Tuesdays with Miyagi

Noriyuki “Pat” Morita, well known for playing Mr. Miyagi in The Karate Kid series, passed away ten years ago today. His once pupil, Daniel LaRusso, remembers his sensei. Ghostwritten by Joseph Walderzak and Luke Allen Hackney.

The Curriculum

The last class of my old sensei’s life took place once a week in his house, by a window in the study I had added to his home years prior to learn patience or something. There he could look at the many bonsai trees he had taken care of over the years. The class met on Tuesdays. The subject was The Meaning of Life. It was taught from experience and through remedial labor.

No grades were given, but you were required to perform physical tasks now and then, just like the old days. Waxing the sensei’s cars and sanding the deck. Rotating his tires earned you extra credit.

No books were required, yet many topics were covered. Love, work, community, catching flies with chopsticks, family, aging, forgiveness, and, finally, death.

A funeral was held in lieu of graduation.

The last class of my old sensei’s life had only one student, a (stolen) black belt in karate turned professional sports journalist.

I was the student.

It is September, 1984. My mother and I had recently moved from Newark, New Jersey to Reseda, California, in L.A.’s San Fernando Valley. It is the last night of the summer. I am attending a beach party with my new neighbor. The night is hot, but not as hot as Ali, with an “i.” We hit it off immediately, but are soon interrupted by the arrival of her ex-boyfriend, Johnny.

He begins to harass Ali. I intervene. We commence to fight. Johnny is a student at the Cobra Kai dojo and wears a headband. I am not the last man standing.

Johnny and his cronies begin harassing me on a daily basis.

It is Halloween. At a school dance, I get my revenge on Johnny. My celebration is short-lived. He and his friends beat me within an inch of my life. Luckily Mr. Miyagi, a maintenance man at the complex my mother and I reside in, had been following me all night. Or something like that. Really hard to say, but he totally shows up, and in a dazzling display of choreography, Miyagi effortlessly beats up the young boys.

He becomes my sensei, and through hard labor over an extensive period of time, he teaches me simple blocking techniques.

I eventually defeat Johnny in a local karate tournament, somehow more or less forcing Cobra Kai out of business. We travel to Okinawa. When we return, I look significantly older, have become even wimpier and more annoying than I was prior, and we open a bonsai shop. Despite all odds and logic I again manage to beat my opponent in the final round of the All Valley Karate Tournament.

The Syllabus

His death sentence came in autumn. He would not wither. He would not be ashamed.

Instead, he would make death his final project.

Mr. Miyagi’s life was about to take an interesting turn, and I was going to see it, document it, and hopefully, profit from it.

Tuesday, November 15

The first Tuesday I promptly arrived at Mr. Miyagi’s house at 9am. We reminisced about the old times. I brought up the occasion in which I was able to catch the fly with the chopsticks; he said he couldn’t recall that ever happening. He brought up his “most fond memory” of our time together: that I had still wanted to fight in the karate tournament even after losing the year prior. I reminded him that I had actually won the first year. He told me that I was mistaken and that he remembered very well bandaging me up in the locker room after my loss. When I tried to explain that I returned to the ring after he more or less fixed my leg magically, he laughed at me in his Miyagi-way. I even stood in my crane pose to jog his memory, but it failed to recreate the event.

Later that afternoon we took a walk around his property and he informed me that he had paid the boy next door to paint the fence and that he did it without whining, “unlike someone he remembered.”

Before I left, he asked me if I could go through his fridge and trash all of the expired products. His eyesight wasn’t what it used to be and he didn’t want to accidentally eat something detrimental to his health. I obliged his wishes. As I discarded items into the trash, I realized that Mr. Miyagi was probably trying to teach me one of his lessons. Perhaps that life has a fragile existence and that one day you’re here and the next you’re in the garbage with the spoiled condiments.

Tuesday, November 22

I arrived fifteen minutes later than when I told Miyagi to expect me.

“Daniel-san! Not even for a dying man do you show respect!” he scolded.

I laughed at Miyagi’s humor and proceeded to the kitchen where we shared a cup of green tea.

Miyagi asked me about my wife and children and I told him how blessed I was. He went off about his long-passed wife. Perhaps he didn’t remember telling me this story already, but I hid my boredom. We spoke of Ali. I told him that I had heard she had either become a prostitute in Las Vegas or a scientist who discovered how to make people invisible. We both agreed the latter was more likely.

After lunch Miyagi asked me to come down to the basement. In the basement there were a dozen or so rolled rugs lining the walls. He explained to me that he had rented a steam cleaner and wondered if I would at all be willing to clean them. I told him that I could probably swing back in a few days, but he insisted I do it that evening. During the several hour process I noticed that even with the industrial power steam cleaner, some stains couldn’t be removed. Despite that fact, their beauty remained intact. At once, I knew Miyagi was again teaching me a valuable lesson. Life was precious and it was the stains (or experiences) that we can’t remove (or forget) that made them even more beautiful.

I completed my work on the rugs around 11pm. Miyagi was in his meditating room, so I let him be.

Tuesday, November 29

Mr. Miyagi peacefully passed away on a Thursday. I visited him in his hospital room. While I was concerned that what was going to be a powerful book was now trimmed down to only a few pages, none of that really mattered. Miyagi only awoke one time and asked me to stop by his house the following Tuesday to address his will. I sat by his side until I was sure he was asleep, or dead, there were a few hours there where it could have gone either way. Finally, he died in his sleep and I said my goodbye.

That Tuesday, obeying my sensei’s wishes, I found myself walking through his now-empty dwelling. I found no will, but a note he left that had the number of a real estate agent that I was to call, and a request for me to prune the bushes.

In the rear of Mr. Miyagi’s garden, I fulfilled his last request. Without gloves I was open to puncturing myself on thorns. But at these slightly uncomfortable moments I remembered that so was life: pain and beauty.

I would have cried, had I not been a sports writer.

The real estate agent came through the backyard just before the sun went down. A look of relief overcame him.

“Mr. Miyagi said that his house and possessions would be in great shape for me to sell. I asked him how he was going to pull that off, knowing of his illness and lack of funds, but he told me that he was fine, that an old friend was taking care of it. I can’t believe he pulled it off.”

Whether or not Miyagi only invited me to come because he needed work done on his house wasn’t important to me. I would take the high road and use the lessons I learned from a dying old man and turn it into a great book and, provided I play my cards right, film adaptation.

Hopefully not starring Jaden Smith.