I was heading down to the Chinese community center downtown for my martial arts lesson when I was around five years old.  I followed whatever my mother told me to do, not having my own opinion if I liked the class at all or if I was just there to impress my mother friends and family, but I remember one peculiar class that I had with a volunteer instructor that made all the classes worthwhile.  I had one friend with me in that class, I can’t remember what his name was and his face and it’s a struggle trying to fill in the details he had that made him unique.  The instructor that taught us was the child’s father trying to get us ready and prepare for the exercise we were going to do.

I was wearing a black sweat pants that were a little too big for me and I had to struggle keeping them up and a long sleeve shirt that I had to wear all the time since my mom was overprotective about the cold.  The gym was huge enough to fill in a thousand people, but everything looked big to me. The walls were died in a gray worn out paint and there were chairs the plastic chairs stacked up in the corners.  The stage was huge with red curtains hanging above it for a performance that we would have to show off are skills to our parents to impress them.  I wore slippers so it would be easier to move and practice kicks without twisting and ankle but the shoes were also much bigger than I had hoped for.  It was always hot in the gym since I was suffocating from the heat from the shirt I had to wear and the loud buzzing sound from the lights made this gym like a man-made concrete jail in the middle of the Amazon.

I never appreciated the teacher and the instructors since I didn’t really enjoy people being around me as much as I should when I was a kid and liked as little attention as possible.  I wanted the day to end with me going home and watching the creepy animals and cartoons that were supposed to be cute and adorable to the audience but I was mostly looking forward to the looney tunes.  When we were getting ready by changing our shoes and taking off our jackets to what was supposedly okay for a kids to wear, since the teachers didn’t wanted to get into a fight with any of the parents.We were than going to be separated into smaller groups since the age range was ridiculous and trying to clomp all the kids into one group would’ve resulted with 5 year-old eating a salty shoe with a side dish of broken jaws.

When we were finally organized we were separated even more by going with a parent who would run down the excessive with us, while preparing our stance we were shown how to properly kick.  I bend down my knees slightly to prepare to unleash a powerful kick, I than raised my fist as if I’m ready to guard an incoming hit, than in a swift moment, or as swift as a kid can get, I kicked as hard as possible into the air and my shoe went flying straight at the parents face. When the shoe hit the floor his faced looked furious, but I was laughing uncontrollably at the situation I created with these large and uncomfortable shoes.

I didn’t care what kind of trouble I would’ve got into since I was enjoying myself too much that I couldn’t assess what kind of punishment I could’ve received.  Luckily the instructor was reasonable and I only got away with a lecture that I just nod my head and said yes ever so often trying to look like I was attentively listing to his words.  The rest of the lesson was filled in with worthless kicks and punches over and over again, while making sure that my pants and shoes didn’t come off since they were too loose.  When the class was finally over I was relieve to finally go home and spend my time on the couch.  I put back my winter clothes on with my thick jacket and a toque for my little head that actually fit perfectly.  I headed out into the cold to the car finally leaving the hot and sweaty gym.