Karate Stupid: A True Story of Survival by Scott Langley

Author:Scott Langley [Langley, Scott]
Language: eng
Format: azw3
Publisher: eBookPartnership.com
Published: 2014-02-08T16:00:00+00:00

Chapter Seven:

Insanity

I have just spent the night in Roppongi, the gaijin ghetto of Tokyo, socializing with the rich expat community: bankers, lawyers and directors, sent over from the US on lucrative contracts. The plan was to drink until dawn but at 2 am they have all decided to go home and have left me alone in the bar. I’ve never felt so pathetic – dumped by people that I don’t really like, their lack of compassion is a reminder of how isolated I have become.

There is no question of what I have to do. I can’t afford the astronomically high taxi fare home, all the trains have stopped and I don’t want to drink alone in a bar for three hours until the first train leaves. I have to walk. Shibuya station is about forty-five minutes away; staggering, it should take me an hour. The first train there is at 4.30 am, and if I take my time, get some breakfast, I should be OK. I set off from the glow of Roppongi’s neon into the Tokyo gloom.

Twenty minutes into the journey my mind is racing. I am cold, despite the warm autumn weather, lonely, drunk and hungover all at the same time. My mind has started playing tricks on me. I am a wreck, well beyond being broken. I give up.

Suddenly someone shouts, ‘DON’T YOU DARE!’

‘I can’t take it,’ I whimper. ‘I need to go home… I am going to die here.’

‘NO… YOU WILL DO IT… YOU HAVE NO CHOICE,’ the voice boomed. Outraged, I continue down the road, shouting back abuse, ranting and swearing.

‘YOU WILL NOT QUIT… YOU WILL DO THIS… YOU WILL NOT FUCKING MESS THIS UP!’ my tormentor keeps on repeating.

I find my way to Shibuya, get a train and struggle back home. It is only when I wake up the next morning that I realize just how close I am to insanity .

On returning from the Teikyo camp I went from six hours of tough training a day to two hours, but as my memory of the camp faded, so too did my ability to relax. The enjoyment of training ebbed away. It is possible that Yumoto Sensei and Takahashi Sempai were taking it easy on me in the weeks that followed the camp, but eventually I was bound to make a vital mistake and the consequences would be brutal. But that night when I walked from Roppongi to Shibuya frightened me more than any abuse dealt out by my sempai, and even now I find it difficult to deal with the fact that I was walking down the street shouting to myself. I tried to dismiss it as an alcohol-fuelled manic moment, but inside I knew I was at the lowest I had ever been. What must I have looked like? Emotionally dead, I spent weekdays waiting for Friday afternoons and then weekends drunk and oblivious to my situation.

Things took a turn for the better at the end of September when Tom, a karate friend from university, arrived in Japan.

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