“Why would you do Martial Arts?”

     I get that question all the time.  I wonder if anybody else has to explain why they go into the sport of their choice.

     Do people ever have to explain why they took up hockey or football or tennis?  Maybe…

     But at least it beats the response “Whoa, I’m not going to do anything to piss YOU off…”

     Ya know what Sparky?  You probably shouldn’t be doing anything to piss anybody off.  The world’s just better that way…for everyone.

     But as for the question about why…the answer is I sort of fell into it.

     I was one of those tall, gangly grade-school kids with more brute strength than their lizard-brain can effectively manage.  That’s right, a klutz, if you really must put that fine a point on it.  As a kid who moved around a lot until I was dumped in the middle of bum-fuck-egypt with no kids my age for miles around, my socialization was…spotty at best, and it didn’t help that our house was cleansed of anything vaguely resembling popular culture.

     I struck out at kick ball.  I didn’t get the jokes when other kids did Saturday Night Live bits.  And I didn’t know enough about popular music to even tell you the names of the groups I didn’t know.  I used words like “intrepid” and “serendipitous” naturally and correctly.  I sometimes forgot where I was and quoted Milton at inappropriate times, and yet managed to land in the lowest possible track (have I mentioned I don’t test well?)

     I came home and complained to my mother that she and Dad were turning me into a huge monster dork, and this wasn’t funny anymore.

     My mom’s solution was ballet, tap and jazz lessons.  I spent three years earnestly and precisely replicating the movements in the fashion of an earnest and precise lumberjack doing ballet.

     In case you’re sitting on the edge of your seat wondering if this made me one iota cooler...you’re not from around here, are you?

     So I stuck to piano and cello, as they were things that, while I screwed them up and made myself ridiculous doing them…I could screw up and make myself ridiculous while sitting down.

     Fast-forward through the next few years where most of my physical activity was cross-country skiing in the woods, where no-one could see me, bike riding for miles and miles on deserted country roads, and the inevitable annual Presidential Fitness Award ritual of geek humiliation.

     We became a foster family.  My first foster brother was a boy from Vietnam with severe emotional problems.  After he and a bunch of other boys got beat up by a gang of kids from my school (one of the boys was nearly killed), many of the Vietnamese kids began taking Karate through the local Community Ed.

     Long story longer, it was in the middle of this term that my foster brother’s emotional problems caught up with him.  He was shipped off for more intensive and professional help, and mom was stuck with these classes she’d paid for, and couldn’t get out of.  So she brought me there and dropped me off “Have a good time!”

…and I did.  Holy cow!  It was fun, and it was not just a matter of being physical.  You had to be smart too, and earnest and precise, and moving like a lumberjack wasn’t that big a deal.  Most of the students were grown-ups, or other kids who acted more like grown ups than the feces-flinging yahoos I dealt with at school (I think we’ve covered that I was the kind of girl who used the term “feces-flinging Yahoos” with full cognizance of it’s Swiftian origin – God!  Such a geek.  I shake my head and sigh).

     For the first time in I don’t know how long, I was in a safe, supportive social situation.

I was among people for whom effort, dedication, progress and a good attitude were the going social coinage.  I stayed there the last two years of high school, and another year or so after that.

     I found out I could be good, and competitive, and win trophies.  Even when I wasn’t good, people took the time to try and help me get good.  My posture improved.  I stopped trying to get out of ass-kickings, and started giving back what was given to me.  I even learned, though joint locks and pressure points, how to make big nasty icky bully boys yell like girls yet not leave a mark on them.  I got in less trouble, and I was a whole lot less miserable.  The harassment and bullying revealed its true form when nobody who was picking on me dared to do it face-to-face.

     The more the pressure receded, the more well-adjusted I became.  The more well-adjusted I became, the more I enjoyed life, was happy, and could let go of a lot of crap that had been holding onto me.  Though it was a few years before the transformation really took off, and though it is still far from complete, I have to say that Karate most likely saved my life.

     I’ve been in the Martial Arts off and on pretty much since then, dabbling in various styles and schools here and there, but unable to deep them up due to money, children, time…basically not serious until I found my Kung Fu School, where the culture and pace most closely mirror that of my original school.

     I don’t know if that answers the question, really.   I happened to find the right sport, with the right coach at the right time…and it suits me.  Beyond that, if you don’t get it, probably explaining it to you would be pointless.  You cannot be told what martial arts training is, you must experience it for yourself…and I’d recommend at least trying it…even, or maybe especially, if you think you could never do anything like that.