Chapter 50
***
Upon returning from my journey, while the gym wasn't ready yet, I fast-tracked a correspondence degree at the pedagogical institute's sports faculty. This was to officially obtain the right to work as a coach in our country, where without a piece of paper you're a piece of crap, regardless of who you actually are in reality.
Somewhere through external exams, somewhere through course credits, and somewhere with cold hard cash, my study time was rapidly shrinking. It promised me the coveted diploma right around the time the gym's construction would be finished.
With the necessary funds, desire, and a good construction crew, a building goes up quickly. It took me just over six months.
Initially, I wanted to build it in a Japanese style, but I ran into a multitude of climatic, bureaucratic, and technical difficulties. I eventually gave up on the bells and whistles and trusted the experience of people who actually knew what they were doing.
The result was an outwardly ordinary single-story building with a pitched roof made of painted corrugated metal and walls of white silicate brick. It had high ceilings and windows raised over two and a half meters off the floor.
The building wasn't very large. The main hall itself had an area of twenty by fifteen meters. Add in the showers, locker rooms, bathrooms, a few utility and technical rooms, and an office. But I wasn't chasing size. I didn't think I'd have many students, since my name wasn't well-known and I had no intention of running loud ad campaigns. Getting a dozen kids would be a good result—mostly from families who lived close enough to easily walk their children to practice. After all, I didn't start all this for the money, but for my soul.
My very own gym... Even though it wasn't my first, it still stirred a sense of awe in my soul. I wanted to decorate it somehow, furnish it, give it some individuality while simultaneously maintaining a stylistic identity—a connection to the traditions of the arts that would be practiced within its walls.
On one of the secondary walls, above the meter-and-a-half-high soft padding, I hung up photographs.
Photographs... Life captured in frames. History told in pictures. How often do we look back and rewatch videos from our holidays, major events, or graduations? Once or twice in a lifetime. But photographs? The ones printed out and arranged on the pages of an album? Much more often. And with far greater pleasure. Not to mention the ones hanging on walls or sitting in frames on desks, in china cabinets, or arranged on dressers.
So, I hung my entire life since that fateful night on the wall: training in the park (shot by my dad on an old point-and-shoot camera); the army—my "inspired" mug under a haphazardly shaped blue beret, and another in "war paint" under a bandana (a photo from a demonstration). Competitions, competitions, competitions, more demonstrations, more competitions, and my discharge.
Then Japan: the Aikido Aikikai Hombu Dojo, the JKA Honbu Dojo—training sessions, a group photo with the Senseis and students, my belt exam. Thailand: official matches in the ring, a group photo with the Masters, the award ceremony. China: a massive open-air training session, a belt exam, a group photo. Finally, my hometown: laying the foundation of the gym, the completion of construction... That was essentially my whole life. Not much to look at.
Well then, moving on to the main wall—the shomen. Should I set up a special stand and hang decorative katanas on it? Or go through the hassle of ordering real sports swords for tameshigiri from Korea or Japan, which would have to be shipped disassembled to avoid breaking the law? That felt somewhat hypocritical. The weapon placed at the head of a dojo should be a real combat weapon, not a prop—one that you, or your ancestors, actually took into battle. Or one you intend to take into battle in the future.
Maybe I should just stick to a Torii gate with a traditional portrait of the founder? A portrait... Well, I'm actually pretty good at drawing, so why not?
It took me almost two weeks of work, but now it was as if the main wall of my gym wasn't there at all. Instead, it had become the main wall of the very dojo where I first met Morihei. And there was O-Sensei himself in a white dogi and white hakama, sitting in seiza in front of that wall, facing the students. Full length. Everything was life-sized, stretching across the entire wall from floor to ceiling, packed with as many intricate details as I could drag out of the depths of my memory through meditation.
The result was... atmospheric. A little heartbreaking, but joyful.
Later, Master Sotama watched over the room from the eastern wall, sitting on a makiwara post with his arms crossed over his chest. Not far from him, Master Hon stood on a similar post, holding his bamboo stick.
From the western wall (I had aligned the building very strictly with the cardinal directions during construction, even though it meant redoing the design three times to fit the specific topography of the plot), stood all the Shaolin Masters I had managed to study under during my seventy years of monastery life, arranged as if posing for a group photo.
Later, I thought about it and took all my photos down from the southern wall. Instead, I painted myself. At first, I wanted to paint myself as Sabretooth, but once I finished it, I changed my mind and painted over the wall. Sabretooth didn't belong in this place. I painted my current self, sitting in seiza, wearing a white kimono with a white belt and sleeves rolled up to the elbows. And beside myself, later on—much later—I painted in my students. Also looking like a group photo.
