Daniel: Yeah, but you like karate.
Miyagi: So?
Daniel: So, karate's fighting. You train to fight.
Miyagi: That what you think?
Daniel: No.
Miyagi: Then why train?
Daniel: So I won't have to fight.
Miyagi: [laughs] Miyagi have hope for you.
When I first arrived at my old high school for the Taekwondo championships on Sunday I was afraid of certain memories coming back to life and choking me. The "incident" I was afraid of remembering didn't happen there. It happened at Woodrow Wilson Jr. High School up the street, but the characters in question still haunted that same gym when we got to high school.
I remember being in the gym locker room in junior high 7th grade.
I was the-girl-who-was-bullied.
A dork. A nerd.
A spineless doormat for abuse.
No student would even get near me except to abuse me.
I don't know how I managed to get anyone to
sit at the lunch table with me.
The other nerdy girls who were my friends knew
that they would be abused by association if they
were seen with me.
They kept their distance.
I was a target.
Being near me was dangerous.
Every day the tough girls would call me names,
throw spitballs at me,
and make me afraid to be in my own skin.
I don't know how I ever survived that chronic
feeling of being unsafe.
Well meaning adults had told me to let the bullies'
comments roll off my back like
I was a duck. "Ignore them," they said.
"Show them that what they're saying doesn't
bother you.
Be the bigger person."
One day, a girl named Tammy M escalated the abuse
beyond the verbal.
I tried to be tough and ignored Tammy's verbal assault.
She became louder and more insistent, furious
with me for ignoring her.
"Hey, I'm talking to you, bitch..." she bellowed
as she followed me to my locker.
I steeled myself against her shrill voice.
Sunday school had taught me to turn the other cheek,
so I did, silently ignoring her.
I was supposed to be the duck letting it
roll off my back, but ignoring a bully
can make things worse.
She reached the limit of her rage against me.
She came up behind me and
punched me, closed fist in
the middle of my back.
I didn't turn around
or look at her. I kept walking toward my locker.
She punched me again.
I kept my head down and prayed that she would
leave me alone.
She didn't.
"Look at this girl," she shrieked, "you can hit her
all you want and she won't
hit back!"
She flailed against me as I cowered.
Someone stopped her.
A girl
who had known me in grammar school,
Simone C, intervened for me.
I don't remember exactly how it went, but the
onslaught stopped.
The next time I was about to be bullied in the
same locker room, I looked at Simone
with pleading eyes, hoping she would work her
magic again and save me.
"You need to learn to fight your own battles,"
she admonished. "I can't bail you out
every time."
The rest is a blur.
I eventually had to drop out of public school
and enroll in the Catholic school across the street
just to avoid getting beat up on a daily basis.
I have great shame attached to these memories.
They all came flooding back to me on Sunday
when I went into that high school gym.
I had to sit and be alone with my thoughts
for a while on the bleachers as Andrew worked
his magic with his kids.
It took me a few hours before I could even
move to the TMAFC cheering section
to socialize with the parents.
(I'm glad I finally did. They are
a warm and welcoming bunch.)
Every time I tell this story people ask me
what I would do differently if I could
go back in time and face that bully.
I'll say every time,
"You're expecting me to say I'd hit her.
I wouldn't.
I never wanted to hit her.
I STILL don't want to hit her.
I only wanted her to stop."
Since 7th grade, at the time of the worst
bullying of my life,
I imagined having the strength to
have turned around,
grabbed her fist in mid punch
and said NO!
I wanted to make her stop
without revenge.
I never wanted to feel my fist
connecting with her flesh, never.
Never did I want to hurt her.
I just wanted her to fail
to connect her fist with
my body.
I wanted to overpower her
till she calmed down
and gave up.
I had no idea that that was actually possible.
If only the adults in my life had thought to
take me down the street to the karate school
my whole life would have been different.
If I had practiced martial arts
I would have been able to do
exactly what I was picturing.
I could have grabbed her fist
in mid air and said, NO!
and she'd have to listen.
Watching Andrew's pre-teen students
train and spar gives me great hope that
bullies might be stopped in mid air.
Teaching young people the philosophy
and skill of martial arts
is so essential for self-esteem.
The self defense aspect can spare
a lot of hearts and bodies
from the pain that I suffered when I was young.
The confidence it instills will make these
young people feel that they are worthy,
that they don't deserve to be mistreated,
and that they can use their own power
to draw lines in the sand that will
not be crossed.
Would you believe that I still suffer
self doubt? I still struggle with feelings
of unworthiness,
but seeing the young girls
in their Taekwondo belts
gives me hope that
worthiness can be learned,
for them in the present
and for me
many years
past those awful
pre-teens.
*Lisa's Video Pick of the Day*
Not sure if I posted this one already.
Hey, the deal was I'd watch a video per day
not a "different" video per day lol.
I anointed a patient with Young Living oils tonight.
Before I started, I soaked a towel in hot water
with epsom salts and put it on their sore spot.
click here or click below
0 comments:
Post a Comment