 |
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martial_arts |
After I dumped yet another fucked up Irish-American kid who clung to me like I was his last drink of the night at closing time, I quit smoking and took up Mixed Martial Arts at the age of 37-going-on-38 shortly, with two pins in my left knee and much damage to the area, the result of a highly invasive knee surgery (with several DVT's afterwards) that I needed after my Giant Mal pulled me over during a too-early morning walk that was at the hectoring behest of the contentious out-of-towners living downstairs from me, put into motion to assuage their madness at life itself, none of which I controlled.
And so, unlike the rest of the typical New York crowd looking to bail out of their banal schedules at the slightest chance, I went without another drunken night at a bar (with people I couldn't stand), to train on the mats of the local McDojo that was close to my Manhattan office building, many months after the bipolar receptionist, her fat friend, and the pretty Puerto Rican kid had bailed for other places more rife with strife. I trained with their Head Instructor at the time, Sensei Jason Lopez, a man who excelled at grappling and wrestling in their style.
It was an odd time for their school, because they used to be a strip mall chain exclusive to the suburbs, now branching out due to the success of MMA as a sport, to keep up with area-wide demand for exercise programs, which was disastrous for the real athletes who paid a lot of money for expert instruction. They used to be a karate school because the Schulmann boys (two Jewish kids from Spring Valley in Rockland County) originally competed in tournaments, though even that was under a cloud of suspicion. They made wild claims with some myth that included an old Chinese man walking their Holocaust-fleeing grandparents over a rough Asian mountain chain to freedom, where they were taught many ancient mystical arts from their beloved Shifu, which made me laugh so hard when I read it online, that I was shocked by the crazies at their school who wanted it so badly to be true.
They had some bad burnouts at the Manhattan school, people dazed by the change from traditional katas to the aerobic exercise that characterizes the mixing of many arts, baffling as that was to their clientele who preferred the comfort of regularity without change. They simply couldn't keep up with the new program, and they knew it, which set up an "old versus new" student dynamic that turned ugly quickly. Of course, I was targeted by pretty much every person there, except the younger kids who wanted to date me, or at least rub up against me, if they could keep up with my schedule designed by Sensei.
Soon enough, the posers dropped away to form a small but dedicated group of training partners for me: some were good, some were bad, and some of them couldn't perform martial arts if their lives depended on it. For me, it didn't really matter. I just needed them to be consistent enough that they could hold the training mitts needed for my combos, or a kicking shield for our practices, and anyone can do that. It was in that spirit I found myself walking into an almost-empty studio one evening after work, because St. Patrick's Day often falls on a weekday here in New York, and I had a demanding art director's job that needed me to stay in business. My reputation had proceeded me, and that's not something you toss away for the same type of pint of beer you've been hoisting since at least your college days, though for my working class native crowd, it was often sooner than that.
They had a program with local law enforcement at the time of my training period there, though in truth they were looking for anyone who could be lured inside their studio space by some asshole kid with a "fauxhawk" haircut that they made stand outside on the sidewalk, handing out flyers to the passing commuters, because he was a total dick. I wouldn't buy a thing from him, and they knew that, too. So, I changed and waited upstairs with my gear on (like we'd been taught) , waiting for the current class to end so we could hit the mats at the sensei's signal, in a deep sense of order and respect that marks the true martial artist. After all, he was the one with the black belt who'd fought a thousand fights to be leading class, as he reminded us whenever he felt his crowd was drifting away in the wrong direction.
Schools with a lot of beginners need almost-constant encouraging from the staff, because amateurs without any real artistry lose heart without paying cheerleaders to rally them from the sidelines, in a paid show of support. With me it was totally unnecessary, and the staff knew that, too. They were, quite simply, blown away by me, choosing instead to give me a wide berth at the school while their lead guy taught me their classes. That night of St. Pat's was my favorite class, "Bag Training", because it was easier on my bad knee than the training that's typical for grappling classes (even with the padding), plus I depended less on the partner who held the punching bag for me. I had a "rep", as they say, which is typical for me everywhere I go.
The more frightened students who'd been coerced into classes they couldn't get a refund for, without serious injury or moving out of town (the Attorney General for New Jersey from years ago had to sue them as a chain, on behalf of the parents of injured children who never got refunds, as one Eliot Spitzer), made whispered deals in the locker room for training partners, to ensure some sense of control over what happened to them on the mats. I had no such luck, seeing as most of them women there avoided eye contact with me purposefully, to avoid partnering with me or having a conversation, so I just went with whoever didn't have a partner after sensei said "partner up" in class, like selecting kids for a hard game of dodgeball with lots of long-held grudges, except that this was the opposite.
Luck have it, I got a Mick who was enrolled with the cop's discount program, or at least that's what I remember hearing, and he certainly fit the description. During warm-ups, I got a good look at him as I sat on his feet while he did crunches. We'd been given instructions to hem the sleeves and pants of our gi's and baring that, to at least roll up our sleeves, which you wanted to do anyway, just to cool your skin in the hot dojo and get them out of the way. He'd chosen to ignore that rule, preferring instead to do the handy bachelor trick of ripping the bottom of his white gi pants into a ragged edge, giving them the appearance of floods. Further still, he was a receding hairline, salt-and-peppered, middle-aged man looking to keep up with his fitness, and I certainly understood the motivation behind that. Maybe that was part of the deal behind his bright kelly green headband, too.
Not only that, he had on dirty pants stained at the butt, also against dojo rules to always wash your gi before your next class and be freshly washed, so as to not offend your training partner. Ah, fuck that! Most of us developed the easy routine of (at least) washing our gi the night before (they were the lightweight kind), and then hanging them to dry, because packing your gym bag for the day is also part of the routine. He'd also decided to mark himself out even further as a NYPD Mick by sporting that same green sweatband around his constantly-sweating red head, in case we missed his remarkably pale pallor on the exposed skin showing below his ripped pants. Oh! Thanks!
It was with a great sense of irony that I rolled with an Irish-born male still sporting his native brogue that I could discern in the few short words he did speak to me on the night of St. Patrick's Day, while other Celts drank to exhaustion or vomiting, as he sweated with me on the bright blue mats. Could be worse, I though to myself, smelling him ripely for not the first time that night. We could be one of them on the other side of the huge pane of glass in that street-level studio, easily viewable to the drunks making fun of us as they weaved pass. We could be one of them wandering about aimlessly, in a city not of their own. Besides, I never forgot it, have I? Here I am working for all of you today at my local library, instead of some equally desperate office gig in the city, celebrating a weekday night made exceptional only through another rough commute made worse with the drunks who'd smell even riper on the evening bus out of town, if they weren't passed out already. I could be one of them instead. Go raibh maith agat.
“May you have goodness.”
