Monday night, judo class. Ishaan is on top of me, struggling with his grip. Though sensei Frank just demonstrated the choke for us, slowly, thoroughly, Ishaan\u2019s already forgotten the hand work. His thin fingers grasp and re-grasp on my lapels, his knuckles grazing my face.<\/p>\n
\u201cIshii,\u201d I say, using my nickname for him.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cTake it easy.\u201d When class began I explained my big toe was hurt. I had cracked it two weeks ago sparring with Bouquin. As he had gone for a foot sweep, I tried to bring my own foot around to knock him over. Unfortunately neither of us are that athletic: Bouqin only swept halfway, and I didn\u2019t bring my leg around far enough. Everyone groaned when they heard the crack.<\/p>\n
Ishii pulls away for a second, puts his hand on his hips. \u201cI want to get this right.\u201d<\/p>\n
He says this pleadingly, as though my intention is to make him look like a fool. He\u2019s young, younger than me; sometimes I think his voice hasn\u2019t cracked yet. We became friends soon after I joined the class. He could probably tell I was nervous because he took time after class those first few weeks to walk me through moves I struggled with.<\/p>\n
It was weird being taught by someone so young. Yes, he knew a lot, and was kind and patient, but also looked like he should have been in braces. When he asked about my day, the law office I worked at, my writing, his eyes would widen. \u201cWhat\u2019s it like to go on a work trip?\u201d he\u2019d ask. \u201cDo you make a lot of money publishing short stories?\u201d<\/p>\n
I tried to answer the best I could, though he never seemed satisfied. Unlike judo\u2014or maybe just like it\u2014it was probably hard to take anything from my stories without having experienced it himself. Ishii would just smile and nod after I finished talking\u2014\u201ccool, cool,\u201d \u2014and then sit to my side, staring off into space, until our teachers called us back from water break.<\/p>\n
I feel bad\u2014perhaps now I was failing him?<\/p>\n
I turn and tap Mark, a yellow belt working beside us, on the shoulder. \u201cMark,\u201d I say. \u201cWould you mind giving us a hand over here?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cYou alright?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cIshii and I need your expertise.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cSay no more!\u201d\u00a0 Mark mutters a quick apology to his partner, an intense, stringy Russian girl whose name eludes me, and rolls over to us.\u00a0 I like Mark: he is muscular and boisterous, like a Dragon Ball Z character. But most of all, like Ishii, he is nice.<\/p>\n
\u201cAlright,\u201d Mark says. \u201cYou ready?\u201d As soon as I nod I\u2019m lifted off the ground, half-laughing, half-gasping as Mark falls on top of me, driving the sharp edge of his hand into my windpipe.<\/p>\n
He\u2019s done the move perfect. Ishii looks stricken. He kneels there pouting as Mark lies on top of me, explaining how to finish the hold. \u201cYou want to make sure you\u2019re not squeezing too hard\u2014this will give your partner a chance to tap if they need to.\u201d<\/p>\n
I zone out for a second, dizzy from the smell of Mark\u2019s hair product (and lack of air.) There is something comforting about this, the feeling of Mark pressed on top of me. Every so often he pokes me in the ribs to check if I\u2019m listening, then suggests I demonstrate on Ishii.<\/p>\n
As he crawls beneath me, I can tell Ishii\u2019s upset that he didn\u2019t get it on the first try. More upset that I asked Mark for help. Yet even if I couldn\u2019t walk him through the move, there was still something I could teach him.<\/p>\n
Ishii gasps as I pick him up above my head and spin him to the floor. \u201cDon\u2019t squirm!\u201d Mark says, as I tighten my grip around Ishii\u2019s neck. I smile to let him know this is all practice, for sport. So often we\u2019re taught to scramble out of a choke or a fall, that we forget we need to learn what it feels like first. If he tapped I would let him go in an instant; if he started to choke, I\u2019d run and get him water.<\/p>\n
Then we\u2019ll get back down and run the move again and again, until we don’t need to think about how to do it.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Monday night, judo class. Ishaan is on top of me, struggling with his grip. Though sensei Frank just demonstrated the choke for us, slowly, thoroughly, Ishaan\u2019s already forgotten the hand work. His thin fingers grasp and re-grasp on my lapels, his knuckles grazing my face.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":182,"featured_media":20376,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[1234,2098,249],"class_list":["post-19875","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-fiction","tag-coming-of-age","tag-funny","tag-sports","writer-jack-sullivan"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19875","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/182"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=19875"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19875\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":20377,"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19875\/revisions\/20377"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/20376"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=19875"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=19875"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=19875"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}