Fun Fact Friday—Straw Tatamis Hurt

In my Venture books, the fighters in Richland practice on canvas-covered straw mats. Though the canvas covering is something I added, the mats in my books are generally modeled after traditional Japanese tatamis, which are rectangular slabs of tightly woven straw.

When we were first starting a new judo dojo in 2001, we put the word out that we were looking for mats. A friend "generously" volunteered two stacks of tatamis that he'd meant to use someday, but were clogging up his parents' garage. Why is generously in quotes? Because these were old-school straw tatamis. Before the Budokan in Seattle used them, they'd been used in the Kodokan, in Japan—in some other century.

Ooh! Historic mats! They weren't completely archaic; at least they were covered with vinyl, in that traditional grayish green color that every judoka knows as "tatami green." You could see the straw through the rips in that vinyl. Vinyl with mysterious dark stains imbedded in its texture. We had a good time speculating on whose blood it was and how it got there, while we scrubbed those mats with bleach.

Certain members of my team are especially skilled in the use of duct tape. They fixed up the unglued corners and the rips. The mats weren't pretty, but they were functional. Or so we thought.

I knew I was in trouble when I demonstrated a simple judo breakfall for a couple of karate instructors who were interested in judo. Just a roll, without anyone throwing me. I noticed the mats were . . . firm.

Our fearless leader, Jason Harai, reminded me that the Budokan had used these mats for years. Decades, actually. Of course, the Budokan had a second-story wood floor, and we'd laid those mats out on concrete. For some reason, concrete just doesn't give the way wood does. Go figure. And I'm sure it didn't help that before that, we'd been working out on a spring-loaded gymnastics floor. Maybe I was spoiled.

Then came the demonstration of the actual throws. We're talking nice, clean, throws, not slams. My skin stung and my bones rattled on impact, in spite of my partner's carefulness. Talk about a whole new level of incentive not to get thrown in randori (sparring)! In randori, we resisted, and throws became more forceful, and often, due to the intensity of the battle or muscle fatigue or both—less careful.

I exchanged looks with my teammates. Looks that conveyed the imagined years of agony we'd spend working out together on those mats that seemed to smack us when we were down, rather than cushion our falls.

Before we could revolt, we were spared by unforeseen events. Within a few weeks, we ended up back on that glorious spring-loaded gymnastics floor, and the straw tatamis went into my garage. Eventually, we purchased modern foam tatamis.

I'll never forget what it felt like to land on those straw mats. I've relived it many times as I wrote scenes in the Venture books. I cringe on behalf of my characters as their bodies slam down onto unsympathetic straw mats, often with the crushing force of another fighter coming down on top of them. Though their mats are laid out on wood floors, I keep in mind that they're not landing on the modern miracle that is Dollamur foam mats.

A couple of years ago, we said our final good-byes to those straw tatamis. They may have been a pain to fall on, but they made a pretty impressive bonfire.