Sunday, March 6, 2011

Where Arby Learns That Sometimes Saying Nothing Is The Best Answer, or Silence Really Is Golden

Never ask a brown belt to demonstrate a karate move on you.

They will.

And it hurts.

I was standing in the kitchen the other day, thinking about karate. I learned two new escape moves Monday night, basic maneuvers that are precursors to more complicated moves that I will learn in the future. Well, I am supposed to learn in the future. One of the benefits of having carted General Mayhem to karate classes for the last seven years is that now that he is older, stronger, faster, and more knowledgeable about the martial arts than at any other point in his young life, he can show me things that I would otherwise have to wait for our sensei to teach me. That is precisely how I ended up standing in the kitchen, looking at my son and saying, “Show me.”

Now I know how curiosity killed the cat.

Having just learned from the young lad how to escape a specific grasp and place the attacker in an awkward, uncomfortable, and vulnerable position, I asked the General what move he would use next. We discussed a couple of different strikes before he said, “I would probably hit him with a knife hand strike to the armpit and hit his pressure point.”

Do you see it coming?

I said, “Show me.”

My son, being the kind and considerate young man that he is, demonstrated a knife hand strike that ended with his finger tip an inch from my arm pit.

“No,” I said. “Make contact. Don’t cream me. I’m just wondering how effective the move really is.”

Did I mention he’s fast? I didn’t see his hand slice through the air. I know that he only used about 10% of the force he could have used. Still, in an instant I couldn’t move my arm. It tingled from my shoulder to my finger tips, and hung limply at my side. My emphatic “Ow!” was answered by “I’m sorry I’m sorry I’m sorry” which, through my laughter, I assured him was entirely unnecessary since I was stupid enough to ask him to hit me and if I could only regain the use of my right hand everything would be fine.

Which I did.

And it was.

Still, we stood there staring in fascination as waves of goose bumps rolled up and down my arm. That’s when I learned that you should never ask a brown belt to demonstrate a karate move on you.

They will.

And it hurts.

9 comments:

Michelle said...

Kevin does moves with TL. they like to spar and it gets pretty intense. I'm waiting for the day I have to cart Kevin off the the hospital cause TL did some fancy move on him and hurt him. lol
Glad you're okay!

Brownie said...

Oh my! That got me laughing. I can just see it SLICE and then "I'm sorry I'm sorry I'm sorry!" Too very funny.

I'd want to make sure that kid was on my side :)

Some Guy said...

That's the problem with being from the show-me state.

Oh wait, you're in Kansas...

You could actually see the goose bumps changing? That's impressive.

Unknown said...

SG - I've never seen anything like it before. It was worth the momentary discomfort just to watch them; however, instant replays were not allowed!

TobyBo said...

experiential learning at its finest. :)

Twisted said...

Lessons are best learned when they come from a mistake and are painful. I think you learned that one best of all. Ouch! Next time have the camera rolling for us.

Oklahoma Granny said...

Oh, I agree with Twisted! Just think - you could have entered that video on AFV and won the $10,000!

Kid said...

Cool !

trashmaster46 said...

Awesome. :)