I’ve completed my first week of training at
Securitas and I’m bruised and sore. It’s the most amazing feeling in the world.
I can’t believe how much I missed being bruised and sore from training—and by training, I don’t just
mean my job training; in this case, I mean physical training, specifically
hand-to-hand self-defense. Also, learning how to properly use handcuffs was a
plus. I have bruises on the back base of each hand, on my left thigh, and on at
least one hand; all of them are practically invisible but I expect they could
turn color by morning.
In
moments like these,
I find myself thinking pain is weakness
leaving the body. I find myself wondering, why don’t I have this attitude towards running? I think the answer
is, before today, I hadn’t a solid enough reason
to run. Feeling sore and feeling bruises form on my body—particularly my hands,
which I use so often—has me feeling like I’ve actually felt serenity again.
This brings me to my next idea.
Humanity needs violence. Violence may not always be against other animals,
including humans; violence is simply destruction and that also happens in art.
Art, however, is not enough for me. I prefer a certain amount of structure,
which I have learned from the Art Institute, but which writing has always held
for me; I can use what I learned and what I know to illustrate the things I
write. My plan is to begin the day I buy a new Surface Pro because my friend
dropped the one I have and it broke, last year. I’m upset about the fact that
it’s been broken, but I’m not angry with my friend; she held it by the tiny
plastic thing and something happened with her body—maybe it was her bad hand
she held it with—and it dropped. I didn’t have the case for it then that I do
now and I hope a Surface Pro 4 will have the same measurements so I don’t have
to buy new shit. I digress; while I love art and I am an artist, I also need discipline in my life and the only thing—literally, the only thing—that has given me the amount I need is martial arts.
I have missed it since the day I
left in 2007. I have certificates in my file celebrating every belt transition
I made, all the way up to First Degree Red Belt. Then, before I could test for
Second Degree Red Belt (1st Degree Red is a red belt with a black
stripe through the center, run horizontally; 2nd Degree Red is a red
belt without the stripe), Sifu came to me to have a conversation—which I found
actually meant, to talk down to me and
make me feel like shit.
He told me that I wasn’t “giving it
100%.” I couldn’t fucking believe him, but I felt guilty. I felt like I was disappointing him, and he had been “Big
Sweaty Guy” in the Bill Nye the Science
Guy episode on Heat! I told him I was doing the best that I could, He, a 7th
Degree Black Belt (far and above black belt by an additional 6 level-ups or
however it works after Black Belt) at the time, told me that if I (a 1st
Degree Red Belt, remember) had to keep up with him when he led class, otherwise
he would bump me back down to White Belt. The very bottom of the belt hierarchy;
he would start me over again from scratch, after all the years I had already
put into the program and all the money my grandparents had spent.
To give you a sense of what this
meant to me, I’ll tell you the belt hierarchy, beginning with White Belt. After
White Belt comes Yellow Belt; then, Orange Belt; Green Belt; Purple Belt; 1st
Degree Blue Belt; 2nd Degree Blue Belt; 1st Degree Red
Belt; 2nd Degree Red Belt; 1st Degree Brown Belt; 2nd
Degree Brown Belt; and finally, Black Belt. I wanted so badly to make it to
Black Belt and I was willing to do anything I could to attain it without going
backwards.
I freaked out and internalized
everything he said. I vowed to keep up with him, caution be damned, and I got
hurt. Sifu led us in lunges wherein we pretended to lift someone up; thus,
while deep into the lunge, we had to lean back with our arms out like they were
around another person. Looking back, I’m pretty sure this happened because my
knee overextended my feet. Sifu had not properly taught us to lunge without
overextending our knees. My left kneecap popped out of place—and right back in
as I hit the ground like a screaming sack of potatoes.
Everyone told me to walk it off—carefully.
Everyone. It felt like it healed well enough, until I thought it had healed
well enough to wear short but skinny heels to my sophomore year Open House at
my high school. I had barely made it upstairs and started to stride down the
hallway when my knee gave out and I fell again. It didn’t hurt as badly as the
initial incident, but I limped heavily for the rest of the day and my
grandmother finally agreed to take me to the doctor.
They found that I’d broken some
cartilage off inside of my knee and they opted for arthroscopic surgery,
wherein they would remove the cartilage and create scar tissue in its place so
that it would heal better. It was agreed upon and that’s what happened; I was
on crutches for six weeks and I never went back to martial arts.
I don’t know why I didn’t go ahead
and drive to Prague regularly to take martial arts in Germany. I guess the
place lacked the structure I sought—the structure that had been given at
Lenderman’s Academy of Martial Arts. I felt that it was not worth a 2-hour
drive to have no direction before grappling with another person. If I had
learned nothing, how was I to defend myself? I saw myself then as I see myself
now: starting over. The difference is, I believe I’m finally coming to terms
with the fact that I truly am
starting over; with my fitness level, I may as well know nothing. My soreness
and bruises remind me of that.
My self-assurance that I’ve come to
terms with having to start over: I want to get
started, rather than get back to it.
Breaking my ankle the day before having Persephone—in addition to actually giving birth to my daughter—was like
pressing the reset button.
But that’s no reason to give up. It’s
just what I’ve been asking the universe for: A chance to start over.
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