There was an attempt to…know Kung Fu (Part 2 of 2)

Chapter 2: The Karate Middle-Aged Man

Fast forward from my previous post to about 35 years later…

My son was eight years old and I was looking for an activity to get him out of his head and move about a bit more. He had shown no interest in sports, and he was a small and frankly nerdy child. In my infinite wisdom, and learning ABSOLUTELY NOTHING from my past, I decided that learning some form of martial arts may be a way for him to stay fit, learn self-discipline and to teach him skills that may help protect him when the inevitable bullying would start in later life. And so we became students of kickboxing. 

Wait.  Some things are different this time around.  “Kickboxing”? “We?”

The kickboxing club was the only martial arts class nearby, and I guess I thought it would offer a pretty similar experience to karate. When looking to book the first session, they mentioned that the weekend classes were “family sessions” and enquired if I would be interested in also joining in.  In a moment’s madness, I figured it may be a way to dust off some long-forgotten skills, get a little healthier and provide an opportunity for some father-son bonding all at the same time.  What could possibly go wrong?

The classes were divided into three elements. The first element was an exercise class run by Satan himself; endless press-ups, sit-ups, and some demented party game from hell where they would play this song where you had to squat down everytime the song said “down”, and stand up when the song said “up”.  Let’s just say that the lyricist was working from a limited vocabulary and tended to repeat these words a LOT. All of this exertion would leave me completely knackered and drained of energy, which is probably not the best condition to be in for the main part of the class; punching and kicking the shit out of each other.

For this section, the family units would split, with the kids and adults going into separate groups.  It became abundantly clear that my fellow dads of the group were bigger, stronger, more experienced and more enthusiastic about violence than me, who was basically tagging along for encouragement. I spent 30 minutes each week tentatively holding a practice pad in front of my body as these muscle-bound men let rip with such force and fury that most of the time I ended up on my arse. This experience was starting to score pretty low on my list of potential fun, relaxing weekend activities.

The final, and arguably most painful element was an intense focus on stretching.  Apparently flexibility is the key to being able to kick someone taller than you on the chin, so a sizable portion of the class was dedicated to contorting your body until it audibly twanged or popped. You would split into pairs, adopt a position that would set your tendons on fire, and then your partner / torturer would be instructed to apply force to a part of your body that would stretch it even more. It hurt like buggery, but as a minor consolation, it seemed to hurt for even the Fit Dads, and so if my partner was someone who had earlier been cheerily pummeling me from one side of the dojo to the other, then I would lean into my stretching assistant duties with a little more gusto.

It became pretty clear after the first few weeks that I was not the only family member regretting the decision. All the other families of the class would leave with a smile and a spring in their step, enjoying their increasingly limber bodies (weirdos), whilst we would trudge solemnly to the car, and spend the rest of the afternoon aching, groaning and applying ice packs.  And so, in the ultimate father-son bonding experience, we both quit together.

It seems that neither of us is genetically disposed to strike first, strike hard, with no mercy after all, and that sits fine with me. Anyway, I’ve long since discovered that self-discipline is overrated, that you can get out of most potential scrapes using your wits rather than resorting to fisticuffs, and that my tendons are absolutely fine at the length they currently are, thank you very much.