From Wikipedia:

Taekwondo ~ (also, Tae Kwon Do, Taekwon-Do, or Tae Kwon-Do) is a martial art and combat sport originating in Korea. Taekwondo is the national sport of South Korea and sparring, kyeorugi, is an Olympic sporting event. In Korean, derived from hanja, tae (跆) means to destroy with the feet; kwon (拳) means to strike or smash with the hand; and do (道) means "path", "way", "art" or "method". Hence, taekwondo is loosely translated as "the art of the foot and fist".

My gym is an odd spot, a cross-section between two worlds that have no business being in the same location--the Hollywood world, faux, pretend, pretty etc., and the world of mixed martial arts, bald, scarred and smelly, a world in which looks aren't just ancillary, but a suggestion you need to get in the ring a little bit more.

There's all sorts of clash action there, not cliquish, like a high school lunch room--because nobody pays all that much attention to each other unless they're punching each other in the head--but more...bizzarre. You can't write fiction with a more contrasting smattering of characters. I often feel like I work out at the Star Wars bar.

On any given day there might be:
A Muay Thai fighter or two, a European kickboxer, Japanese girls in Gis, Judo specialists, brother Randy from "My Name is Earl," Brazilian dudes choking each other out, Joe Rogan, a few WEC fighters, delicate little model/slash actresses, the cast of "24," Tito Ortiz, ex secret service agents, ex Navy Seals, Karo Parisyan, Bas Rutten, Randy Couture, Mac Danzig, actors from Nickelodeon, the Spike TV crew, writers (me), and the legendary Reggie Warren Jr. The guys say Reggie once beat Karo's ass, shoved feta cheese balls up his nose, and then stole his bottle of Black Label. I don't doubt it, he's one tough motherfucker.

Some days, the burly German dude comes in, Rolf, an actor who specializes in movie and television roles like "Terrifying Spetsnaz Member No. 4." He weighs anywhere between two-twenty and a ton. He hangs upside down from rods I don't think you're supposed to hang from and does a cadre of Eastern Bloc ab tortures. He tosses kettle bells around like throw pillows, leaves dents in the bags, and on days the other burly dude comes in, he gets the opportunity to practice his Jiu Jitsu. Last week, the other burly dude accidentally ripped Rolf's ear off. Rolf took it to the emergency room, where he found out "sewing an ear back on" costs three thousand dollars. He glued the ear back on with superglue instead.

Am I the only one who finds it hilarious that Rolf and "Hot Nurse No. 3" work out at the same gym?

And then there's "Taekwondo."

Taekwondo's not an appropriate nickname for this dude--considering he resembles a less muscular Butterbean, if Butterbean had no punch technique--and if you ever saw "Taekwondo," the odds that you would think, "What does this man remind me of? Taekwondo. Yes. This man must be a master of Taekwondo," are slim to nil.

I met him during a Saturday's beginners' class. Our instructor asked us to pair off into partners, and the students surrounding Taekwondo dashed outward in all directions, whichever direction opened up the most distance between Taekwondo and their body, as if Taekwondo were a droplet of Dawn dishwashing liquid in a gym full of grease droplets. I was the stupid, stupid grease droplet that didn't run.

"Wanna pair up?" asked Taekwondo? He smiled and stared. It was the kind of wide, pale stare paedos hand out at playgrounds. His eyes--and I'm not exaggerating--did not blink. They followed me, and evoked the same emotions within that once caused me to mask out the eyes of my Michael Jackson Pepsi poster with Hello Kitty tape. I didn't know whether he wanted to spar with me or wear my flayed carcass and a feather boa around his basement.

During the next forty minutes, I learned much about Taekwondo. For instance, I learned that he was a powerful entertainment executive who had recently moved to Los Angeles from a large East Coast city, a lie I believed about as much as the other ones he told me: "I have ten years experience training Taekwondo" and "I once fishooked a member of the Korean mafia in a streetfight." It was obvious to me that this had never happened. Taekwondo fought face front, elbows out, like a log. He held his hands like an orator, not so much guarding his face from punches, or even at the ready to block head kicks like a Muay Thai fighter, but just...out there. He punched at the mitts I held for him from a mere eighteen inches away, signaling which punch was coming with a great show of prepatory movement. This man would have been destroyed in a Korean mafia streetfight.

[ASIDE: I'm not so great at holding focus mitts for people. I don't have experience reading punches. You have to anticipate them and catch them for your partner, playing a pattycake game of sorts. It's annoying for your partner if you don't catch the punch and provide resistance. That said, on this Saturday, I was a master of focus mitts, for my partner was Taekwondo, who drops the entire left side of his body, reels his left shoulder back, tenses his face and THEN throws his jab. There's no way you can't anticipate a punch like that. In fact, you could double jab him before he even landed the strike. *Pay attention to this mitt-catching shit. The knowledge will come in handy when I pass the mitts over to Taekwondo and put my gloves on.]

