And, eventually, they’ll wear you down. It’s the basic strategy of all pack hunters. So I got my left sword-hand up to block the blow, redirected his arm out and down and back up again. I spun him around in a classic shiho-nage technique, controlling his arm and bending it so his palm faced his rear and I was locking the arm up at wrist, elbow, and shoulder. The body positioning is designed to take someone right off their feet, and I could feel him start to shift. In the practice hall, you line up the joints so as not to hurt your partner. But now I swirled around that dusty place and purposefully brought the arm out of alignment. I could smell his body odor, and the dry dirt smell of the hillside. When you’re really focused in the middle of a technique, sensations get imprinted in the strangest ways. So you don’t remember all the details of the things you do. But I remember how he smelled. And the sensation of tearing joints that vibrated up his bones to where I held him. That and the sound of his shriek.
