In my class/age group there were two tall lanky kids, so they tended to partner up. And then there were a couple of smaller kids and some girls and they all tended to spar and/or work together. In the middle there were four of us: me, Arturo, Jackie, and Robert. Arturo was a Hispanic kid who was almost identical to me in size and skill. Robert was this kind of awkward kid with Coke bottle glasses. And then Jackie showed up, who was maybe an inch or two shorter than the rest of us, but he hit harder and faster than the rest of us. Starring with Robert was always fun because we had to wear headgear, and so all you had to do was tap his headgear which would send his glasses askew, and then you could just punch and kick him at will while he tried to fix his glasses. Arturo and I were a coin flip; sometimes I won, sometimes he won. Then Jackie arrived and like I said, he was just a gifted athlete. Whenever the teacher said "grab a partner," boy did I try to grab Robert to Arturo. We had these big pads shaped like a couch cushion but covered with vinyl, and we would hold them and let kids kick them over and over. And if you did that with Jackie he would kick through the bag with his freakishly strong karate power and hit you in the gut.

Aty tournaments, they would split kids up into age groups and then sort us by height and that's kind of how they decided who was going to fight whom. There might have been up to 20 kids, and so there were many times I went to tournaments and Jackie would be there and I would start scooting down the line or swapping with people just so we didn't have to fight in the first round.

The thing in retrospect is that I wasn't faster or stronger or better than most other kids, but I was just smarter. I could just watch a kid and be like, okay, this kid keeps his hands down so I'll tag him in the back of the head. And then the next round I would be like, now I'm gonna fake a shot to his head and when he blocks it, I'll hit him in the stomach. It just seemed like I was always a couple of moves ahead of the other kids. And that'll get you far, but when you run into someone who's actually talented, that stuff gets negated. Again, Jackie was just outperformed and out-thought all of us. At my school, in my bracket, I was Scottie Pippen.

Did you guys have kids in your classes that you delighted in sparring with?

That's the thing most people don't realize, that most fights end up on the ground anyway so the more you can do from the ground, the better off you are.

Our instructor drilled it into us that karate was the last option. Kind of like those "Run, hide, fight" videos they use for workplace violence, our teacher would say the first option is to try and talk your way out of a fight, then try to run away, and if you can't get away, look for a weapon. Using your hands and feet was like the final option... and in a real situation, "hands and feet" really means "elbows and knees."

This is a weird generalization on my part, but I don't believe there should be black belts on the planet that I can beat up. Just this week a Facebook friend of mine posted that their daughter (12? 13?) just earned a black belt. I'm sorry, but I don't think there's a 13YO girl on the planet that I couldn't beat up. I just think that devalues the rank.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VWPeZjnokLE

Don't know if I ever shared this, but I was a member of the "junior demo team" and we would occasionally go perform at events and stuff. This was at the state fair, and I'm the one in all black. Our teacher was Jim Butin, who is a 10th degree black belt and a member of the national karate association. He is in the TKD hall of fame and started fighting in the 60s in the bare knuckle leagues. He was a good teacher and a good mentor.

Here's a blurb about Jim: https://beyondthefighting.com

Haha! I knew Flack would have some cool stories to tell. That's cool as hell you still have those certificates. I want to say mine are buried in a closet with my belts. You karate school sounds a lot like the one I wanted to join. It was in downtown King (small mountain town I grew up in) and in the 80s I was poking my head in there every chance I got. I recall a blonde haggard looking woman being the main teacher. Begged my parents to let me join, they wouldn't let me because they said "I wouldn't like it." and instead somehow I ended up in little league football for 2 and a half years.. despite never even learning the game until I played Madden '97. Hated it most of the time but I didn't work up the nerve to quit until the 3rd year.

