Coming of Age

COMING OF AGE

The following is a true martial arts encounter with a girl that occurred when I was 19 years old, back in the early 1990s, at the time of Vanilla Ice and Milli Vanilli.

At the time, I was a freshman in university studying for my economics degree, recently out of high school. At the time I considered myself a bit of a jock. I was very cocky and confident as I was going through the golden college years, spending most of my time playing basketball for a local team (playmaker) and tennis for the national team under 21's. I was still going out with my high school sweetheart at the time and the event that I am about to describe happened at her house one autumn Friday night and forever chnaged my outlook on girls.

Let me say that even back then, I was turned on by women in the martial arts and women’s feet. I often fantasized about pretty girls and how much prettier they would seem to me if I knew they had a black belt in some martial art or another. But my fetish hadn’t really developed yet, as I was too occupied thinking of other things. And sex was way more exciting in its own right as it was so new an experience.

Anyway, my girlfriend of one and a half years at the time was a pretty blonde with blue eyes and quite athletic, but had never taken any martial arts classes. She had mentioned to me before that her younger sister, (who also pretty but not as pretty as my girlfriend, a bit shorter with brown her and blue eyes but with a more feminine body) had been taking “karate or something for some time”. At the time she told me, my interest was piqued, but I thought nothing of it.

On the Friday night in question we were at her house watching videos (we had rented Police Academy 2 and 3). As we were about to start the first movie, her younger sister walked in from her martial arts class, wearing her white gi with brown belt but wearing a puff jacket over it and tennis shoes. I was a bit interested but thought to myself “easy tiger, this is your girlfriends sister, don’t be a pervert…”.

She asked us to wait for her to shower so that she could watch the films too. We waited and she returned with pajamas on and bare footed. When we had finished the first Police Academy film and were about to watch the second, my girlfriend said that she would go upstairs to cook us some pasta and sauce for dinner, leaving me in the TV room with her sister. After a while we started arguing (not seriously) about what to watch. I laughingly pulled the remote out of her hands by force and picked her up and dumped her on the sofa to sit on her own so I could get to watch what I wanted. She was giggling all the while.

She then said “Please let me watch the soap opera, pleeease.”

I jokingly said “No , be quiet while the grown ups watch the news”.

She laughed but said to me half seriously "I warn you ,if I want to, I can hurt you."

"Yeah right, pipe down I want to watch the news" I replied.

She then said “No, seriously. I reckon I can take you, I have fought boys in my class of a lower belt and beat them, so give me the remote”.

I must say, her comments made my stomach feel like it had just flipped over, so I said "Ok, come on lets go" just to make her do something and playfully started slapping her lightly, jumping around the room, going "hiyaaa, I am Bruce Lee, I am Cato come on Inspector Clouseau". She laughed and tried to grab me but I was jumping around the sofa and kept her at arms length. All the time pulling her hair, nudging her ribs, slapping the back of her head lightly. Finally she said that we should get on our knees and continue the fight from there as it was not fair that I was running around so much and because I was 20 cm taller than her. Let me tell you: on the ground things got much different. At the time, I knew nothing of the martial arts and their differences nor had I read about jiu jitsu like I have now. Neither did I know how and why the "moves" of the martial arts worked. In a matter of minutes, at close quarter play fighting, she was twisting my joints, making me shout with pain, using my t-shirt to strangle and choke me, twisting my fingers back and forth till I said "YOU WIN" or “ouch ouch ouch, enough” and all sorts of things. When she sat up after she felt she had shown me a few things and I was sufficiently impressed, she had a smug smile on her face.

I was dumb founded. My mind just couldn’t register what had just happened. In my brain, I got this felling of “Does not compute.” That’s the best way to describe it. How could this sweet little girl beat me in a fight? I was a boy and stronger than her. I told her that in a real fight I would punch her in the face and kick her etc. I asked her what she thought trying not sound meek or flabbergasted. She said "Listen, maybe, but I don’t think so, I would win because you are untrained, and don’t have the training or knowledge that I have. I have spent four years in the dojo. I have a brown belt and am going to go all the way to black because I like jiu jitsu. I can sprain your knee, or break a finger or dislocate your shoulder easily, so don’t think it is a joke what I train in, if we where both wearing gi's, I could choke you in 11 different ways till you where unconscious. If you had a brown belt too, then yes, there would be no contest because you are so much stronger, but now I would win. I know you don’t believe me, but its true. Just think, even a child that is trained in the martial arts can surprise an adult and give him a good hit in a sensitive spot, maybe not beat him….but I am a grownup and they make us do hundreds of sit ups and 60 push-ups in the beginning and 60 at the end of each class, they teach us where to hit a person to incapacitate them...."

At this point, I was going crazy, I couldn’t believe how excited I was. She even started saying the names in Japanese of the holds that made me submit, showing me without putting pressure from our kneeling position. I asked her where she would strike with punches and she showed me on my and her body.

I was so impressed that me with all my strength and being a boy could not "beat" this girl in a wrestling struggle on the floor. I really started believing that in a real fight, if I didn’t beat her up by punching her many times in the face before she came close to me, if I let her grab me or hit me I would lose.

I was quite tired and breathing hard and hot from trying to struggle with her on the ground after our fight. I had carpet burns on my elbows and knees and she was fresh and not tired at all. The whole night, I couldn’t stop staring at her in her pajamas and bare feet as we watched TV. I thought to myself the whole night about those gorgeous feet, that just a little while ago were used so expertly to leverage me in a hold I could not escape and those hands of hers with the delicate feminine fingers where only minutes ago twisting my wrist inwards till I cried in pain, and could punch me in the kidney as she explained or twist my t-shirt and use it as a weapon against me. Her whole body seemed exciting to me from then on. Her back muscles, her forearms that had a little bit muscle and a lot of sinew. She showed me a little more jiu jitsu at another time, but that was the last as she started to feel weird that I liked it and that made her feel uncomfortable.

Since then, I have been fascinated with women in the martial arts, and have tried to reproduce the "fight" or the “does not compute” feeling with many girlfriends and professionals with varying degrees of success.