My two children both attend Karate classes at least twice a week. The eldest is a brown belt and the nipper is a green. The littlen’s mind wanders a bit too much for his brilliance to shine through, but the eldest is very good indeed and won a student of the year award from the club – it turns out she has a real talent for kicking ass.
On Sunday I was involved in a pressure point seminar run by the club (I videoed it for them) and at the end, as a result of speaking to the chap who runs the club, I talked myself into attending a self defence class, today.
I was rather apprehensive about going. I had never done anything like it before and being slightly neurotic, I worried about several things, not least that I wouldn’t be able to string two moved together and I’d look like a complete fool in front of a bunch of black belt perfectionists and get my ass kicked. Also, knowing about the whole respect thing from the kids lessons I was anxious about being late for the session.
When I had discussed it with the Renshin (Karate instructor) on Sunday, I was sure he said it started at 8:30pm. Being of that paranoid frame of mind I checked this with wifey who confirmed it. I arrived at the car park at 7:45 and found the room in the gym where the session was to be held. At about 8:05 I looked through the window and there was already a class in session (I expected this as wifey also said there was an earlier class). As the room was quite small and I didn’t want to disturb them and show disrespect, I killed some time until 8:20 and went back to the gym.
Looking through the window again, I saw that there were quite a few faces there I knew from the kid’s Karate sessions and so I quietly shuffled in. One guy, who we shall call Bob, a northerner who teaches the kids on Mondays made the mistake of making eye contact so I hooked him. Poor Bob.
It was about then I found out that the class from earlier was THE class, it started at 8pm, just before I arrived the first time. Fantastic.
I was feeling very much a fish out of water. I didn’t know what to do or what to expect and I give all credit to Bob he was extremely patient. It turns out Bob is a special needs teacher and so is used to helping less able individuals. Bob exhibited the patience of a saint.
My biggest fear at this point was hurting the guy. I am pretty chunky and Bob is quite small. I have seen him take many blows and hits in the sessions with the kids, but he is so nice that in my ham fisted attempt to follow instruction, I didn’t want to do him a crippler. Showing perhaps too much restraint at times, I made it through the session without inflicting too much pain on Bob and building the associated guilt on my part. Bizarrely I was very conscious that my behaviour might reflect badly onto the kids (there’s a turn-up for the books, its meant to be the other way around surely?)
Bob was in control all the time of course but had a way of boosting my confidence enough to make me think I was doing it right independently – the art of a good teacher I guess.
I am used to seeing Bob teach my children. I kind of assumed that is why he was at this session. In discussion he described his level of expertise in the techniques we were performing, his being 1 or 2 on a scale of 1 to 10. The chief instructor being 10. I reflected this on the way home and thought perhaps he was actually there to learn instead – here’s where the neurosis kicks in, because now I feel guilty because I commandeered his time and held him back in some way.
We looked at the dynamics of knife attacks, pushing and some pressure points, all useful if you have the presence of mind to use them when some nutter is trying to kill you. The “it just comes naturally” bit will develop with time I am sure, but at the moment grabbing another guys hand and trying to hurt it without really hurting it is a little alien to me.
So here’s the thing, I was apprehensive about going because I didn’t want to be injured when after all was said and done, it was me that beat myself up.
I’ll go again next week, it was odd, but fun. Next week though, I’ll pick on someone other than Bob for his sake.
Just fetch me a splint because I don’t think the next guy will be as kind.