japanese martial arts teachers and are in real risk of
being beaten up, or you are purposefully being insulting and wish to
challenge the sensei to a match. In which case, it is anyone's guess
who gets beaten up.

I've seen this happen before. Not often, but you don't tend to forget
it once you've seen it. Especially if you're a student of the teacher
being challenged. You get used as a type of canon fodder for your
teacher. He sends you or one of your pals out to fight the challenger,
he watches the action, analyzes the skill level of the opponent. If
the first student gets beaten, a more advanced pupil goes next, and so
on up the line. By the time the challenger reaches the sensei (if he
lasts that long), he has either revealed his strengths and weaknesses
and so can be defeated, or become so tired that he's no longer much of
a challenge to the sensei. It's not fair, of course. It's heiho.

We all knelt, a solid dark blue line stretching down the length of the
dojo. Yamashita sat quietly for a minute, then turned to one of his
senior pupils, a mild-mannered Japanese-American guy named Ken, who sat
next to me at the end of the line reserved for higher ranks. He looked
like he was dreading what was about to happen. Yamashita said to him,
"I see we have visitors. Perhaps you would invite the colorful one to
speak with me."

Ken bowed, got up, and scurried to the back of the room to deliver the
invitation. The guy in the red top nodded, exchanged a series of
ritual handshakes with his companions, and stepped onto the training
floor. He struck a ready pose and let out a loud "UUUS." A few of us
rolled our eyes. Some of the karate schools out there think that kind
of thing makes you seem like a real hard charger.

Yamashita nodded slightly and Red Top moved forward.

"I regret that I was unable to welcome you properly to my dojo. I am
equally distressed to say that I do not know who you are or what you
want, since we have not been properly introduced." The words came out
quickly but were carefully pronounced. Sensei doesn't really have much
of an accent, but when he is annoyed his words are very precisely
formed. I don't know if Red Top was picking it up or not, but there
wasn't one of us who doubted that Yamashita Sensei was really ticked