As a 5 year old I remember watching the Olympics with my family and knowing I wanted to be a professional gymnast. There was a gym next to my preschool and all my friends were taking classes. I wanted to do flips, cartwheels and back handsprings so badly! My family wasn't poor by any means, but there was no way my folks could cough up the cash for enrollment. I was devastated.
My parents both worked full-time; I spent 40+ hours a week in preschool and more time with babysitters from all over town when they had to work late. As a consolation for not putting me on track to be the next Shannon Miller, they offered to enroll me in the dojo next to my preschool to study traditional karate. This was not what I'd had in mind. But, I agreed to give it a try and two afternoons a week for the next year one of the teachers would take me by the hand and walk me to and from karate class. They didn't make a gi in my size so my cuffs would be rolled 5 or 6 times over before class and would be dragging behind me completely unraveled on my walk back from the dojo.
I didn't take to martial arts at first. I liked the belts and the stripes and the games, but for a 5 year old with ADHD the hour long classes where most of the students were adults was an attention bending nightmare. I stuck it out, though, being told by my dad that I could only quit after I got my black belt. I plodded along like that for years.
I was a timid kid. The katas and drills were fine but I put off sparing for as long as I could. This was pertly because my parents couldn't afford the mandatory sparring gear, but mostly because I was scared. Who in their right mind wants to get punched?! I think I was 9 when an instructor sat down with me and had a heart to heart. I f I wanted to get my green belt, he said, I would have to spar at the test. I protested but there was no way around it. I told my parents, hoping they would let me quit given this new financial burden. I was dismayed when the next week, my dad brought home a new red sports bad filled with all the dipped foam pads I needed. I was going to have to spar.
The first hour of the test was pretty standard, we punched, kicked, and went through our katas as a group. Then came time for sparring. We had junior classes at that time so at least I wouldn't be fighting an adult, but sitting down to gear up for the first time, I realized I had no idea how to put this stuff on. I was still still trying to figure out what pads went on which body parts when my class mates were already starting their second rounds. A women who assisted with the classes noticed me in the corner, trying to wrap a shin guard over my tiny fists and took pity on me. She helped me with the equipment and coaxed me into biting down on the mouth guard we didn't realize needed to be molded beforehand.
Holding back my gag reflex from the over-sized mouthpiece, It was time for my first match. It was me versus a 12 year old boy named Adam. The match started. I backed away. He pursued. I backed away. I backed all the way into the far mirrored wall when the instructor stopped the match and pulled us back. We started again. I backed away.
Rinse and repeat a few more times, and the instructor finally pulled me aside and said, "What are you afraid of?" I didn't answer. I hated conflict. My coping mechanism for personal conflict was the same as my sparing strategy: retreat. "Well?" he repeated. I said nothing. "What, are you afraid of getting hit?" I hesitantly shook my head. He didn't buy it.
"Here," he said, pulling my arms up into more or less a fighting posture. Without warning, he smacked me in the side of my headgear with an open palm, and I stumbled. It wasn't a hard hit per se, but definitely harder than any of my pears could muster. "Come on," he said, "Hands up." He it me again. I was confused, but not upset. It wasn't a pleasant feeling, getting smacked in the head, but not really painful. Nothing like a bee sting or taking a softball to the eye.
I put my hands up again, biting down hard on my mouthpiece. "I can do this all day," I thought. He sung to hit me again, but this time with a closed fist. It stopped millimeters from my 9 year old nose. "Aren't you gonna do something?" he said, growing impatient. I slowly performed an upper block, struggling to push his arm up and away from my face. "Good start," he said.
It went on like this for what felt like forever when he stopped me and said, "You know tag?" I nodded. "Let's play tag, I hit you I get a point; you hit me, you get a point." We started again, picking up speed. He landed three quick punched to my mid section. "Three-Nothing." He landed three more. "Six - Nothing." He started a third barrage when something inside clicked, and I attacked. I landed punch after punch in his large beer belly. I was winning! In retrospect, this grown man was no doubt letting me unload technique after technique, occasionally throwing in a slowly placed arm or leg that I deflected easily.
After what seemed like an hour or no time at all, he stopped the match and asked, "How do you feel?"
"Uh," I said, not yet having mastered the art of talking through a mouth piece, "Good?" Remember, I was 9 and not really emotionally literate.
He laughed, "Good. Now go sit down; you're done."
And then I felt it. A sting of disappointment. I wanted the match to go on. I wasn't having "fun" really; this wasn't a giggly sleep-over game. But, I felt good. Really good. I was energized but also focused. Years later I might have called this "being in the zone," or even associated it with the feeling I got experimenting with cocaine in college. This was awesome.
I wanted more.
I started to train every day. I sparred whenever I could and began entering myself in tournaments - the first real competition I had ever experienced.
There was something primal and fulfilling about the kinesthetics, the human contact, the mental focus inherent to martial arts. Years later I would study meditation and realize this fullness I experienced came from allowing myself to be present in the moment. Some call it being mindful. What martial arts allows for is a synchronizing of mind, body and spirit, pushing out all things past and future and allowing your, your whole self, to get on the same page and work as one.
I would go on to earn my black belt, teach karate, take up wrestling, study yoga and train in martial arts from around the world. For the past few years I've grown to love Brazilian Jujitsu.
As a kid with too much energy for her own good, learning disorders and serous problems with authority, my life could have taken a very different path. I was lucky on a number of levels and have been blessed by countless people shaping the person I have become and the one I'm growing into.
One of those people was my dad, who bought sparring gear on credit to help me continue with a sport I wasn't interested in pursuing. Another was that instructor who gave me that first taste of what living in the moment feels like (and that getting punched isn't such a bad thing).
I started this website to help other women feel what I felt that first time in the ring, experience the joy of living in the present and overcome the obstacles standing in the way of the lives they want to be living. I can never repay the countless people who helped me succeed over the years, but I'm hoping I can start to pay it forward.
All the Best,
Kris