Around 7th grade, I had a friend in math class who went to the karate school I wanted to attend so badly. He used to put on demos with another kid for the talent show. He was a little overweight, but he seemed to know his shit. He told me that basically yeah they were telling them to avoid fights if at all possible. They were also tied very closely to a local church. Perhaps that's why my mom didn't want me going. She generally encouraged that I avoid church people in general, but that's rather hard in a little mountain town lol.

[quote=Flack post_id=137926 time=1686574995 user_id=840]
One of the most important lessons I learned from karate was that it's not the end of the world to get punched in the face.
[/quote]

This is [i]extremely[/i] important! The first time I sparred in my dojo (I didn't begin until I was 19 so I was put in the "grown ass men" class) the first thing I did was turn my back and try to get away from a flurry of punches. Stupid, stupid, stupid. As soon as I did the guy I was sparring kicked my in the back of the head lol. One of the guys is howling in laughter as he says "That's why you can't turn your back!!" But yeah, after that getting hit was just something I got used to. I got beat up a LOT in that class for about the first year and a half. My bosses at the time would make jokes like "Mike why you keep paying 60$ a month to have old men kick your ass?" as I'd come in limping, black eyes, random cuts, etc.

So, while I have a good handful of dojo stories.. I'll share the one of how I came to be at the one I went to. When I was 19 I had a couple of friends who had returned from USMC bootcamp that were fucking ripped and very intimidating looking. Skateboarding had been my primary source of working out nearly all my life aside from that time in little league. While certain things about the marines really interested me, a lot of other things did not like basically having no life of your own for long periods of time and you have to piss clean. I was watching a lot of anime at the time and one of my favorite movies was a very brutal anime called "Ninja Scroll". After watching that one night I was like OK that's it. I want to learn how to fight like that. I've got to find a school. So I start researching different martial arts. Basically as silly as it sounds I wanted to learn the closest thing to ninjitsu as I could. That's when I learned about Ju-Jitsu. This is taught in the military and while it's known as "the gentle art" certain ju-jitsu schools teach "combat/stealth style" which is basically a fancy way of saying they show you the easiest way to kill people with your bare hands.

Anyway, I'm talking to my dad about this interest and he's like "Well if you are serious about this sort of thing I work with a guy who teaches something like that. I can let him know you'd like to come check it out." The following weekend I went to not only watch but participate as much as I could for 15 or 20$ for a couple hours. No gi yet, just sweatpants and t-shirt. Had long ass hair at the time so pulled up it with a rubber band Haohmaru style. I had no idea that most of class was spent grappling on the floor.. what looked to me like some weird form of wrestling (and I hated wrestling but damnit it was time to learn) The professor witnesses the head kicking incident and sees me flailing around in general then asks me to meet him in his office. Uh-oh.

Professor Tony Maynard is his name (he's still alive last I checked) and this dude is a huge Lumbee Indian. Plaques all over his wall.. one of the most impressive saying "Grand master of Small-Circle Ju-Jitsu". He tells me to sit down and asks.. "So why are you here, son?" I was like "Um well I think my father mentioned to you that I'm very interested in learning ju-jitsu."

He kicks back in his chair and says "Son, it's just.. I don't get too many people your age here trying to start from the beginning with zero training in anything. I can't put you in the kids class and most of the guys here are nearly twice your age or more. This is going to be very difficult and while I'm willing to take you in, we don't run a black belt factory here. Very few people get black belts here. It could take 10 years, less, or never happen."

I told him I didn't care about rank and that I really just wanted to learn. At that point his demeaner totally changed as he smiles and says "Ha! Well! Good! Good! That's a good attitude to have going into this." Then he hooked me up with my gi and my own gloves and feet pad things, and a class or 2 later I shaved every damn bit of that hair off my head to keep it from being in my face and being pulled.

It all depends on where you went, I think. The guy who ran the place I went to was really family oriented. He always stressed alternatives to fighting and gave rewards if you brought a good report card from school in, stuff like that. I know there was a place on the other side of town that was pretty rough. Rumor had it that over there they had sparring matches on Friday night, and sometimes the owner would come in drunk and beat up on people. My parents were always threatening to pull me out of karate if I ever started a fight, which of course I had no intention of doing.

