She existed long before we went looking. Tomoe Gozen. Onna-bugeisha. Described in the Heike Monogatari as a warrior worth a thousand. She fought at the Battle of Awazu in 1184, during the Genpei War, and then the historical record does something interesting: it loses her. She disappears. For a figure of her stature, that disappearance is itself a kind of statement.
The question we were asking was not complicated. The Light Dojo and The Dark Dojo had established a figure: the ronin, trained for a world that no longer exists, navigating the present with the only tools he has. The question was whether there was an equivalent figure. Someone operating by the same code, in the same absurd modern landscape, but with a different relationship to it. Not displaced, exactly. Refused. Told the role was not available, and continuing anyway.
That is a specific quality. It required a specific figure.
Marcus Aurelius wrote that the impediment to action advances action. What stands in the way becomes the way. She navigates a road of potholes on foot because the road requires it, each crater a koi pond, the wave pattern on her hakama the same water she is walking through. The obstacle does not stop her. It becomes the terrain. A slot machine pays out in butterflies. Six robot dogs require walking. She does not explain herself in any of these situations. There is nothing to explain. She is simply here, doing the thing, with complete attention.
Tomoe Gozen. We named a collection after her.