Obey My Blog

I was inspired to write this after reading Matthew Apsokardu’s post on Ikigai Way called, “Do All Martial Artists Love Violence?”

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I was shocked when I walked into last week’s Baguazhang class and our teacher paired us up to practice sparring. I was paired off with one of the more knowledgable students and we had at it. Well, sort of. I had no idea what I was doing and ended up laughing through most of it. Luckily, I had a very patient partner.

As we were going through the movements, it dawned on me just how powerful Baguazhang really is. I learned how to take someone’s head off. I learned how to break someone’s arm. I learned how to take someone’s head off and break their arm at the same time. And it doesn’t require that a person weigh 200 lbs and be ripped. I weigh half that (okay, around half that…) and as long as I am centered and low to the ground, I can very easily put enough force into a move to achieve breakage (apparently, it only takes 8lbs to snap an arm!).

I joke around in class and laugh when I’m frustated, but by no means do I wish to imply that this is something I take lightly. As I may have mentioned before, I was a little worried about getting into a harder martial art like Baguazhang.

When I was 16 years old I beat someone up. But not just anyone. I beat up a Nazi skinhead. Looking at me, this sounds absolutely preposterous. I’m quite girly and effeminate. But when I was younger I hung around some rather sketchy people at times. This particular skinhead used to bum around with some of the people in our group. God knows why. One night he decided he wasn’t going to let my girlfriends and I go home, so he jumped into the van my friend was driving, turned around and started taunting us. This pissed me off to no end. He had been pushing my buttons the entire night and finally I just couldn’t take it anymore. I looked him straight in the eyes, took my cigarette out of my mouth and swiftly put it out on his hand. He screamed, pulled his hand back in pain and then in retaliation spit in my face. Things progressed quickly after that. I started wailing on him. I punched him over and over as hard as I possibly could. Unable to defend himself, he freaked out and ran to his friends’ car and they sped away.

The next thing I remember was that I got into the van and screamed. For what felt like an hour. I screamed and screamed. My friends stared at me in horror. Never had I felt so out of control. Even though I was defending myself and my friends, I was horrified by what I had done and felt I had taken things way too far. I was ashamed and embarrassed that I had let myself get that angry.

Some people might say, good for you! Or, you were right to defend yourself against a Nazi skinhead asshole. And I’ll be completely honest and say that a small part of me was proud that I stood up for myself. But still…that whole situation left a bad taste in my mouth and an uneasy feeling that I can’t quite name.

That is just not a good place for me to be in.

I didn’t then and I don’t now want to be the kind of person who reacts with anger and retaliates with violence. And just because I know how to break someone’s arm, doesn’t mean I want to actually do it – or even should.

Granted, it would take a lot more Bagua training for me to really do some damage, but the more I learn, the more aware I am of how easy it is for us to hurt each other. And how restraint and not acting out of anger are far superior to any dangerous kung fu moves I could possibly learn.