“However, despite the force of my tackle, his body didn’t budge, and I felt like I was hitting an immovable wall.”
“Sparring with Shihan Aso”
I’d like to share a few memories of Shihan Aso.
In the 1980s, when I became his student, he was still in his 30s and still did all the training with us students.
When I sparred with him for the first time, he didn’t even assume a fighting stance; he just stood there normally.
Even when I went for a tackle, he didn’t defend himself and let me in easily.
However, despite the force of my tackle, his body didn’t budge, and I felt like I was hitting an immovable wall.
From there, he grabbed my head and threw me backward with one arm.
After this happened several times, when I tried to clinch him and as soon as I stepped forward to get close to him, he did foot sweep to me, sending me spinning around and landing on my shoulders.
Next, he let me grab him, but at that moment, with his favourite Judo throw called “Hane Goshi 跳腰” he sent me spinning again and threw me.
Next, we went straight into ground fighting, but he quickly locked my arm and I tapped out.
From there, he executed every kind of submission hold imaginable, changing his position as he went.
I tapped out every ten second.
In the end, he locked my neck and finished me off with a choke.
Then he said, “In an extreme real street fight situation, even if you lock and break your opponent’s arm, they might still come at you. In the end, you’ll have to either break their neck or choke them out.”
Afterwards, I thought about that sparring session with him, and I realised that in that single sparring session, he had locked every joint in my body (elbows, knees, shoulders, wrists, ankles, hips, spine, neck, etc.).
And I thought, if this were a real fight, my joints would be broken one by one, and when I could no longer resist, I would be finished off by either a broken neck or a choke (actually, I would have been finished from getting thrown and smashed onto the ground anyway).
The thought sent shivers down my spine, but I vowed to myself that I would definitely master his techniques.
