High life
Side-kicks
Taki
In the winter of 1970 I had the misfortune to share a chalet with my older and far richer brother. I say misfortune because of his then wife, a typical American stayat-home, Met me pull your shoes off for you dear'), small-town girl turned social lioness upon marriage and respectability.
I was on my side of the chalet one evening, doing karate exercises. A riotous sitdown dinner for twenty-four free-loaders: was in process in the richer half of the house. While executing a round kick my bedroom door opened and a gnome-like: figure slipped in. 'Keep going,' said the gnome, 'don't let me bother you.'
The intruder was none other than the pocket Pole, Roman Polanski. 'Who's your sensei (teacher)?' he asked, and immediately proceeded to show me a strange but effective looking side-kick. 'A Chinese taught it to me,' said Roman.
Polanski is a keen skier, as I am, and Gstaad being a small village, we ran into each other -constantly after that. The trouble, however, was that having become acquainted, a form of greeting became necessary. I stuck to the prosaic 'Hello'. He, more theatrically, never neglected to throw a kick and a punch in the air along with his conviviality, and as he was constantly surrounded by flunkies and groupies it got to be downright embarrassing. Upon my appearance anywhere and anytime a bunch of people would punch and kick the air, screaming things like, 'Karate Ha, hiiaaaiii, kiiaaii, Finally, I couldn't stand it any longer. When a friend of Polanski's greeted me in the usual fashion I turned and punched him in the stomach. 'Kiaai,' I yelled; he made different noises, but the group protested. 'You are not supposed to make contact,' they screamed in unison. Only Roman laughed, somewhat enigmatically.
Three days later, while entering the Palace Hotel, I noticed an extremely good looking oriental staring intently in my direction. I walked up to him, bowed, and said `ous' in the traditional martial art fashion. 'Who is your sensei?' asked Bruce Lee, at the time unknown as an actor but no stranger to the world of Judo. `Mr Nishimura', I replied. 'I know of him, he's no good,' said Mr Lee.
Now if this had taken place in feudal Japan, or even forty years ago, I would have been in a tight spot. Honour required that I fight over the insult to my sensei. Fortunately, it was Gstaad, honour had become a word rather difficult to define— what with politicians and money-lenders using it often vs. — and the feudal traditions of the orient as applicable as the Vietnamese Peace Treaty of 1972. It thus needed little or no courage to ask him the time and the place, and to point out to him that he never would have said what he had if my sensei was there in person. We agreed to 'meet' in my chalet as I had a large garage with ample room for fighting. When he arrived he smiled and said that I had passed the test. That I was no bully, and that I had answered like a martial artist. breathed easier although I had a pretty good idea that his challenge was a test. He then began to teach me. He found me rather weak but eager, and throughout his stay we trained every day. Incidentally, he was staYing with Polanski who had called him tollY over from America. Soon after, Bruce Lee hit the jackpot with his incredible techniques in karate films. I made it up with the Polanski band • and returned to Mr Nishimura's classes. MY brother got smart and sent his wife back where she came from. The reason for all this nostalgia is that I've just spent a week training four flouts per day before passing a third degree black belt test. My sensei, Mr Enoeda, was once offered the part that Bruce eventually got. Disliking violence, and not being commercial, he declined. As far as his students are concerned it was the best decision he ever made: we might all have gone to 1101lywood by now.
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