The Foot Fist Way
When I was maybe 11 or so, back in the mid-nineties, I got into martial arts, and let me tell you: I loved it.
My family lived in a rural Texas town called Magnolia, and we didn’t have much money. My older half-sister was living with our grandmother around this time, so it was just me, my parents, and my mostly non-verbal autistic younger brother (what you’d call “level 3 autism” these days).
I was autistic myself (level 1), but we didn't know that at the time, mostly because the definition of autism was much narrower back then. My parents had me try out different sports, but I was never really interested in them beyond just playing with a few friends in the yard. I got into martial arts after an incident where I was attacked by some older boys on the side of the highway.
What happened was that I used to ride my bike two miles or so down the highway from my neighborhood to the nearest grocery store (the nearest business of any kind, really). There was a wide shoulder, and it wasn't elevated or anything, so it was a fairly safe ride. In the store, I noticed three teenagers looking at me and kind of following me in a way I didn’t like, so I left in a hurry on my bike. Predictably (in retrospect), they followed me on their bikes, overtook me, and cut me off, forcing me to stop.
They tried to act friendly and convince me to go with them through a field beside the highway to a little wooded area around a pond, but I refused, knowing I’d be safer in full view of the passing cars. They told me they wanted the smallest one of them to learn how to fight, so he was going to fight me. I kept not responding to them and just trying to get back on my bike. Eventually, he just started punching me in the back and back of the head, but I didn’t give them anything, and I was able to get on my bike and ride off, leaving them disappointed.
I didn’t want to tell my parents what had happened, but it was pretty obvious I’d been through something, so my mom got it out of me. A cop came to our place (a mobile home on a one-mile loop in the woods off the highway), and I gave a description of the teenagers, but nothing came of it, of course.
So I began my studies of Northern Shaolin Praying Mantis Kung Fu.
Or at least that’s what my instructor Larry Brooks called it. It was also blended with karate, and we did sessions of jujutsu and tai chi as well. And on top of all that, we had a Korean flag up, which would imply some affinity with taekwondo, so it was definitely a hodgepodge.
I really enjoyed it though. My favorite part was probably all the stretching and meditation we did at the start and end of every class. (Young me would have loved yoga.) On occasion, we even devoted a full class to meditation. I remember the dojo had no windows, and one time the lights were out, so it was pitch black except for a candle in the middle of the room. This experience made its way into my short story “Sacred Geometry,” but I digress.
Not long after my parents divorced, I had to stop going to martial arts because we didn’t have the money for it. I was really disappointed, but I tried not to whine about it because I understood. If you can’t afford it, you can’t afford it. I’d made it to blue belt, and I was about to progress to purple, but we didn't have the money for the test, so that was it. Next would have been brown belt and then black.
Okay, I’ll admit it: I’m still angry I had to stop before I could earn that black belt. Not at my parents directly but at the situation. At that time in my life, I thought I’d eventually run a martial arts school of my own someday. It was important to me. This feeling reminds me of all the times my brother destroyed my artwork or held me under a blanket so I couldn’t get out or attacked me with punches and biting and headbutts. I couldn’t be angry at him directly because he didn’t fully understand what he was doing. It wasn’t within his control.
I always planned to get back into martial arts, but I never had the money or the free time. And I had kids, so if anyone was going to get into stuff like that, it would be them. I tried to get my older girl interested, but she never went for it. My younger girl seemed up for it though, so as a birthday present when she turned five, I enrolled her in taekwondo. She told me many times it was the best birthday present ever.
My dad passed away at the end of last year, and since then we've been in the process of getting moved into his old house. My daughter stopped taekwondo for a while while we were in transition, but we recently picked it back up again at a new school. This one has full family classes where I can be in the same class as her.
And so after nearly thirty years… I’m back, baby!