For the ceiling, I ordered a suspended canvas printed with a photograph of the sky.
It turned out... maybe a bit too pretentious, but the main thing was that I liked it myself.
As for the photographs, I moved them to my office. Let them hang there; it was a more appropriate spot. The diplomas went into the entryway—for the sake of prestige.
***
Having finished setting up the gym, I plastered flyers on the neighborhood telephone poles. I announced the recruitment of a group for students "ages seven and up" for Karate-do, "fourteen and up" for Kung Fu, and "sixteen and up" for... whatever they wanted (ranging from combat knife throwing, knife fighting, army hand-to-hand combat, and kendo, to Qigong, health gymnastics, acupuncture, and the Tea Ceremony). I wrote it exactly like that. I didn't really care all that much if anyone actually showed up. If anything, I'd just practice alone in my new gym with just as much pleasure, under the watchful eyes of O-Sensei, encouraged by his bright smile.
But no, people actually came. As I expected, they brought in kids from ages seven to twelve. I have to say, they are the most grateful students, soaking you up like a sponge. And they remember it for the rest of their lives. It's fun to work with them.
We gathered a total of eleven kids.
Only one teenage boy showed up for the "fourteen and up" group. But the "sixteen and up" group got a guy in his forties—two meters tall, with shoulders as broad as my old body. On top of that, he was a former Alpha Group commando who had managed to leave his mark in a bunch of "hot spots." Two women of Balzac age also joined—teachers from the neighboring school.
The big guy's name was Ivan. He and I practically beat the absolute shit out of each other—there's really no other way to say it—in the style of army hand-to-hand combat and Sambo. Truth be told, he wasn't particularly burning with a desire to learn, but he needed a sparring partner, and I fit the role perfectly.
He showed me some amusing things that he called the "Kadochnikov System." Why amusing? Not because I didn't take it seriously; it was a highly combative, practice-oriented, practical, effective, and convenient system. It just looked incredibly similar to Jujutsu, Daito-ryu, and Aikijutsu all at once, only with a much heavier emphasis and specialization on modern weapons in both your own hands and the enemy's: knives, entrenching tools, assault rifles, pistols, even machine guns and crowbars, taking into account the potential presence of personal body armor.
The thing is, this system historically had no such roots. It was an original creation by Aleksey Alekseyevich Kadochnikov, based on the knowledge of physics, psychology, and anatomy, with a special emphasis on leverage systems, hinges, and centrifugal forces. But the approaches to its creation and study were completely different, while the result was remarkably similar. That's exactly what made it amusing.
It turned out that he wasn't so much learning from me as I was learning from him. Funny how that works.
With the women, I practiced Wushu Tai Chi Chuan and health gymnastics. And just a tiny bit of Qigong. They loved it.
The only catch was that all three of them were in the same group and trained at the same time, in the same hall. And that was also amusing in its own way. In one corner, two women with spiritually elevated faces executed the twenty-four-form Wushu routine, instructed not to break focus even if a "dragon flew past." Meanwhile, in another corner of the exact same room, well within their direct line of sight, two men in shorts and wrestling shoes beat the living crap out of each other in near full-contact sparring. We dropped each other onto the floor and even the walls with deafening thuds and crashes, perfectly simulating the aforementioned "flying dragon."
I charged my students a purely symbolic fee. The youngest group, however (with the consent of their parents), was put on a very strict, rather interesting diet... one originally developed by Abraham Erskine.
Well, why not? If I'm going to take on students, I give them the absolute maximum I can possibly offer, without holding anything back or hiding behind "forbidden techniques." That's just the kind of person I am. Morihei was the same way; he was never greedy with his knowledge. You just had to be willing to take it... Maybe someday I'll grow to truly understand the spirit and path of Aiki too? Who knows?
***
Four measured, calm, and fruitful years passed since the gym opened. I honed my skills, took correspondence courses at the medical institute, taught the kids, trained with the "sixteen and up" group, and occasionally flew to Thailand to replenish my financial assets. Once, I even traveled to see Aleksey Alekseyevich Kadochnikov in person, since he was thankfully still alive. I trained under his guidance. True, he mostly provides theory, leaving the actual drilling up to the student, but his instructions, explanations, and recommendations lay very fruitfully over an existing foundation, providing clear direction for improvement.
The "sixteen and up" group saw some additions: there were now seven students instead of three. Uncle Vanya, as I eventually started calling the Alpha commando (who in return called me Vasya-Sensei, a title soon adopted by everyone else, including the kids), brought two more of his friends with similar skills and backgrounds. And "our girls," as we affectionately called the teachers, each brought another friend.
