My Life and Karate, Day Eleven

My dojo, Sun Dragon Martial Arts and Self Defense, is running its major yearly fundraiser. We're a nonprofit martial arts studio, which is something of a rare beast, and we raise money every year for our scholarship fund and the free self-defense classes we offer in the community. For my part, every day until the day of the Kickathon, I will write a random amusing anecdote about karate and self-defense - enjoy!

My interest in the martial arts probably started with the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. Yeah, I'm a child of the eighties. I honestly can't remember where I came across them, but when I did, I was instantly hooked. And not really to the TV show, either - no, I got all the action figures and made up wild adventures for them, and admired their little plastic weapons, and wanted a full-size set of my own. And then there were the Thundercats, who were also pretty awesome and kicked bad-guy ass in a variety of ways. Maybe I'm lucky to have developed a taste for martial arts and not for furries, eh?

Then there were the video games. I had one, an off-brand fighting game with no fireballs or crazy hairstyles, just guys in black belts kicking and punching, that I played for hours. It wasn't even a very fun game - if you held the down arrow and hit 'B' as fast as you could, you'd win most fights because the AI just wasn't very smart. But it was karate, and therefore it was awesome. (Not as awesome as Tetris - I wasn't dumb, after all - but awesome.) And when Nintendo Power sent the issue with the extended Ninja Gaiden walkthrough, with the little asides about the history of nijitsu, I ate it up. I clearly remember lying in front of the TV reading about caltrops while Father Dowling solved some mystery with his wisecracking nun sidekick. Yeah, child of the 80s for sure.

I wanted to take martial arts lessons, even then. The Park District offered them - it wasn't far, and it wasn't expensive. My parents didn't exactly disapprove... but they didn't encourage it, either. There was baseball, after all. And soccer. And Hebrew school. None of this prevented me from dressing up like a ninja three years running for Halloween, but it definitely made it easy to push back actually taking classes. By the time I got to high school, I was so thoroughly scheduled with after-school sports that there wasn't any room anyway.

Even so, when my cousin, who was always cooler than I was, got to take Tae Kwon Do, I was crazy jealous. I believe he made it to brown belt - maybe to black. I remember him showing me how he tied his belt, one trip up to see the extended family. You had to wrap it carefully and tie it just so. I was terribly impressed.

This wasn't really going anywhere in particular - it's Saturday night, and I've had some wine. But I'd love to hear from other martial artists - what got you into it? Was it TMNT as well? Or did you have, like, a respectable influence?

I am still sort of disappointed that I don't have an excuse to wear a headband with eyeholes in it to class. Maybe I can make that a bonus - if y'all donate $1000 total to our fundraiser, I'll make myself a ninja turtle headband and post the pics online. What do you say?