I arrived at class five minutes early, eyes peeled and ready to fight. I had already conditioned my mind to understand that Sensei might pose as my enemy and that if he did, I would fight him like any unknown attacker from the streets. But once I got inside the dojo, Sensei had a card table stacked with hundreds of cards. I tried to switch tracks in my head. I knew he was about to play some kind of mind game. Besides, the lights were off and it seemed like he wasn’t even there. Of course he was. Otherwise how would I have gotten inside of the opened front door of the dojo? I walked around the perimeter slowly, poised for his sneak attack. As I walked past his closed bathroom door I figured he was just using the bathroom and I was making something out of nothing. I walked over to the light switch. Before I could flip it up he came swooping down and was standing right there in front of me. “It is a common mistake,” he said in place of a greeting. “People tend to never look up. A ninja must always look up and in every direction, even beneath his feet.”
