@ Zenpai

It’s the final round of the yearly state championship for wrestling in California. Only the best of the best elite high school athletes can crack the top spot. Somehow, someway, Meki claimed his spot. Meki was naturally gifted, had unwavering discipline, and elite skill. In practice, he would dominate completely; the gap between him and the other competitors was clear as day. Yet, whenever it came to big stages and big competitions, Meki would fade away, becoming a shell of who he was in practice. It bewildered everyone. In practice, he was feared, impossible to stop. In competition, he was timid, too slow, and made one horrible decision after another. He’d made it to the state championship four straight years; the previous three years, he lost in the first round. It would come as a surprise to all. Meki topped the online wrestling leaderboard each year. His performance in other matches during the school year earned it. Meki would cast this spell on his coaches and colleagues each year, outperforming and winning his matches as the season went along. They would believe each time this year is different, he’s learned from his mistakes. Maybe he wasn’t used to that atmosphere. Without fail, when the bright lights came on, they would be in shock. The coaches saw nothing wrong with his style and the way he wrestled; they couldn’t crack the code; their solution was to do more. Work harder, keep practicing, keep sharpening the skills; next year we’ll get the win. It was most frustrating to Meki himself. He enjoyed the highs that came from people praising how good he was. He thrived on the praise; he sought admiration from his opponents, colleagues, coaches, and women. He would walk out of practices with his chin up in the air when he had a great day. He would feel like he was the best in the world; no one could match him; he was above anyone he faced. Of course, when the lows came and those previous championship events handed him defeat, Meki would lose his mind. Falling into a deep depression and losing all confidence in himself. He would lock himself in his room and become so ill that he would throw up. His anger would boil, and he’d throw things and break them at random, crying himself to sleep at night. Wondering what was wrong with him. That cocky confidence he’d carry when he’d succeed vanished into thin air. All the doubt started to creep in; he felt like quitting, giving up. He’d see it as an insurmountable wall he couldn’t climb. This would last for around three weeks after the competitions; then Meki would come to the same conclusion as his coaches because that’s all he knew. Work harder, work longer; next year will be different. Meki grew up in a very demanding household. Both his father and mother were high achievers in everything that they did, especially their careers. His dad was a high-powered attorney, his mom a top executive marketer. To their household, success was the only metric, and if you didn’t meet that, you would get harsh looks of criticism and doubts of silence. Naturally, Meki wanted to succeed at all costs; he had to look good in the eyes of his parents, authority, and in the eyes of people in general. His parents would boast about their success in conversation; they would belittle all those who weren’t on their ‘level’. Failure to him wasn’t an option. He hated the feeling more than anything in the world. It was this hate of failure that fueled him and gave him an obsessive drive to win. His work ethic was the way it was not because of passion, but for fear of avoiding embarrassment. He loved wrestling. But the fun and joy it gave him as a child faded. He replaced them with the effort to uphold his image and succeed. That he did; he succeeded and he did it well, ranking number one in the country is no small feat, but when you lose a championship in the first round, none of it means a damn thing. Meki stands facing his opponent; it’s his fourth year in this position. All that is on the forefront of his mind is the previous three years of failure. He hears the doubt of his parents, opponents, and coaches. They haven’t said a thing in reality, but to his mind, they have been berating him endlessly for the past week. The match starts, and Meki is overthinking. His opponent crouches low to size him up, then fakes a shot. Meki bites. Next thing he knows, his opponent is on his back. He takes him by the back and slams Meki to the ground and pins him all in under one minute. Once again the same old story. Meki goes blank and stares at the ceiling; everything fades away and there’s an eerie silence. He can’t believe it: four straight years of failure. He concludes at that moment he’s done. The match ends, and Meki doesn’t say a word to anyone; he goes home, sits in his room, and cries. He takes all his previous trophies and throws them in the trash. His dream was to be an Olympian, and he realized it was over. That night, something died in Meki; a part of his soul became dormant as he realized he would live an ordinary life. In the years that preceded, Meki would go to college and complete a degree in economics. He wasn’t fond of economics, but he’d always been good with numbers, and it made him feel important again being good at something. He would get a job soon after in Palo Alto and do very well for himself. His parents were filled with pride, and he enjoyed their praise. He rose to the top of his field in much the same way he did in wrestling, with the same motives to avoid failure at all costs. His discipline and work ethic were still there: work harder, work longer, and you’ll succeed. The failures from wrestling seemed to have disappeared for the years he went to college and worked as an economist. Meki was now twenty-eight years old. He lived as a bachelor, dated many women, yet didn’t want to settle down at that moment. He would spend his weekends surfing and going to lunch with various friends he’d met in college. He lived a good life, a successful one. One Sunday afternoon, Meki went to the local shopping plaza nearby for lunch. He went to a deli spot and got his usual footlong wheat bread, turkey, Swiss cheese, avocado sandwich with house dressing. He rarely ate at the deli, but today he decided to do so. He grabbed a seat outside and ate his sandwich as he stared off and people-watched in the plaza. At the far end, he noticed a new business had opened up; there was no sign to indicate what it was, but it had a large ‘Grand Opening’ banner hanging from where the sign should be. He saw a group of high