Sometimes You Learn the Most From A Well Intentioned and Calculated Butt Whoopin'

By: Shawn Kovacich
Submitted: 2007-01-17 16:26:26
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As you may and should well know, three of the many tenants of almost any martial art are respect, self-discipline, and self-control. These tenants should be applied to every situation, even those where you think they shouldn’t. A prime example of this comes from my own personal experience with a senior classmate of mine when I was just a green belt.

This senior student happened to be a girl by the name of Deanne, who at the time of this incident was a blue belt. Now Deanne was a unique individual in the fact that she was shall we say, “Her elevator didn’t go all the way to the top floor.” As a matter of fact, I often wondered if her elevator ever left the lobby. According to some of the more senior students, this was due to the fact that she at one time had been involved pretty heavily into drugs and had gotten into a pretty bad car accident where she had sustained some serious head injuries.

To say that Deanne was hard to get along with is the understatement of the year. This girl was so incredibly hard to get along with that you could easily forgot the fact that she had been a drug addict and in a very serious car accident. Some times, you almost even forgot that she was a girl. I mean this was a very difficult person to even be around, let alone interact with. Anyhow on this one particular evening, our instructor came out to the warm-up area and informed us that we were going to be sparring during our class time. So in order to get the most sparring in during the time we had, we were to stretch before class and to make sure that we had the necessary protective gear on ahead of time. Now at that time the only protective gear we wore were groin cups for men and shin and forearm guards for everyone. I of course had forgotten my sparring gear at home, including my groin cup. We can all see where this is going can’t we.

As the beginners class ends my class, the intermediate class, gets called out into the dojo. We line up and bow into class and then we make two lines facing each other. This way you end up sparring with every person in the class at least once by rotating partners after each round. We must have sparred for at least five or six rounds when I found myself paired with Deanne. Now for some unknown reason, girls have this natural tendency to kick low seemingly every time and always when you are not wearing a groin cup. Whether this is purely accidental or something on a genetic level I don’t know, but I do know that it happens.

Anyhow, we start the round by first bowing to each other and then shaking hands. While we are shaking hands I mention to Deanne that I did not have my groin cup on and to please be careful kicking. What a waste of time and words that turned out to be. For no sooner had we started sparring than Deanne kicked my right square in the groin. Now contrary to what you may have heard, getting kicked in the groin does not necessarily put you out of the fight right away. There is usually this short period of time in between the actual blow and the pain. This is where you usually ask yourself the following question, “I wonder if this is going to…,” which is where you usually stop because you are either bent over or lying on the ground in pain. In my case, I was leaning against the wall in pain while Deanne kept punching and kicking me.

At this point I told Deanne to stop as she had kicked me in the groin. However, as was usually the case with Deanne, she pretended not to hear me and continued her attack. I repeatedly told Deanne to stop as she continued attacking me. Finally, after several attempts to get her to stop, I got angry and with a dose of adrenaline proceeded to deliver a very hard and damaging side kick right into her left breast. Now for those of you that still live in a cave and haven’t interacted with any women, breasts are sensitive and do feel pain when handled roughly, especially when struck with a great side kick.

Immediately after kicking Deanne, she fell to the ground holding her left breast and screaming in very real pain. Meanwhile, I am leaning against the wall in a bent over position trying to get my breath back and hoping that everything was still where it was supposed to be and in working order. Of course, everyone stops sparring to see what the commotion is all about. Sure enough here comes my instructor to find out what had happened.

Deanne immediately starts screaming that I had intentionally kicked her hard in the breast. Although that wasn’t the exact terminology that she had used at the time. My instructor turned to me and asked me if that was true. I replied that it was, but only after she had kicked me in the groin and then continued to attack me even after I had told her several times to stop. Of course when my instructor asked Deanne about this, she told him that she hadn’t heard me say stop. Likely story!

I was given a couple of minutes to recuperate while the class continued sparring and switching partners periodically. After about 10 minutes, my instructor walked over to me and asked me how I was doing. I told him that I was fine, but still sore. He asked me if I could continue sparring and I told him yes.

As I stepped out onto the dojo floor, my instructor put himself opposite me for the next round of sparring. What happened next was not a common occurrence with all of the students in our dojo, just a few of us that were for a lack of a better term “singled out” for additional or special training. As soon as the command to begin sparring was given, my instructor proceeded to continuously and soundly beat the hell out of me from one end of the dojo to the other. This went on for about 20 minutes, although it seemed and felt like an eternity. When my instructor had finished, I was a bruised and battered mess that was barely able to remain standing. Class was dismissed for the night and the students went to the changing rooms to change clothes and leave for the night.

As I was slowly and gingerly making my way off the dojo floor, my instructor called for me to go to his office, which just so happened to be in the totally opposite direction of the change rooms. So, rather than being able to limp my way back to the changing room to lick my wounds, I had to run across the entire dojo in order to meet my instructor in his office. As my luck would have it, I didn’t make it there quick enough and had to do push-ups for being to slow. Obviously, not having a very good day!

Once in his office, my instructor told me to sit down for a minute. He then asked me if I knew why he had beaten me from one end of the dojo to the other. I told him no, that I didn’t know why he had done that, and that I didn’t feel that it was right. Deanne had kicked me in the groin first and then refused to stop her attack even after she had been asked several times to stop. My instructor proceeded to tell me that he sympathized with me and the circumstances of the situation. However, he felt that how I had reacted was wrong and he proceeded to explain to me why he felt that way.

Even though I was a lower ranking student than Deanne, I was much more skillful and a lot more powerful than her and needed to learn to control those skills even in the face of adversity and pain. Also, even though she was a higher ranking student, I had to take into consideration that not only was she a girl, but also that she had other more troubling issues that she was dealing with. Now I am not going to sit here and try and tell you that I understood or even agreed with any of this at the time. As a matter of fact, I detested her even more for putting me in this position where I had gotten a worse beating after being kicked in the groin by her in the first place.

My lack of concern was evident to my instructor as he promised me that he knew what I was feeling right now, and that one day I would understand what he meant and why he did what he did. As he dismissed me, he had one final comment for me, “That which doesn’t destroy you makes you stronger.” Now I am going to be completely honest here and tell you that I really didn’t care about any philosophy or reasoning behind any thing at this time. All I cared about was my aching groin, along with the rest of my body. I got to the change room and changed my clothes before driving a very uncomfortable 35 miles to get back home.

It wasn’t till several months later that the lesson of that night became clear to me. A lot of the reason why it took so long was due to my own anger and refusal to look at the situation from anything other than my perspective. This was a lesson that I had to learn again a couple of more times over the years. Here is what I learned from that experience.

1. Even though Deanne was a higher ranking student, I was still more skillful than her and needed to temper that skill with patience and understanding.

2. Learning to control my mind and my body even when injured.

3. As a man, my instructor understood the pain I was going through after being kicked in the groin. However, as an instructor, complete control and discipline had to be maintained in the dojo. In other words, I was made an example of for the other students benefit.

4. The beating I was given by my instructor was not only a lesson, but also a test to see if I had what it took to excel in the martial arts and become a martial artist, not just a marital hobbyist.

5. And finally, sometimes it takes a wiser man to let a slight or injury pass without retaliation, rather than striking the offending person back.

Do I ever regret kicking Deanne? Without hesitation the answer is, NO! For if I hadn’t of kicked her, I wouldn’t have learned everything that I did. On a side note, every time I had to spar with here after that I would casually remind her of what happened and asked her ever so nicely to be sure she kept her kicks up. I never got kicked in the groin by her again.

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