Six people now trained in the "fourteen and up" group: four boys and two girls. The roster of the youngest group had also changed slightly. New kids joined, while unfortunately, two of the "old ones" couldn't continue training because their parents—and consequently, they themselves—moved to other cities for work or personal reasons.
Otherwise, the kids developed, grew stronger, and advanced in their power, skill, and belts. About once every six months, I gathered them all together and took them to St. Petersburg for belt grading, having previously arranged it online with some interesting Sensei who had their own approach to the art, along with an official rank in the federation. Along the way, I also advanced my own rank to a 4th dan. The old men talked me into taking the exam, claiming it would "motivate the youth and show them an example so they'd be less afraid."
Meanwhile, a regular observer appeared during my training sessions in the city park. A pretty, red-haired girl with a snub nose.
Near the spot where I usually perform my Tai Chi forms, there was a bench that offered a "perfect view" of me. She claimed that bench as her own. She would arrive slightly before I did, sit down, pull out some book, and "read." Then she would leave slightly after I did.
It wasn't hard to find out who she was. I just followed her one day, opting to take a couple of laps around the neighborhood instead of going straight home after training. Then I asked around... It was a small district, and the city itself didn't even have a million people. In principle, everyone knew everyone through a "couple of handshakes."
It turned out her name was Galina Evgenievna. She had recently been hired as the school psychologist at the very school where most of my little rascals and two of "our girls" came from. She was quite young, having graduated from her institute just a year ago. She didn't have a husband, and as far as her colleagues knew, she didn't have a boyfriend either.
Well then. I didn't mind—let her watch if she wanted to. It was no skin off my back.
***
Another year passed. I was walking back with my little rascals from the suburban forest, where, taking advantage of the summer and the good weather, we had been holding outdoor training sessions for the past week, combining them with swimming in the river afterward. It was a hassle keeping an eye on all of them, of course, especially with a dangerous factor like water involved, but I brought my entire "sixteen and up" group along as assistants. Luckily, the men were retired, and the girls were on vacation.
And so, we were walking back, dropping off those who lived near our route at their homes along the way.
Everyone was in high, fighting spirits. It was summer, the sun was shining... And then I saw it. About fifteen meters ahead, a thirteen-year-old boy was crossing the street at the crosswalk. The green pedestrian light started flashing, the kid hurried, and he dropped his wallet, spilling coins all over the road. He bent down to pick them up before they rolled too far, completely unaware that a Porsche was speeding toward him from behind.
The driver was clearly intending to blast through the intersection without stopping, since his traffic light had already blinked red and switched to yellow. But the boy had stopped abruptly, out of nowhere. Since he had been running to the other side just a second ago, the Porsche driver was almost in the right, except for the fact that his speed was clearly way above the legal limit of sixty kilometers per hour. And now, he didn't have enough time to brake.
I don't know. I'm not a hero. Not a hero at all. But something inside me just snapped.
I launched myself forward from a standstill with all my human and superhuman strength. In mid-air, about a meter and a half off the ground, I planted both feet against a road signpost. Then, pushing off it with everything I had, I flew at the boy, snatched him up, and somersaulted over my shoulder to bleed off the momentum. The Porsche flew past us from behind, tires screeching.
The only problem was that I rolled right under the wheels of a bus that had also picked up speed to make it through the intersection (not as fast as the Porsche, obviously, but forty kilometers an hour multiplied by the mass of a bus is no picnic either).
My brain worked like a computer, calculating possibilities at the speed of electrons in a wire, instantly discarding the impossible and fatal ones.
Without stopping my motion, I opened up and threw—literally launched—the kid out of my hands and into some man standing on the other side of the road waiting for his light. I even managed to notice that the man caught him, though he couldn't keep his footing, but those were minor details. I, meanwhile, leaped upward with my remaining forward momentum. I did it so that the oncoming bus wouldn't hit me in the side, but would instead strike the soles of my feet, which I had bent and pulled tight against my body. The moment it hit, I pushed off the bus itself.
The result wasn't an impact, but a jump, where the speed I generated from my own muscle effort combined with the speed of the bus. I flew far—about thirty-five to forty meters—in a pre-calculated direction: toward the sidewalk. Bleeding off that kind of speed and handling the momentum upon landing without breaking anything was difficult. But that's exactly why I'm a Master, and practically Cap in terms of physical strength—I managed it. I had to do a lot of tumbling, of course. That was unavoidable.
Finally coming to a stop, I carefully got to my feet and forced myself to stand up straight, swaying slightly from dizziness. Then, something struck me on the head, and the world went dark.
