The Viable Alternative

The Background:

I was a very short kid for my age. Other kids seemed to grow steadily, but I was a late-bloomer, as my parents called it.

This wasn’t my only problem. I am predisposed to gaining fat easily, muscle too – as I’ve come to find now that I strength train regularly – but, as a kid, I was short and chubby. My parents were both over-weight, so healthy-eating wasn’t well-practiced in my household, or entirely understood.

Combine these physical traits with my ADHD, and you had a recipe for disaster.

The Problem:

I was bullied constantly and incessantly. It wasn’t until a sudden growth spurt in my sophomore year of high school that I noticed a serious cessation in that aspect of my life.

Common events were:
1. Being verbally harassed, including threats of physical violence, for no apparent reason.
2. Having my backpack submerged in toilet water.
3. Having my padlock vandalized with products like Selsun Blue.

It was constant. For the longest time, I would try to defend myself, but due to sheer numbers (surprise, surprise – bullies are cowards) and size differences, I was often left bloodied, battered and emotionally-crushed. And it happened everywhere… at school, each and every time I had to utilize the facilities before and after Physical Education class, in my neighborhood, at friend’s houses, at the local pool over summer breaks, at the mall… everywhere!

By the age of eight, I had gotten involved in extra-curricular sports. I was never very good, mostly because I would lose interest easily due to my ADHD. I was fairly alright at Soccer, but was horrendous at Baseball, and spent most of the games in the dugout. This is where a fellow teammate, also relegated to the dugout, introduced me to Karate.

He had recently begun taking Karate, and was showing me techniques he had learned in his brief tenure. Being a fan of action films (oh, did I mention I was also a geek?) and superheroes, this appealed to me on so many levels. I also saw an opportunity to handle the bully situation in my life!

The Turning Point:

I spoke to my father about enrolling in Karate lessons, and my parents agreed to sign me up at the local gymnasium, where my teammate had been training. The style, as I came to realize later, was from Okinawa.

I loved it!

The Transformation:

As time moved forward, my confidence grew. Not only did I find an activity that I enjoyed, but one that satiated so many of my interests. Belt-by-belt, I ascended the ranks. Along with my growing confidence and self-defense abilities, also came control over my ADHD. It would seem the structured, disciplined system of Karate shaped me up in general. I went from being the class-clown to being a model student that teachers “wished they had a whole class of”.

There were many incidents where Karate “saved my ass”, and sent a firm message home to “leave me be”! One such example occurred when I was 10.

I had just begun middle school, and a local neighborhood boy, my age, wanted to start a “business” with me (as unofficial as it was). Basically, he’d make coasters, and I’d go door-to-door selling them.

We had initially decided on 50/50% split, and things were good for a while. It was nice to have a little income to spend. However, given time, he decided he wanted to suddenly change the rules. He wanted 70/30% split, and wanted me to reimburse him for EVERYTHING I had already earned (some of which I had spent). He incessantly pestered me, threatening me, confronting me with his friends. I warned him to leave me be, time and again, but he didn’t.

Eventually, one morning, in the school’s cafeteria, things came to a boiling point. He confronted me again, this time shoving me around, demanding I pay him then and there, or end up hurt. He told me “let’s go out back” to settle this. So, I responded with a shrug: “Why not do it here?” And with that, I threw a straight punch with a snap, just as I had been taught, smashing him square in the face — drawing a mess of blood.

He left me alone from there on out, and I guess cut his invented “losses”. So did a few others who happened to bear witness within the vicinity.

Bullies came and went, but mostly went. As my dad informed me, all it took was standing up for myself – whether it be a strong shove, or a punch to the nose. Fast-forward to my sophomore year of high school, as I had mentioned previously, and I found myself no longer being a target.

Final Words:

Since those influential Okinawan Karate days of my youth, I have studied Budo Taijutsu (while in college), and in 2011, began training in Kyokushin – a harder, full-contact style of Karate, out of mainland Japan.

I owe so much to the martial arts! I feel that the man I have become today is in no small part a product of the disciplines and skills that I picked up, and was molded by, from an early age. I’ve cultivated solid morals, courage & confidence, kindness, respect, honesty, honor and loyalty. All are tenets of the Bushido code; the virtues of the Samurai.

At this level in my experience, Karate is like a fluent language to me; someone speaks, I respond. A reflex, if you will. I don’t even need to think, I just react. Even my posture speaks volumes about me. I’ve had random strangers tell me that I walk with a confidence that is only seen in martial artists and dancers – people who know how to control their bodies. This, in and of itself, wards off trouble. Factor in my muscularity and height, and I don’t get much in the way of threats – even in NYC, even late at night, even while alone.

From my own experiences, I strongly recommend the martial arts to children. Not only to help them deal with the ugliness of the world with confidence, but also to instill upon them virtues by which to prosper in life.