Equalizer MM (by brucelee on Sat April 20th, 2013 3:48 PM)
I’ve changed some names, but this is basically the story of what first got me into BB
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CHAPTER ONE
At six, I was the youngest of the family. I had two older brothers: Devon was ten, Derrick was twelve. I wasn’t only the youngest kid in the family I was also the youngest kid on the street. My brothers would play rough, borrowing a lot of moves from wrestling. My parents encouraged them, especially my father. He couldn’t bare the thought of any of his sons being sissies.
When our neighbors across the street adopted a boy, Steven, who was a year and a half older than me, he quickly became a friend to me. The rough-housing and wrestling that had belonged to our backyard quickly spilled over to him. In the beginning, he didn’t particularly mind it. Then the rough play got a little rougher. The fighting with my brothers also dialed up a few notches and they could certainly hit a lot harder than I could. Our play fights were a lot less playful.
After a few welts and bruises, my parents told them to cut it out, but it was of little use. I went whining to my parents a few times about how they had hit me. My parents shrugged: “Hit ‘im back.”
“But they’re bigger than me….”
“Get an equalizer,” my dad said.
Of course, Dad had to explain what an equalizer was. A stick. A Belt. Any hard surface. Anything that would level out the playing field a little bit.
I gave the equalizer a try and it worked with varying success. I had clobbered my brother upside the head with a toy dump truck and he went crying to Mom about how I had him. Mom shrugged: “Don’t get picking on people littler than you.”
Steven was starting to be a problem as well. A year and half is actually a pretty big age difference when you’re that young. He was taller, heavier, stronger. I needed an equalizer with him as well. After one of our bouts escalated into a full blown fight, I whacked him across the face with a Wiffel ball bat. He went crying home.
Steven’s parents were more highly evolved than my Rough-neck parents. They came over in varying shades of pissed.
Dad shrugged: “Look, your boy’s a lot bigger than my boy. You don’t get to push him around and then get all pissed off when he levels the playing field.”
We shook hands and did the whole make-up thing, but clearly the game had changed. His parents decided that it was time that he learned how to fight. So, they enrolled him in karate. My parents quickly followed their lead and enrolled me in karate as well.
In our little town, there was only one karate school, unless you wanted to cross the river into the City. So, Steven and me ended up in the same class. It was taught by a man named Master Jim and a woman named Master Kim, both were black belts in their early twenties.
At first, it was a bit boring, because we weren’t really doing anything. It was all practicing how to stand and little movement drills. Then, we started looking at punches and kicks. In one of our little drills, we practiced a step punch, which was a punch aimed toward the mouth area, followed my a middle punch to an area below the ribs, then a low punch into the crotch area. The drill was finished by a snap kick to the crotch area.
To older kids and adults, the moves probably seemed strait forward, but to kids our age we were basically just dancing around. It wasn’t clear that all these moves had intended results. One day we went into class and Master Jim had not arrived yet. Master Kim was sitting in a chair and she was telling us about some of the moves we had been practicing. Honestly, it was just words and we needed to see them more visually.
Master Jim came in the door late for class and I think Master Kim was annoyed with him. She stood up and said: “Master Jim, I want you to attack me.” Master Jim came over with a confused expression, as he sat down his backpack. Master Kim stood up and they squared off.
Master Jim came forward with a punch toward her chest, which she quickly blocked and stepped to the side of. She landed a middle punch in his solar plexus and a low punch in his balls in quick succession. Both landed with a loud thud.
Master Jim gasped and made a sound like air leaking from a balloon. His face turned beat red. He stooped forward with his left hand holding his stomach and his right hand holding his balls.
Master Kim turned to face the class: “As you can see, both the stomach and groin are sensitive areas. When you hit there, it tends to cause a lot of pain.”
Master Kim turned back to Master Jim, grabbing him by the lapels of his white gi. She stood him up: “Now come at me like you’re going to choke me.” Master Jim let go of his stomach and balls and took a timid step forward. Master Kim took a step back, positioned herself and delivered a quick snap kick into Master Jim’s balls.
He crumpled to the floor at once and the entire class gasped in awe: “she just beat him up.”
I think there must have been actual tension between Master Kim and Master Jim, because her kick looked a little bit more than a demonstration. Master Jim stayed down in the floor for about five minutes, with his legs sprawled and his hands cupping his balls.
Steven and I had both learned an important lesson. You can beat someone up just by hitting them in the balls.
I really didn’t come home looking for a fight, but Devon came out pestering me right away. I was still in my white karate gi, wearing my white belt. “Come on…. show me some of your karate.”
“No,” I said. “I don’t want to.”
He huffed and a laughed at me like it was all a big joke. “Karate’s so stupid,” he said. Then, he pushed me. Without even really thinking about it, I stepped pack and positioned myself like Master Kim had down and let my barefoot fly up, connecting soundly with his balls. There were exactly two thuds: 1) my foot connecting with his balls and 2) his body hitting the hardwood floor.
I looked down and laughed at him as he writhed in the floor. With all the fights, I had with him, I had never beaten him so easily. This karate thing was really starting to work.
Steven came over to play in the afternoon. I told him what happened with my brother. While we were both excited that this Karate thing actually worked, it was still rather academic. We knew that blows to the solar plexus and balls were effective and that it made full grown men weak and helpless. We didn’t know why it worked or what it felt like. So, me and Steven set out to practice.
It was the heat of summer, so we were in my backyard, wearing just sandals and black nylon gym shorts. Steven went first. He threw a high punch, which connected with my bottom lip. It wasn’t too hard, but it hurt. I had this burning sensation in my lips. He then sank a punch into my solar plexus which knocked the air right out of me. I gasped, unable to breathe, thinking I might just die. Before I could do anything, he sank a punch into my balls. It was almost an involuntary reflex. I clutched my balls and sank to my knees, I curled up in the grass, trying to catch my breath and trying to keep from puking at the same time. The pain from my balls radiated all the way up through my stomach.
“Holy crap! It Works”
After I recovered, I stood up. I can tell Steven was scared, but we wanted to learn. Like me, he didn’t react much as I made soft punch to his mouth, but the punch to his solar plexus was louder. His eyes bugged wide and I could hear the air wheeze from his lungs.
“Aww…” he groaned, as my fist sank into softness between his legs. Like Master Master Jim, like my brother, and like myself, Steven sank to his knees and curled up on the ground.
“This karate thing is pretty cool.”
For both of us, it opened a door way. It opened up an excitement and curiosity about the martial arts and it opened up an excitement and curiosity about the male body. We watched the older boys in our neighborhood, their much larger balls and bouncing in their shorts. We coaxed them to pick on us.
Kramtoad.chat