today i wrestled a 90 pound asian girl

08Oct09

today was a different kind of day.

it started out as most days have started out:  me, waking up to the cries of some demon possessed rooster about an hour before my alarm, contemplating coffee but the press is dirty and i don’t want to clean it, trying and failing to get on the internet, maybe read some bolano (gotta keep up with the hip sf literary crew, right?), maybe go back to sleep, etc etc.

i ironed my shirt.  that’s different.  i bought an egg sandwich on the way to work today, but that is pretty normal.

i guess i should skip to the part of the day that was different from the rest, the part where i wrestled a 90 pound asian girl.

so for a while now, kofi, my african american brother (i know… there is so much wrong with what i just said, but it’s true) has been really into brazilian jujitsu.  bjj, if you will.  he used to try out his new moves on me when i was just a scrawny middle schooler.  now that i’m a young man (but pretty much the same size), he’s taken it upon himself to recruit me to New Breed Jujitsu – Ghana.  i missed the first two sessions, first citing jet lag and the second time skipping to go to this african animation film screening.  so tonight was my night (i’m the third one on the top).

kof picked me up and off we went.  we met at an office building.  the room was big and all of the furniture was pushed to the side making it extra spacious.  in the middle of the room were mats, where i would soon get my ass beat over and over until i thought i was going to die.  but let’s not get ahead of ourselves. i put on a gi (think karate uniform) that smelled of old sweat. no matter. we started off with some warm ups – running in circles.  simple enough.  then running sideways.. okay.  high knees.  butt kicks.  jumping jacks.  while running!  then we got on the mat.  sit ups, tick tocks, weird crab movements…  i was sweating like crazy, and my sweat was mixing with the old crusty sweat on my gi.  there was no turning back.

then tj, the nicest instructor in the world, showed us how to get out of a “guard”.  a guard is when a person is on his back and his legs are wrapped around the other guy’s waist, who is on his knees.  i’m trying to think of a sexual position that it resembles but no name comes to mind.  anyway, the goal was to break free from the guy’s legs and eventually destroy him with a submission move.  i say “him” but when we started practicing, i was paired up with tj’s girlfriend.  it was a natural pairing – in fact we’ve spoken before about how we’re both skinny and how we are always trying to gain weight.  anyway, so there i was practicing these bjj moves on her, sweating profusely all over her (poor girl), putting her in arm bars and submission moves.  of course she also practices the moves on me.  we go back and forth and i slowly learn some of the moves.

so maybe i oversold the whole wrestling with a 90 pound asian girl.  after learning some more techniques, we started sparring, first kof and me.  five minute rounds.  think about that.  imagine holding your breath and running as fast as you can… for five minutes.  so kof and i start grappling, him in his controlled and efficient movements, me like an unbroken stallion, a really small, weak stallion, flailing and grabbing at anything i could to not get choked out.  but inevitably choking out happened.  we reset.  same result.  the seconds dragged on.  i eventually started tapping out before he even started choking me.  by the end of it i thought i was going to collapse, barf, or die.  all three, actually.  it was bad.

somehow kof kept going on, match after match, not forgetting to breath, moving when he had to, finding positions to rest.  he even almost got tj before time ran out.  i don’t really remember what happened after that.  i was dry heaving, had cotton mouth, couldn’t feel my limbs… you get the idea.

why subject yourself to this, chris?  well it all goes back six years ago, when a young asian boy straight out of high school visited his african american brother in ghana.  he was walking out of an ice cream store, happily eating his chocolate ice cream out of his little plastic cup.  and then some punk ass dude comes and barrels through him from behind, without saying sorry.  in fact he turns around and demands that the little asian boy say sorry.  the little asian boy was at first angered, mad, and wanted to defend his and his people’s honor.  then he realized that his big african american brother was not paying attention to the entire scene, and that he was on his own.  and then he profusely apologized, crawled into his african american brother’s car, and never mentioned the story again.  until NOW.  I AM THAT ASIAN BOY!

so the story ends, and the day ends, and i will retire into blissful sleep, and i will dream bizarre and thought provoking dreams (like mine from last night….  i dreamed that i traveled back in time, and i saw this girl named andi who i knew from college, but she was much younger, and i told her i loved her, and that she had to remember me when i go back to the present and she’ll know me because i will have a specific digital camera, and when i went to the present i tried to buy that camera but my parents didn’t want me to buy that model.  and i was really sad, and then that damn rooster woke me up!) and tomorrow will be a new day.

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