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Fukutomicho at night.
The lights were blurring.
As I tilted my glass, it struck me.
When did I get to be this age?
Faces of people I’ve met come to mind.
The ones who taught me.
The ones who cared enough to get angry with me.
Nights we laughed together.
My parents’ faces came to mind, too.
I’ve brushed up against all kinds of ideas to get here.
Before I knew it, I was in a place like this.
Before I knew it, I had become someone like this.
The body is honest
One day, you notice.
The tiredness doesn’t lift the way it used to.
Quick movements lag, just slightly.
Between the movement you picture and the one your body makes, there is a small gap.
Muscles don’t lie.
Nerves are honest.
Age comes slowly, but surely.
There is nothing to do but accept it.
Because that is what a body is.
But skill is another story
The body may decline, but thinking does not.
How to read an angle.
Seeing where the balls will end up.
When to let the power go.
An eye for an opponent’s habits.
These can be honed for as long as you like, whatever your age.
If anything, the less you can lean on physical strength, the sharper your thinking becomes.
Power at five, used with control at ten.
That, I think, is what it means to improve while facing age.
Age brings another kind of improvement with it.
When I was young, I could solve things with power.
Now, without the power, I’ve started to think.
Since I started to think, I see more.
Since I see more, I have more choices.
That, I think, is improvement.
A different kind from the improvement of youth.
Each time the body can do a little less, I learn something else.
How to let go of force.
How to wait.
How to lean on others.
How to look at the view.
It is because we lose things that the way we learn changes.
The night in Fukutomicho grows quietly late.
The ice had grown small without my noticing.
I am getting older.
That much is true.
But even now, at this very moment, I feel something quietly growing.
So there is still nothing but room to grow.
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