***
I was walking through the city park. I don't know why. I just went out for a walk, and my feet brought me here on their own.
I was discharged from the hospital yesterday. They said it was a comically absurd accident: a flower pot fell on my head. From the eighth floor. A cat pushed it off a windowsill.
Granted, they also said that right before that, I pulled off some absolute miracles and saved a kid from getting run over... But I didn't remember anything. Nothing at all.
To be more precise, there was such a strange jumble and mess in my head that I couldn't understand what was what. Random people, faces, places, gunfire, children's faces, mountains, the sea, cherry blossoms...
So I went for a walk and ended up in the park. Now I was just standing there, not knowing what to do.
I saw a bench and wanted to sit down. I walked over and sat. There was a girl sitting next to me. A pretty redhead.
"Aren't you going to train today?" she asked, glancing at my everyday clothes in surprise.
"Train?" I repeated. "Am I supposed to?"
"I don't know," she shrugged. "It's just that you always train here around this time. Wushu, I think. Every single day."
"Really?"
"Yes," she confirmed. "Don't you remember?"
"No," I admitted, my mood darkening. "I don't remember anything. They told me at the hospital that it's re... retrograde amnesia." I stumbled slightly over the combination of words the doctor had used when I confessed my lack of memory.
"Is that so?" the girl asked, surprised. "Do you remember your name?"
"At the hospital, they told me my name is Vasily Kirin," I confessed honestly. "That I'm thirty-four years old. That I own my own martial arts dojo, where I teach kids Karate."
"Thirty-four?" the girl looked at me in astonishment. "I wouldn't have guessed you were a day over twenty-two."
"I was surprised myself when I looked in the mirror. But they insist it's thirty-four. I guess I'm just in perfect health, which is why I've held up so well. They even gave me a passport," I said, showing her the document I pulled from my pocket.
"Can I see it?" she asked.
I handed her the neat little booklet containing my photo, date of birth, military registration stamp, and registered address. There was nothing else of interest in it. She took it, flipped through it carefully, and returned to the photo.
"It's true, only your hairstyle has changed," she chuckled. "You look better with short hair." She smiled and handed the document back to me.
I smiled back.
For some reason, things felt awkward.
"How do I usually 'train'?" I asked, deciding to change the subject.
"I probably wouldn't be able to show you," she hesitated.
"Why don't you try? I'll stand next to you and try to copy you. Maybe it'll jog my memory."
"Alright," she agreed after a moment of doubt.
We stepped onto the lawn, where the grass was slightly trampled, most likely by my own feet.
"You always started like this," she said. She slowly raised her hands in front of her chest, as if letting invisible water run off them, and then just as slowly began to lower them.
I copied her. The movement genuinely felt familiar. Trusting that feeling, I continued moving, letting my body do what it wanted. It guided the motions almost entirely on its own, and more and more movements kept floating up to the surface of my mind.
I moved. I kept moving, recalling new combinations of movements sparked by associations. And whatever I remembered seemed to snap right back into place, settling into the grooves of my scrambled memory, filling the void and reducing the chaos.
"That's beautiful," the girl said in admiration when I got so into it that I transitioned from the twenty-fourth form to the thirty-sixth, then, following the associative chain, to the thirty-second Kung Fu form, before jumping entirely into the "Five Animals" styles. "Usually, you stop at the first two, repeating them over and over. Sometimes you do other forms, but they're always slow too..."
"I just got carried away," I said, scratching the back of my head sheepishly after finishing the latest form. I winced at the pain from the small wound left by the corner of the flower pot on my head.
"It's fine," she smiled. "It just looks so beautiful..."
"What's your name, by the way?" I suddenly remembered to ask.
"Galya," she replied, shooting me a glance before adding, "And you don't need to be so formal. After all, you're almost ten years older than me."
"That's alright," I smiled. "I feel like a kid who's just been let outside for the very first time anyway. Do you want me to teach you? I should be pretty good at it, considering I train kids." The interesting thought had just popped into my head.
"Sure, let's do it," she smiled. "But it's probably really hard..."
"Even a journey of a thousand li begins with a single step," I quoted to her... I think my teacher used to tell me that, adding that it was from Lao Tzu's *Tao Te Ching*. A teacher... one of them. Did I have many teachers?
"What language is that?" she asked, surprised.
"Chinese," I replied, equally surprised, realizing that I could indeed speak fluent Chinese. And not just Chinese, either. "Even a journey of a thousand li begins with a single step," I repeated, translating the phrase into English.
"True," she agreed. "And I think you'll gradually remember everything. After all, you've already taken the first steps, haven't you?"
"True," I said, sheepishly scratching the back of my head once again.
***
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