My Blog

     I’m standing on the rubber mat again. My opponent glares at me from across the floor. He is not intimidated by this scraggly guy with thinning hair who had come into the match late. The crowd screams. They yell encouragement at him. It is his crowd. My friends are back at the hospital, working, while I am here, in pursuit of a dream. How I wished that they were here with me. I take one last look at my sensei, who was shocked to see me compete, and he raises his fist in encouragement. Drawing one deep breath, I clear my mind, bow to my opponent, and step forward to fight.

     We are fighting for the gold medal. I hadn’t realized it at the time. I wasn’t keeping track of things. This is how I was lately. My soul, weary and stale from the daily, endless grind of mindless tasks at the hospital, seemed only to exist and not to live. But here, I felt it stir, quicken, and sharpen. It was focused on one thing only: give my all.

     I attack. My opponent is much younger and faster, and he counters with a strike of his own. Then, things blurred. Nothing seemed to exist, except for me, my opponent, and the reality of fists and feet. I just remembered giving blows and receiving strikes. Wham! I got one on my jaw, and another one on the head. It would hurt later, but, at that moment, it registered merely as a failure to block, and as one point for my opponent.

     Two minutes pass. Two minutes of fury and yells and blood. bloodied his mouth, but he gains three more points over me. I knew I had nothing more in me. I was panting and coughing. I was kicking air. I was blocking with my nose instead of my arms. I remember a line from the movie "Kung Pao", when Wimpy Lo said: "Face to foot style, how do you like it?". It really seemed hilarious, but, that moment, it was anything but, especially when it was turning out Wimpy Lo was me.

     But it didn’t matter. Winning didn’t even matter. At that moment, battered and hurt, I was transformed. All I wanted to do at that moment was to give my all, and I did. I kept coming back for more. Yes, I was clobbered, time and again, but I didn’t fall. I lost, but I lost still fighting, and I made him bleed for his gold. Hurting my opponent didn’t even matter later. I was doing what I had wanted to do for the longest time, living a childhood dream.

     I realized that one, when he fights, always fights alone. There may be a crowd of supporters behind you. There may be shouts of encouragement for you. But, there, in that square rubber mat, where the philosophy of martial arts give way to the realities of fists and hurts, you fight for yourself. Even more so, you fight yourself. The opponent is not the other guy, it is that quaking, shivering, tiny existence inside of you saying "You Can’t Do It!!!". It may be that he is the most powerful enemy of all, the one who can defeat you even before the fight has started.

     That day, I was fighting alone. My opponent may have won the gold, but I have won a victory over myself.

This entry was posted on Thursday, September 20th, 2007 at 6:33 am and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.