When I was nineteen, I signed up
for a self-defense course to meet my physical education requirement at the
community college where I was starting my college career.
The instructor was a booming-voiced,
blunt-spoken man who told us at the beginning of the first class that if any of
us had a problem with bowing in respect to the picture of Jigoro Kano, the
founder of Judo, to the dojo, or to each other we could get up and walk out
right then.
Coming from a conservative
Christian background where bowing and worship was for God alone, and with the
examples of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego (or Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah
as my dad called them rather than their Babylonian-slave names) choosing to be
thrown into a fiery furnace instead of bowing their knees to King Nebuchadnezzar’s
golden statue, I sat on the gym floor with the other new students battling with
my faith-based-conscience over whether or not I should get up and leave.
I didn’t.
Little did I know that by choosing
that class, not leaving on the first day (for respect was different than
worship), and meeting Sensei Bert Becerra my life would take an unexpected turn
and never be the same again.
Up to that point, my plan had been to
get a degree in English (literature or writing) and use what I learned to become
a writer. It’d seemed an easy enough path to take. All I had to do was write a
great novel. Then another. I’d be the next Harper Lee. I’d be the next Dorothy
Sayers. I’d be as often read and studied by future generations as Homer.
I did get my degree in Literary Studies.
And eventually, I buckled down and wrote. But while I was doing that and before
I got serious with storycraft, I got swept into a world I hadn’t known existed;
the world of Judo.
It happened simply enough when
during one class, Bert told me, “You could be good at this. You should come to
my dojo in Garland.”
So I did.
I don’t know exactly what Bert saw
in me. Maybe discipline. Maybe an obsessive drive. Maybe coachability. Maybe just
another student to pay club dues. Whatever it was, he saw it and said what he
thought. As he always did.
Bert was a Cuban native who’d spent
time in Miami and then, of course, came to Dallas, a national and international
champion, and a champion storyteller. His stories were blends of truth and legend.
Did he defect in Canada, running through the streets in his underwear or did he
defect in a European country and sprint to the Swiss Embassy? Did he really have
a pet monkey? Did he live in Japan for 17 years? Had he been a cop in Miami? Maybe.
Tall tales or otherwise, Bert loved
Judo and he loved winning the team trophy at any tournament he took us to.
My first tournament was a local one.
There, I weighed in for the first time. Focused more on belt rank and age, I
wasn’t even sure what weight category I’d be in. I didn’t know that Judo competitors
obsessed over weight, cutting before tournaments in order to make specific
weight categories that would allow them to use strength and height to best
advantage. I was so green, I was embarrassed when the weigh-in moderator asked
me if I’d like to take off my jeans to see if I could be in the next lower
weight category. I knew next to nothing beyond a handful of Judo throws and
some mat work. More than the fighting, I was nervous I’d bow wrong at the edge
of the mat and at the competitor starting point even though Bert made us
practice that in class.
I can’t remember if I even thought
to have my parents come to watch me compete. I can’t remember my individual
matches. What I do remember is that I won. And I was hooked.
I went to every class. Four nights
a week? Five? Plus Saturdays? I was there.
At that time, the majority of Becerra
Judo’s competitors were kids. I was one of the first, if not the first, young
adult, college-age competitor Bert had. This, of course, allowed him, as a
club, to enter more divisions at tournaments. Well, one more division. Mine. As
I went from white to yellow to green belt, Bert encouraged me to compete in as
many tournaments around Texas as there were. Seeing an opportunity for me to
win in my weight and rank category, he once took me to a collegiate competition
in Ohio. Just me.
He kept me at green belt for a long
time. And at brown belt for even longer. This was mostly because I’d managed to
be good enough at the basics to beat the other new competitors in those lower
categories and he liked for us to win. But also, I needed the experience. At
the higher levels, many Judoka had a decade or more mat experience than I did.
And while I had a great work ethic, passion, and strength in my favor, I lacked
the time and ingrained technique.
While Bert’s coaching method was
not exactly technical-tactical, it was more of a “get out there and do your
thing” approach, he did value the technical Japanese style and did his best to
provide me with opportunities to better myself as a Judoka. One year, he took
me to a Judo Coaches Clinic in San Jose, California. He took me and another Judoka
to a school to do a Judo demonstration. He had me at his side when he talked to
other coaches and athletes. Whenever Judo clinics popped up, he encouraged me
to go to them. At some event somewhere, he pushed me to go talk with Lynn Roethke,
two-time Olympian and World Champion Silver medalist, who told me she saw her
competition opponents as enemies she had to destroy, rabble who didn’t deserve
to be in the same place as she was.
I never had that level of
competitive aggression/fighter’s spirit which is why I never achieved the level
of success I desired (I was going for the Olympic dream), but I was still
dedicated to the sport. I still followed the gentle way. I still do
(philosophically at any rate).
