You know that game, “I’ll show you mine, if you show me yours”? Turns out it can be very educational for karate as well. For the past year, we’ve done school exchanges with fellow martial arts schools. During these exchanges, some of the students from our school go to their school to see how their instructors teach. Then some of their students come to our school.
Last year, we were involved with our first Karate Exchange with another Tang Soo Do school in our federation. We headed over to the other school with excitement running through our veins. To this day, I can’t tell you what I anticipated would happen, but I can tell you that whatever it was, well, simply didn’t happen. The class started easily enough, line up, warm ups, stretches, etc. Then the instructor asked everyone to get a kettle ball. Did she say Kettle? Ball? What the heck is a kettle ball? Is this some New Age form of martial arts / culinary school? Not quite, a kettle ball is a fancy way of saying a big circular weight with a handle. Being an adult, I got a heavier ball than the kids in the class. Hmm… yet another privilege of being old. After swinging this heavy ball around for a while, we were told to return them. Whew! And to exchange them for ankle and wrist weights. What!? After strapping on yet more weights, we lined up again and went through a couple of forms with weights on. It’s too bad no one was video recording this. I would have liked to see us bumbling over with these weights on. There’s nothing like punching the air, feeling the weight slide down your arm with the force. The weight continues on even though you’re done moving and takes your arm with it.
I would like to say that this was the worst of it, but alas, no. We stopped using the weights only to become human punching bags instead. As the punching bag, I had to voluntarily put my hands on my head while the puncher repeatedly hit my abdomen with center punches going from soft to hard. All the while, I’m supposed to be “breathing” my way through the punches. In no time flat, my exhales became whooshes of air followed by expletives.
If that wasn’t enough, they brought out bowls of water for god only knows what. Because we were told they weren’t for drinking. Of course, that would be too easy. Instead we were asked to place them our heads, and then proceeded to do a karate form.
Now I’m soaking wet, joints aching from the weights, and thinking I must have internal bleeding in my stomach. As the final touch, they had us group up for sparring. My sparring partner was this little kid who kicked my bottom, and I mean he literally kicked my bottom repeatedly. He couldn’t get his kicks up above my belt and for some reason constantly kicked me in the backside. It seemed a fitting ending to the day as I felt pretty beat up at that time.
Afterwards, I reflected on how much I liked our school. At least they didn’t believe in torture as an educational toolJ. This year, Master Landry was asking for volunteers to go to the exchange with the same school and I conveniently had my birthday on that date, so I excused myself. Unfortunately, I didn’t get very far. They came to our school and we did some self-defense moves which had us getting hit in the stomach while up against the wall. Sigh. I’m just going to put a sign on me, “Hi, I’m the Human Punching Bag for $9.99 you too, can punch a real live human. For an extra price, I’ll even talk, but I can’t be held responsible for what I might say.” After all, Mythbusters proved that cursing takes the pain away. And it’s a heck of a lot more satisfying then just breathing heavily.
The next exchange was with the Ninjas. They were so cute with their black outfits and little toe shoes. Oh sorry, I mean they were quite impressive, and I actually mean that. The school practices Ninjutsu as a martial art and is also located in Wallingford. They focused on showing us how to do some practical moves involving self-defense which we hadn’t been exposed to.
In standard Ninja fashion, they showed us how to be stealthy while doing the self-defense to both throw off your opponent and to not get sued later. Very practical advice if you ask me. My oldest daughter likes to pair up with me for these self-defense drills mostly because I think she likes to think of me as the “bad” guy. Problem was, the giggles got the best of her and she started laughing while trying to be the victim and then corrected my attacking technique. This made me start to think what a real-life scenario might look like if she was attacked. It might go something like this…
“Give me all of your money.”
“He he he. Hold on let me catch my breathe. He he he. Oh, you are too funny. He he he.”
“That’s it, now you’re going to get it.”
“Wait, can you punch a little straighter? I wasn’t able to deflect that just right, because you didn’t punch straight. Let’s try again.”
I shudder even thinking about what might happen if she was attacked. On the flip side, she’s a much better attacker, or I’m a much worst victim. When we switched, she threw this right hook that caught me unawares and hit me in the chin. Hmm… I think I forgot to block that. And I wasn’t even giggling!
One thing I can say about the Ninjas, they make everything look so easy, and some of it actually is. At the end of the class, the instructor from the Ninja school thanked us for having them over and if we had any issues with what he taught, then we could see him outside after class. Even if I did have an issue, who would want to take on a Ninja? You never know what they may have hidden up their sleeves, literally.
- Wendy Austin
