April 27, 2009

Making It Work In The Dark

I had to drag myself to the dojo tonight. I spent most of the day outside in temperatures that were around 90 degrees, working on my yard and gardens. What else is new? By the time I had finished eating dinner, I was ready for a nap. Instead, I dragged myself to the car and arrived at a sweltering hot dojo.

Our dojo is not one of those strip-mall places with central air. There's nothing fancy or high-tech about it. We have window air conditioners that sometimes cool things off (or not). Mostly not. We have flooring that bubbles up when it's hot. When the temperatures rise in there, on the second floor, it's definitely unpleasant.

One of the most important lessons I've learned from my dad is this one: hot air rises, cool air sinks. So, I sunk onto the floor and did my stretches in a horizontal position. I don't tolerate heat well and when you stack that on top of the exhaustion I already had, I was pretty miserable.

I tied my hair up on the top of my head and the four of us in attendance, decided that the lights were staying off. We didn't need anything else heating things up. At first we could see just fine, but as the night wore on, the darkness was as heavy as the heat. It was the perfect time to build up to having a night time attacker.

Without being able to see facial expressions, and only being able to see a shadow coming at you, it felt realistic. I sometimes have a hard time following through on techniques and let people out of things before I probably should. But I didn't tonight. Each of the two guys I worked with saw the ground a bunch of times and I was proud of how I responded and what I did. It wasn't always pretty and things didn't always work the way I wanted them to, but I found myself trying to work several techniques instead of just trying one that doesn't work and giving up.

The darkness added a veil of scariness to the whole drill. You wanted to finish your opponent. The other woman and I each took a turn with each of the guys, and then we took turns attacking each other too. It was a very realistic drill that taught you something about yourself. It starts out being something you think will wreck your confidence, and then you find out it's done just the opposite.

After class, I was talking to the other woman in the locker room about the drill. We were discussing the issue of self-defense. As a woman, people tend to side with you if you're attacked and you happen to take out your attacker. But what if you're a trained martial artist, you're attacked, and you break some bones or cause other serious damage? Then what? What exactly is a woman allowed to do to defend herself in the world and how does that change when that woman just happens to be a high ranking martial artist?

It's an interesting question and it made me think about a conversation I had with one of the builder guys the other day. He was fixing something on the exterior of my house and I was planting some flowers. He noticed I was kneeling funny and asked me about my knee. I told him about my surgery and he asked me how I had injured myself.

"Karate. I was sparring at the time" I told him.

He asked me how long I have been training and what rank I was. I told him my next rank testing will be for Shodan and he asked me with complete seriousness, "So, when you get your black belt, you'll have to go get your hands registered with law enforcement right?"

I laughed out loud. I think he was a little embarrassed, so I contained my laughter and told him I had heard something about that somewhere (Where did I read that anyway?), but that I didn't think I was required to do that upon getting a black belt. Am I wrong? I guess I always thought that was a joke.

It does raise an interesting question though. If a man attacked a woman on the street, and she (a trained martial artist) fought back and broke an arm, ripped a ligament, poked out an eye, and sent the family jewels packing? Would she be in trouble?

Personally, I think the guy is asking for it if he's a stranger on the street and he grabs me. Of course, there's the issue of appropriate force; but when it comes to it being a stranger on the street? I'm not taking any chances. It's my life we're talking about here.

What would you do if attacked on the street by a complete stranger? How would you feel as a juror, on a case where an attacked woman beat the living daylights out of her attacker or even killed him? These are interesting questions and I'm going to do some research of my own and see what I can come up with on this topic.