Because I met Bert.
Bert was a master at getting people
to do things for him. In my heyday with Becerra Judo, I somehow often ended up booking
flights and hotel rooms for him, working out logistical issues, and organizing
rideshares. Once, decades later, when I stopped by his club to visit, he sent
me down the plaza to get him donuts for his breakfast. He never had any problem
telling me or anyone else what to do. Or how to do it. He was brusque, loud, and
had absolutely no filter. It was all part of his larger-than-life charm.
In a world where club loyalty was soul—and
Bert was always talking about kicking so-and-so out of the club for some
betrayal or the other—when it came up, Bert didn’t begrudge me the opportunity
to go train at the Olympic Training Center.
At state tournaments, there weren’t
many competitors at my weight class and in my age category. Too often, I was
the only one in my division. There I was, dressed in my Judo gi, warmed up and
ready to go, but with no one to fight. At the dojo, I trained with men, a few other
women, and the younger boys and girls. But I had no one at my skill level who
was my weight or gender. It was becoming harder for me to continue to improve. Bert
knew this.
After I graduated college, with his
blessing, I moved to Colorado.
There, at home in the mountains, I stayed
obsessed with Judo for a while longer, training with elite-level athletes,
being part of clinics and workshops, competing at as many local, national, and international
tournaments as I could, going to Nationals and the U.S. Open, and making lifelong
friends.
When I went home for holidays or
tournaments, I made it point to stop by the dojo. When it came time to be promoted
to black belt, Bert promoted me. He gave me one of his old belts and, though I
had to wrap it three times around my waist, I wore it for all my subsequent practices
and competitions until I’d worn it threadbare. I was the first student he
promoted to black belt. I’m still surprised to be the one to hold that honor. I
still have that belt.
After an elbow injury and the expiration
of the 2004 Olympics (to which I’d yearned to go, but for which I didn’t even
make the Trials), I retired from competitive Judo and took up competitive Olympic
Weight Lifting. Shortly thereafter, my body broke down and I had to step away
from high-level athletics altogether so I could learn moderation and pursue
health.
Bert never quite understood this. He
hadn’t had to deal with an autoimmune disorder of his own, and I didn’t often
like to talk the details about my aching joints. When I’d left for the bigger
leagues, I think he’d expected me to come home and take over the on-the-mat
coaching of his club when I’d finished. I think he’d had other plans for my
life. He’d dedicated his entire life to Judo and it had looked like I was going
to do the exact same thing.
But, in much the same way that
meeting him changed me forever, rheumatoid arthritis became another pivot point
in my life.
His death came as a shock. Though
he was 77 years old, there’d been no warning of ill health, no expectation that
he wouldn’t continue yelling at us all for years to come, no reason to believe
I couldn’t stop by the dojo to reminisce and gossip one more time.
Until he was gone, I hadn’t
realized how strongly he’d been a pillar in the corner of my life. Someone who’d
been there for me for 29 years. Someone who had seen my potential and
encouraged it. Someone who carried memories which I also carried.
As a person with one core passion
and steadfast devotion, he hadn’t understood my life after Judo. In those first
number of years after I retired and couldn’t even help him with children’s
classes when I came home to visit (because of pain I tried to hide), he would
ask me why I wasn’t doing Judo, why I wasn’t married, why my stories weren’t
being published, what was wrong with me?
But then, eventually, when I stayed
as strange as I was, when I kept traveling, when I kept coming back to visit
once or twice a year, those questions stopped. Instead, with a twinkle in his
eye, he’d tease me about being “earthy.” And then we’d thumb through the past—people,
places, events—like we were looking at photos. We’d talk about who we’d seen lately
or what we’d heard so-and-so was up to. Invariably, he’d call up some other coach
or player who’d known me and have me talk to them then and there.
Without Bert, I would likely never
have done any kind of competitive sport. I wouldn’t have moved to Colorado. I
wouldn’t have many of my best friends. All the little byroads and highways I
took after the age of nineteen have all been somehow connected to the road of that
original self-defense class. Whatever my life is now, it is in some part due to
Bert’s influence.
At his funeral, looking at the
hundred-plus people there to pay respects, knowing the hundreds of others who
couldn’t be there, it hit me hard how much one person can affect so many. How
one person can change the course of a life. How much he’d changed mine.
He’d have liked the attention. He’d
have liked the status.
If he’d been there, he’d have
yelled at all of us about something. He’d have told some story that was just
believable enough to be unbelievable or unbelievable enough to be believable. He’d
have filled the room.
I’ll miss him. Since I can’t thank
him in person, since I didn’t think to do it when I could have, I’ll thank him now
for being where he was those many years ago so I could encounter him. I’ll
thank him for changing my life.
Rest in peace, Grandmaster Sensei.
Rest in peace, Bert.
