Originally posted on October 6, 2015 on http://thevagabondhauschronicles.blogspot.com/
I wish I could say that I came from a long line of martial artists, but I suck way too much for that to be true. It was definitely part of my upbringing (yes there's some truth to the stereotype) but none of my relatives had any formal training to give to me. Nope, I was taught by outsiders.
Like many kids, I was bullied. And if I was being really honest, the actual incident that occurred on the school playground didn't really scare me that much but it definitely scared my mom enough for her to seek the help of a family friend and sifu of Tay Son Kung Fu. So at ten, I was enrolled in my first martial art which was damn cool. Karate Kid had come out only a few years prior and I was devouring Bruce Lee, Sho Kosugi and Hong Kong TVB so I was loving the idea of kicking some serious ass. Classes were held in a YMCA on Sundays. Sifu had quite a large class of students, all age ranges with several non-Asian students. The room was one of those multipurpose rooms used for everything from dance to gymnastics. But we worked it out on bare floors. My memory is that classes were two hours long, which looking back at it - damn that's a long time. Warm ups, stretches, tumbling, punches, kicks, forms and sparring. And there was always some form of exhibition. For example, we would spend the last fifteen minutes of class watching a section of people perform their forms. The upper belts got to perform forms with weapons. Badass. Swords, staff, spears - those giant swords with rings on the back of them. I was in heaven. Except that it hurt a lot. No pads on the ground took its toll of a fat boy's body. No pads in sparring meant a lot of black and blue marks. Practicing horse stances while flexing my outstretched forearms for ten minutes at a time was ridiculously painful. And I admit I could do the full splits and throw some beautiful kicks. But I never felt afterwards that I could defend myself any better than I did before I went to class. I went up two belts before quitting it altogether. I don't remember the exact reason but I suspect it had more to do with my mom having a falling out with sifu than any disatisfaction I might have had with my training. We were tight. We regularly attended dinner at his house and went as a team to a public beach that was infested with jellyfish (oh my god, that's a blog entry on its own). But I remember one dinner party when sifu asked me to come over so he could show me something. He asked me to roll up my sleeve and then he raised his hand above my hand and with a fast peck, he pierced me with the tips of his fingers, so hard that he pierced a hole in my skin. I told my mom and she said that wasn't right. I don't know if that's what did it, but that definitely ended my trust in him.
It was a couple of years later when my dad decided to enroll me in tae kwon do. It was very odd cause there was no real discussion about it. He had passed a new Jhoon Rhee Karate school in a strip mall and took me in. We sat down with the teacher, whom I'll call Mr. B. He was Peruvian which struck me as odd (yes, I, too was guilty of stereotyping). After hashing out the financials, I started the following week. I was surprised that there was more formality than my kung fu classes. We had to bow before getting on and off the mats. We had to always address the teacher as Mr. B or sir. You had to face the back if you needed to fix your gi. All classes started with reciting a pledge about honor and stuff. And we always counted in Korean. It was a lot to take in, especially as a middle schooler who was taking a liking to punk rock. But the instruction was top notch. I thought kung fu hurt. Mr. B had my body twisting joints and muscles I hadn't realized I even had. Jumping round kicks along the perimeter of the gym (thank god it wa a small gym), wheel barrel races, side kicks against a teammate leaning their entire body weight against your foot and knuckle push ups. Mr. B perfected my sidekick and to this day, it's instilled in me (the pivot, the full torquing of the hip, the striking with the heel). Somewhere around the first year, Mr. B said he was leaving to start a new school to teach traditional Chun Do Kwan, under the banner of his own teacher, Master Lee. With the move, he was inviting me to go with him. Why not? My dad liked him and so did I. We moved to a Sport and Health a block away. While adults and seniors were lifting weights, me and a small group of new students were learning traditional forms. We sparred more (not that I got any better at fighting). But I broke my first boards. It was quite surprising when it first happened. He brought a stack in one day like it was nothing and I was terrified. Mr. B held one up and told me it was all about focus and determination - that if I wanted to break it, I was going to break it. When my fist went through it and I heard the crack of the wood, I felt like a freaking superhero. I had never scored a touchdown, never hit a home run. So this was my moment. My baby brother joined me as well. Mr. B noticed that my dad would just leave him with me when I was dropped off and while I was getting my instruction, my brother would be off to the side doing the same moves. So Mr. B just had him join in with no fee assessed. It was under Mr. B that I competed for the first time. I didn't spar but I competed in forms and was note perfect until the final move. It required a jump kick coming out of a forward roll. I couldn't find enough room so I kept adjusting and starting over. The judges scored me low and I ended up with an honorable mention ribbon which I quickly tossed in a dark corner of my house. One of the biggest lessons I learned from Mr. B had nothing to do with technique. We were sparring and I walked into one of his back kicks that took me off my feet. I got the wind knocked out of me and I let out a quite audible, "oh fuck." People in the gym must have stopped to look at this sight of a grown man over a fallen kid whom he had just kicked cause his face was bright red. But he wasn't embarrassed; he was furious. He got down real close to me and asked, What's the big idea? Are you injured? Did I break you? Do you want people to think I hurt you?" And then we went on to something else. Something changed that day. I had violated his trust. I had sold him out. I wasn't honest. And because I was a punk teenager, I couldn't own up to it. So soon after I quit. I had studied with him for two years, attained three belts and I walked away. A few years later, I was with my brother Cheistmas shopping in a mall and I saw him. Mr. B was walking alone and I had the impulse to go over to him and say something. But I froze. I was still so embarrassed - not only by what I did all those years ago but also for abandoning my teacher. I knew that his school was no longer at Sport and Health. It would be years later that I'd reconnect with him on Facebook. He now studies Muay Thai in Florida and still throws mean sidekicks.