So Taekwondo kept throwing his ludicrous jab-cross at me from eighteen inches away. I would back up, so that he would be at proper range, and he--with his Buffalo Bill eyes and sweat funk smell--would butt back up against me as if we were slow dancing to Journey. I'd back off; he'd step in. I'd back off; he'd step in, and toss bent arm swats into my mitts, swats that landed knuckles-skyward. He backed me into a corner and I became feral.

"Look! I can fucking upper cut you with my elbow from here!"
"Oh yeah," said Taekwondo.

And then the whole process began once more, with no change.

When it was time to work kicks, I swapped out mitts for the big kick pads, and placed them over the side of my midsection. A good mid-kick breaks the floating rib. A bad one lands on hip, and breaks the leg of the kicker. Taekwondo, ten year master of Taekwondo--the discipline most devoted to the art of kicking--could not kick. His body remained stiff and face-front. He would prepare for kicks with the same sort of pre-punch reeling ritual: with his body tensed as possible, his feet jigged three or four times in place, and then--with hands held aloft like a dancing Jew--his leg would come thwacking into the bag in the most inefficient manner, landing on my hipbone (which would end the fight in my favor, should we be fighting.) Once one kick landed, Taekwondo would dance around me, unrelaxed and mad, jig three times and thwack again. Often he would be creepy close, and miss the pad altogether, skinning my elbow with his gym shoes (who the fuck wears gym shoes in a fight gym?).

It was my turn, finally. I gave the kick pad over to Taekwondo, an act he confused with matriculation. Taekwondo suddenly became my biggest critic, but not a real critic like my instructor, a topsy-turvy critic from backwards land. A critic who wants you to fail.

Everything I had ever learned about the art of kicking was suddenly wrong.

"Stay on your toes!" he yelled while I low kicked.
"No," I said, because you aren't supposed to do that. You're supposed to plant your fucking foot down. I did just that and kicked again.
"Stay on your toes!"
Then I kicked again.
"Stay on your toes!"
Then I kicked again.
"Stay on your toes."

ARRRRGGGHHH!

When it came time to do mid-kicks, my topsy-turvy backwards land teacher stopped criticizing, and instead took to measuring the relative force with which I kicked his ribs with proper (yet improper) form, depending on who you ask, someone who knows dick-all about martial arts, or everyone else at the gym.

"That one was okay," said Taekwondo, wincing.
Kick.
"A little better, I guess."
Kick.
"Not bad," said Taekwondo, holding the pad out, so I wouldn't hurt him. I reached out and pushed the pad back in, so that I would. Sneaky Bunny.

When the kicking drill ended and it came time for Taekwondo to catch my punches, I was pretty relieved. I'm not proud to say it, but I fully planned to "oops" miss the mitts and clock the motherfucker in the face. I was just waiting for him to begin his brand of unique critique, but it never came. Not a word was spoken outside of "one" for jab, and two "for cross," or combinations of the two numbers. When he called jab, I'd toss my not-so-great jab the focus mitt on his left hand, and this idiot, for some reason, caught my jab with a downward swat and pushed it into his crotch. It felt terribly uncomfortable. I'd punch, and then my hand would be in his crotch, whoa. Pulling my hands back up to guard my face (you have to, or you'll get hit in the head and it's over) felt like a slow motion dream sequence, and once they were guarding again, the idea that microscopic crotch globules had clung to my gloves, and were now inches from my cheek skin repulsed me.

"Stop that!" I'd say.
"Stop what?
"Just catch the punch, man."
"I am."
"No, you're pushing it down." And in much the same way I'd imagine speech and reason go in backwards, topsy-turvy land, he said: "No, I'm not."

I would punch, and Taekwondo would swat the punch into his crotch.

"Stop that."
"Stop what?"

I felt like I was fighting in water, or sweat funk tainted water with pale crotches in it. Dangerous water.

I'm not certain Buffalo Bill wasn't retarded. I'm also not certain he wasn't trying to get my pink gloves down there, nor am I certain he isn't strangling hookers on weekends. I wouldn't put it past him. The only plus side of pairing with him the notion that I'd spared some of the foxier females in the class. I was thankful it was frumpy me instead of "Hot Nurse No. 3," with her fake tits and chiseled midsection, for I shudder to think what he would have done to her. Perhaps there will come a day when "Hot Nurse No. 3" will indeed be paired up with Taekwondo, but the odds are likely, she'll kick his ass.

All-in-all, it was a bad day at my crossroads for the vapids and the warriors gym. Horrible, that is, until my friend Jeremy's boxing coach came up to me and said, "Gina Carano, it's so nice to meet you. Hey so-and-so, comere, it's Gina Carano."

And then it was, like, the best day of my life.

Posted by The Bunny at 5:09 PM

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