The last Samurai

As Ron Ayalon prepared for the first European championship in his life, the martial arts specialist thought back seven years, when he was looking for a change. "I was into heavy duty martial arts, with full contact, throw downs and chokes," recalls the 49-year-old about the search that led him to iaido, a refined art involving controlled sword movements.

"Over the years I became very attached to Japanese tradition and culture, especially the Samurai era of the Middle Ages. I loved reading books and seeing movies about Japan, and at a certain stage, I wanted something more spiritual, for the sake of finding myself rather than for the fight."

At the time, Ayalon was walking in Dizengoff Boulevard in Tel Aviv when he came across a martial arts store. He asked the proprietors if they knew someone in Israel who taught sword fighting. They directed him to the Alliance school in Ramat Aviv, where he received his introduction to iaido.

"Until then, I knew gloves, kicking and boxing, but not weapons," he recalls. "I saw people wearing black and moving around with swords like Samurais, and it was exactly what caught me." Ayalon found his calling, as the Samurai stories came to life for him in training. (The Samurai were Japan's military nobility in pre-industrial Japan.)

In iaido, a non-Olympic sport, the fighter performs exercises called katas involving drawing the sword, slashing and cutting - all against an imaginary opponent.

"The goal is not to defeat your opponent, but yourself," stresses Ayalon. "The secret magic of iaido is that it is your war with yourself to obtain perfection in everything you perform - arising, handling the scabbard, withdrawing the sword and cutting. I know that perfection and strive for it every time, even though it's probably unattainable."

He says a centimeter one way or the other is the difference between life or death.

While he works through the air, he imagines how it should be, he explains, but those thoughts continue well past the exercise. "I entered an endless world regarding its instructional value," he says. "I'm prepared to commit myself to fight until my very last day."

The fighters begin training in the club with a brief meditation to become serene. "If something that happened at work, in the economy or in the country bothers me, I'm finished," says Ayalon. "I have to be pure in my thoughts with maximum concentration. When you start the movements with the swords, you're in a world that's all good."

At a later stage, Ayalon added the jodo art of fighting with short staffs. Ayalon explains that in this art one works with a partner, using coordinated moves, and says jodo complements iaido. "You attack with the sword in iaido, so naturally it's worthwhile learning to defend against it with jodo."

The virtual fighter says he does not long for the contact he had in his youth. "The more you know about martial arts," he asserts, "the more self-confidence you have, and you become calmer because you can defend yourself."

Training in nature

Not long ago he received a package from Japan containing a shiny sword and a new outfit, and every day he has been practicing his katas for the European championships, which start today in a village outside Eindhoven, in the southern part of The Netherlands.

Ayalon says he and his companions do a lot of training in nature, and people walking their dogs stop to watch.

"They don't understand where we came from and what we're doing with these swords," he says. "They think maybe we're making a Menahem Golan movie or 'Kill Bill 3.'"

The popularity of mainstream martial arts makes Ayalon optimistic about the prospects of his disciplines. "Maurice Smadja was among the first teaching judo in Israel," says Ayalon of the father of 1992 bronze medal winner Oren Smadja. "He didn't know how many students he would have, and now there's judo in every city in Israel. We were four at the start, and now we have 70 registered for iaido and jodo."

Ayalon feels he has unlocked the secret to happiness, soldering metal in the morning and wielding swords in the evening.

"If you ask me what I want to be in the next life, it's a Samurai, absolutely. If I could go into a time machine, I would go back to the Samurai era."