Hit me
The other day I went bicycling around Stanford campus to burn off energy. I found myself eventually at the main quad, for lack of a better term (it's more of an oval), where I lay down on the grass to relax a bit. I had wanted to find a group of college students playing a serious game of Ultimate Frisbee or something, something that I could watch and make the players feel important. Make the girls (and gay men?) try to show off a little cause a boy was watching.
None of that was happening, but I was already lying in the grass and I didn't want to move. The nearest thing to me was student in full karate garb, doing poses and walkthroughs or whatever you call those things that people who know karate do when they're showing you that they know karate. Two other people were filming him with a couple more standing by. Clearly some project for a class, though I can't reliably guess what.
I wanted to get up and run at the guy doing karate poses and attack him. Full out attack, no mercy. I wanted to call Karate's bluff. Karate is this thing, this martial art form, that I've only ever seen at two extremes: the carefully calculated poses that you learn in classes, and the full-out ballet of violence found in Jet Li movies. I do not believe that the first translates into the second. What would this guy do when he was actually attacked, completely unprovoked, by a crazed man who didn't follow the formulaic punches and kicks taught in a classroom setting? I've never fought anybody either, but I was pretty confident that I could win that fight if I went hard and didn't let up.
I would have done it also because there were two cameras at hand to capture the fracas. It would have been spectacular footage. But I didn't, of course, because I am too conscious of my well being and don't want to be jailed for assault or even banned from campus. Who needs that?
None of that was happening, but I was already lying in the grass and I didn't want to move. The nearest thing to me was student in full karate garb, doing poses and walkthroughs or whatever you call those things that people who know karate do when they're showing you that they know karate. Two other people were filming him with a couple more standing by. Clearly some project for a class, though I can't reliably guess what.
I wanted to get up and run at the guy doing karate poses and attack him. Full out attack, no mercy. I wanted to call Karate's bluff. Karate is this thing, this martial art form, that I've only ever seen at two extremes: the carefully calculated poses that you learn in classes, and the full-out ballet of violence found in Jet Li movies. I do not believe that the first translates into the second. What would this guy do when he was actually attacked, completely unprovoked, by a crazed man who didn't follow the formulaic punches and kicks taught in a classroom setting? I've never fought anybody either, but I was pretty confident that I could win that fight if I went hard and didn't let up.
I would have done it also because there were two cameras at hand to capture the fracas. It would have been spectacular footage. But I didn't, of course, because I am too conscious of my well being and don't want to be jailed for assault or even banned from campus. Who needs that?