school kids, athletes filing into the building. After he finished his sandwich, he walked over and stood outside to window-watch. It was a wrestling gym. His eyes lit up as did something deep in his core. As he stared at the athletes practicing their moves, he began to reminisce about the art he used to love. A violent urge came upon him to wrestle again; he had to do it. He waited until the class was over and he walked into the gym. The instructor was cleaning the mats. He vacuumed the floors, then mopped. The man came over to him when he finished; he was a short man, five foot three. Meki couldn’t tell his age, but he was past forty. He was in great shape. His face was strong and square, but showed some wear. His ears were swollen from cauliflower ear. He shook Meki’s hand with a deep smile. Meki wasn’t sure a man that looked like this could smile. But when he did, his stone face cracked and revealed a bright light. “I’m Onami, nice to meet you,” he said. Meki concluded, from the speed and sound of his intro, that English wasn’t his first language. ‘Nice to meet you. Is there any chance there’s an adult class?’ Meki said. “Adults, yes, we have five p.m. Monday-Sunday,” a smile still brimming from his face. “You have a strong build; you look like a wrestler,” Oname said. “Yes, I used to wrestle in high school; it’s been ten years since I’ve done any wrestling at all. I’d like to think I was a skilled wrestler, but each time I went to compete on a big stage, I crumbled. I overthought and failed time and again,” Meki said. “Ah, you have a disease of the mind. Come tonight,” Onami told him. Meki was confused. He wasn’t sure he understood “disease of the mind.” For all he knew, he was functioning perfectly well. Meki arrived that Sunday evening to the adult class. It was a light showing; only four students, including Meki were present. Each were intermediate level grapplers. Oname warmed up the students with laps, jumping jacks, and burpees. Oname followed this up with thirty minutes of technical instruction. He taught them the basic double leg takedown. One of Meki’s favorite moves. Although Meki has done thousands of double leg takedowns in his lifetime, the way Oname delivered the instruction made Meki feel like he’d never seen a double leg takedown before. Something so basic became severely complex. It fueled Meki further; he was so immersed in the experience that, for a moment, he completely vanished. All he saw was Oname demonstrating the move on one of the students; it happened in slow motion. It looked like it was taking place in a different universe, one Meki had no prior knowledge of. Meki observed every detail with laser-like focus. Only pure curiosity remained. After the instruction, there were twenty minutes for the students to spar. Meki still deep in his experience of flow, became unconscious. It felt as if he were watching himself from above. He sparred with spontaneity and lightning-fast reflexes. He was constantly ten steps ahead of his opponents. Oname watched with amazement; he’d never seen a talent so pure. The sound of the bell going off, signaling the end of class, awakened Meki from his deep focus. He returned to his normal state dizzy, unable to breathe, unable to believe what had happened. He’d had success in wrestling as a youth but none to match the experience he felt. For the first time, he wasn’t concerned with winning or losing. He wasn’t concerned with what anyone thought about his skills, how he was doing in the match, no thought of failure; all that was there was a natural open fluidity that flowed like an endless river. There were no mistakes, no judgments, no opponents. Just a feel, intuitive, artistic. Something missing from Meki’s life, a feel for it, a place you can’t get to thinking. He understood for the first time why they called it martial arts. It was a true art form expressed from a place beyond ego. As the class ended and the students trickled out, Meki sat at the end of the wrestling mats and closed his eyes. He fell into a deep meditative state; for how long he was sitting, he didn’t know. He began to see images of a vast ocean, himself in the middle of it. The depth of him and the ocean was endless, calm, at peace, undisturbed by the world, and most importantly, at home. The ocean began to rumble first slightly, then growing with each breath. The waves started to crash and crash. They became enormous, tsunami-like, and began to wipe out everything in their path. Violent eruptions crashed up and down, erasing everything in their path. A power unexplainable, a force uncontrollable took Meki over and he began to feel every emotion from deep sadness to great force and happiness, all of it taken in by the waves and crushed completely. He became the waves. They slowly wiped away his fears, insecurities, and vulnerabilities. Meki began to feel his breath cold as ice, lighting up his belly and spine as his body breathed deeply on its own. A silence came over him as the waves settled and all that was left was darkness. There were never any opponents; it was always Meki himself who was in his own way. He never gave himself up to the power within him. He was afraid of it; he trusted everyone else’s opinions as a way to shield him from himself. He failed to realize his opponents were not there to attack him but to bring out that very power in him. Overcome with gratitude, he saw his opponents as vital to his growth. He realized he held the same responsibility to his opponents. When Meki opened his eyes, he saw outside the gym window the sun rising, creeping its way out of the mountains. Meki had meditated through the entire night after the class ended. Onami was sitting in the same meditation posture on the opposite side across the mat from Meki. Meki noticed a pool of sweat below his feet as he gazed at Onami. That stone face cracked a smile and brimmed with light. Onami bowed deeply to Meki. “I’ve never once felt free of myself until last night. The way you taught yesterday carried me to another shore,” Meki said. Onami replied, “You are that great ocean you experienced, you’re as powerful as those waves. No one can defeat you now; you will sweep everything in your path.” Meki became a regular at Onami’s wrestling school; it just so happened that the Olympics were taking place that year. Like a twist of fate, Meki would have another shot at the biggest stage. Onami would gift Meki the nickname ‘Great Waves’; he would go on to win a gold medal and remain undefeated in his professional career until he retired.