When the wife and I first moved back to the DC area, we tried out a Kim's Karate for a month. One of the biggest scams ever. The teacher even studied under the same teacher as Mr. B but his instruction and rigor was far inferior. He allowed sloppy kicks and sad excuses for punches. The coaches he would set us up with were lazy and split-focused. They had black belts around their waist but the passion of assembly line workers. Dissatisfied, we left before we ever really started.
Which brings us to the present. It would be years later before I found Krav Maga and jiu jitsu and a coach and team that could change my life. For the first eight months or so, I had a whole slew of rotating instructors, each with their own styles and preferences. There were some that stressed perfect technique, some that stressed the fitness aspect of it and some who stressed aggressiveness. Following my level one classes, I would see the jiu jitsu students gear up and start their laps. On Saturdays, it preceded my class which allowed me to see them grapple. Intrigued, I decided to try out a nogi day. I remember nervously sitting in a ridiculously tight sausage casing known as a rash guard and talking myself into staying. I had spent my entire life learning how to strike, but the idea of fighting on one's back, smothered below a 200 pound ball of sweat... That seemed crazy. But if the majority of fights ended on the ground, I was shit out of luck. I'll be honest, that first lesson sucked. I was doing everything wrong and I was gassed out in the first ten minutes of warm-ups. The instructor was a big military guy with an officious tone and demeanor. I got the sense that if I wasn't picking it up, I had no chance of catching up. And I was definitely drowning. Why I decided to come back, I don't know. I'm not a glutton for punishment, but I suppose krav had instilled in me a shame of giving up. Like all newbies, I spazzed and smashed. I still got tapped pretty regularly but every so often I would be able to take side control and keep it by driving all my 195 pounds onto that person's chest. But I'd be spent and the second that I got swept, my ass would be handed to me. A couple months in, the instructor left and our highest rank student and krav instructor took over. I'll call him Coach. Full disclosure, I totally thought he was your average douche. When he taught krav, it seemed like he just thought the whole lot of us sucked (which might be true). There was one day when he asked all of us to ground and pound on kick shields. We all complied and after ten seconds or so of watching us, he told us to stop. "This isn't LA Boxing! When I say ground and pound, I want you to smash and drop hammer fists." He straddled the shield and proceeded to rain hell on it. Typical MMA douche, I thought. Then in my first week of gi class with him at the helm, I hurt someone. Again working the few things I knew, I smashed my training partner in side control and held her there, trying to work an arm triangle. After 30 seconds or so, I heard her cry for me to get off. I quickly obliged and found her in tears. "You were suffocating me." I asked why she didn't tap and she told me it wasn't a submission but that I was just smashing her. Now in retrospect, she should have just tapped, real submission or not. There's no crying in BJJ! But I felt terrible. So I found Coach on Facebook messenger and told him that I had hurt someone and asked advice on how to make it right. I admit I didn't expect him to reply. I just wanted to make sure that I told someone and didn't want to hide it. Imagine my surprise when I got a reply within the hour. Coach: "Take it easy on yourself. We have a lot of white belts and we all train at different levels. We spar every class and it's a combat sport. We will all get hurt at some point." And with that, he won my trust and whole-hearted commitment to the discipline. Coach got what I was going through, addressed it and provided support and encouragement. As I continued in my journey, I took note of how he never gave up - on me or any of my peers who sucked. "We have all been there," he'd say time and time again. Because of this (and his relentless, un-PC, bro humor), the team grew significantly in size. When I first started BJJ, a large turnout would be maybe a dozen people. Nowadays, we are regularly double that. And every student gets the same support and attention. No matter what we were fucking up, he'd stay with us and patiently give notes to improve our game. And over time, it did. I lost twice in my first tournament with him coaching me in the corner. Both times I stepped off the mats, he made me feel like an action hero. In class, he'd make sure to check in with me and address my game - always direct, always honest and always supportive. Never dismissive, Coach would say things like, "we'll get there." And I felt that in spades when he rewarded me with a blue belt last summer. He had set that goal for me but I was still surprised that it had happened. I still suck big time but looking back, all I see is growth. Where I once gave up, I persevere. Where I once gassed out, I have stamina. Where I once tapped, I now survive. I'm down 25 pounds from when I started Krav Maga and can regularly choke people out. And as I continue on this journey of growth and self-realization, I have no doubt who will be in my corner.
And that's ultimately it - if your life is not changing, if you're the same person you were before you underwent training, then why bother. The road is not at all easy, regardless of discipline. You will get hurt, you will get frustrated, you will lose more than you win. But that journey is made better when you have someone you trust at the wheel (and infinitely more enjoyable when he tells stripper jokes and blasts '90's hip hop along the way).
Oss to all my former and present teachers, my Coach and my teammates.
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