KUNG FU UNIVERSITY

When I was about 11 years old I took up martial arts at a local park for three reasons: #1 It was a free class, #2 My uncle told my mom to bring me and #3 I was tired of getting picked on. It was exactly the era in which the movie “The Karate Kid” was the rage of 80s Tweenagers. But forget the movie. I was interested in revenge. At minimum I just wanted to be able to stave off would be “jackers” in my community pestering me in the mornings during my walk to the bus stop. There were kids in the ‘hood who ran in cowardly packs. Two makes a pack by the way when you’re a skinny junior higher barely touchin’ 100 pounds with jewelry and wet clothes on.

I don’t remember my Kung Fu instructors’ names but I do remember one of the first things they ever told us. “Defending yourself is a last resort,” they said. It was synonymous with the portrayal of the biblical Jesus, not as a weakling but as a stalwart, purposeful arbiter of truth who knew when to scrap and when to lay down arms. Kung Fu added something else by way of a visual that I’d rather not dwell on. My instructor, I think “Griff” was what they called him, said, “I don’t care if someone says give me your wallet and all of your clothes. I’ll walk home naked before I’ll fight that guy.” Griff was in his late thirties and easily 250+ pounds. He was a black belt and then some. I was 11 years old and his statement was ludicrous. I thought to myself, “All I know is if some guy tried to take my stuff and I was a black belt, it’d be a bad day for that cat. Dude just walked into an —- whippin’.”

Strangely enough though, as the training ensued and I matured in the art over about a three-year period, I realized how precise and dangerous martial arts could be. I realized that an unwillingness to fight is not the same as cowardice but rather an indication of meekness, a concept new to me as a youngster. Bravado is the antidote of embarrassment, I thought prior to martial arts. But to the contrary, discretion trumps bravado and such discretion is based on the greater value of what stands to be won and lost.

The Veterans Building at Centinela Park where I learned Kung Fu was the beginning of wisdom as it pertains to being a defensive personality. Embarrassment and humiliation are so feared that we become John Daly, the golfer who recently posted a golf writer’s phone number on his Twitter page because he was fired up about a story that put him in an unfavorable light. Correction, John Daly was already the uncouth fringe PGA golfer whose tumultuous career has earned him a controversial tag. The truth is that we probably spend more time protecting our image than we do the marginalized and destitute of our world. Thank God for Kung Fu fighting.