One of the most important lessons I learned from karate was that it's not the end of the world to get punched in the face. I was surrounded by bullies constantly threatening to punch my face in, and then I started going to karate three times a week where I was getting punched and kicked by other people on a regular basis. Once you get over that initial reaction of flinching, turning your head, or closing your eyes every time somebody takes a swing at you, you're a lot better off.

My motorcycle's license from '87 says I was 5'4" and 140 pounds. My driver's license from two years later put me at 5'10" and 200 pounds. At that point I was big enough to take care of myself. I don't mean to make it sound like I grew up on the mean streets of the suburbs -- I can literally count all the fights I've been in on one hand -- but karate for me was less about learning how to fight and more about learning not to be afraid of fighting.

In the mid 90s, I saw my old teacher was throwing a tournament at a local gym. I had been out of karate for 7 or 8 years at that point, but was still in reasonably good shape. I struck up a conversation with my old teacher and at one point floated the idea of coming back. He said that would be great, and also said I would have to start over as a white belt. I don't know why but that felt really embarrassing to me and so I never went back.

It sounds like 10 is a good age to enroll oneself in martial arts? You guys seemed to make it through without becoming psychos, like in the Cobra Kai show, which is my only other reference for this.

[img]https://i.imgur.com/PiIEq3x.jpg[/img]

Funny timing. I was visiting my mom today and she was going through a bunch of old papers in her cedar chest and ran across all my old belt test certificates. When I started they only had white, orange, green, blue, brown, and black belts. By the time I was a green belt they added yellow (between white and orange) and purple (between blue and brown). The orange belt certificate is dated December of '83, and the brown belt one is February of '87. I was planning to test for black belt in the fall of '87, but they changed the rules and said you had to be 18 to test for black belt. I was 15, and quit around the time of my 16th birthday.

When I was ten I came home crying one day because I had taken my ventriloquist doll to school and told everyone when I grew up I wanted to be a professional magician. My dad had the fortuity to enroll me in karate about ten minutes after that, which probably saved me from dozens of ass-kickings over the years. I still got picked on for a while until I finally had one of "those" moments where I finally had to stand up for myself. One head kick later and everyone pretty much left me alone after that.

I really enjoyed tournament fighting and was ranked in the top 10 in my age group several years in a row. I had a bunch of trophies and t-shirts and really enjoyed that time. That being said, I currently have the stamina of a dead moose and flexibility of a 2x4. Part of me wishes I had stuck with it just for the health benefits if nothing else, but in the summer of '87 I got my driver's license and my first job and other interests took over.

No. I like hearing about it however.

[quote=Jizaboz post_id=137901 time=1686478270 user_id=910]
In true BLUE fashion.. asking if anyone here ever attended Karate, Judo, etc classes. (Pretty sure Flack has a story to tell again here)

I'll add my own experiences in the Small Circle later if I get some other stories. I talked to a fucking COP today. Who amongst us is a TRUE ninja?

And if you don't answer then you all fucking hate me and don't fucking care about this then reee reee mothafuckas
[/quote]
"What was it you said befoah? Oh yeah, yippiee-ki-yay, motha fucka."
- Hans Gruber, [i]Die Hard[/i]

The closest I ever got was a visit into a dojo maybe fifteen years ago. Held a target pad thing while a couple guys threw kicks at it.

In true BLUE fashion.. asking if anyone here ever attended Karate, Judo, etc classes. (Pretty sure Flack has a story to tell again here)

I'll add my own experiences in the Small Circle later if I get some other stories. I talked to a fucking COP today. Who amongst us is a TRUE ninja?

And if you don't answer then you all fucking hate me and don't fucking care about this then reee reee mothafuckas