The following is part of a series of “miniposts” about the routine things of my summer that, since they are less routine to others, I hope are therefore interesting. More on my skewed logic and decision to do this can be found here:

Every week, three times a week for the last six months (Mondays @ 7:15pm, Wednesdays @ 7pm, and Fridays @ 6:30pm), I have been engaging in a class known as “Realistic Self-Defense” taught at the local Taekwando dojang. Though I did take Taekwando here as a kid (3rd grade – 6th grade or so) and hold a 1st Degree Black Belt according to the ATA, this class has nothing to do with taekwando.

Whereas Songham Taekwando (the style taught by the ATA) is a martial art grounded in self-discipline and perseverance, practiced by a series of progressively more complicated set forms and structured with a series of belts, RSD is based on Krav Maga, a martial art invented by Imi Lichtenfeld in 1930s to kick Nazi ass. It is practiced by a lot of punching, kicking and structured by who can kick you the hardest.

Krav Maga is a martial art that assumes “no quarter” which is a military way of saying “dude is trying to kill you,” as such mercy, fairplay, and rules of engagment are not matters of high importance. Though I am taught to a civillian standard, removing killing strikes, lets just say one of our routine drills is aptly entitled “front kick to the groin.” yea. (Also, the fact that this class lacks any killing strikes has not dissuaded by mother and sister from reffering to it as my “killing people with pencils” class).

If you are starting to think, “hmm.. this doesn’t particularly sound like relalistic self-defense,” I would tend to agree. The philosophy here is clearly “the best defense is a good offense.” The class generally runs as follows:

• we arrive and line up for the opening (the instructor says “kida” as far as I can find online this is hebrew for “bow”; we bow and say something to the effect of “ush” .. which I have yet to find a translation to (unlike the korean words we used in taekwando, no one has seen fit to explain to me what these mean)).
• After the opening we run in a circle and do calesthetics of various sorts (pushups, situps, flutter kicks, toe-touches, jump squats, etc). On occasion we stretch.
• We proceed to do many partner exercises, usually begening with straight punches. This means, to put it simply, that for 30 seconds to 2 minutes, you wail on the partner your partner is holding (often directly against their body), then you switch and they wail on you. Thus you go quickly from hard activity to mostly resting .. except that you are being hit.. often hard enough that new-comers vomit their first class.
• There are often large group exercises where either two lines form and you do the same partner exercise 5-10 times down the line and then hold for 5-10 times or circles are formed and each person does something in the middle while everyone else holds. These mean respectively, that you completely exhaust yourself over a line of exercises and then have to recuperate, or that you completely exhaust yourself in ONE exercise and then have time to recuperate.
• On rare occasions there are exercises that involve one person holding a pad at the end of the room, one person lying on the floor, and everyone else lying on top of him/her. Person on the floor then has to get up (while people lie ontop of him/her), run across the room (sometimes with yet further people preventing this), and then proceed to do the drill (punches, kicks, knees, elbows) with the person holding on the pad for 30 seconds to  1 minute.
• On even rarer occasions, there are actual defense (blocking, gun disarming, etc.) drills

This sort of class tends to attract a certain type of person. This type of person is in or planning to go into the military, thinks “hope” is a word for quiters (I’ve had to defend Barack Obama to these people many times), and loves to watch UFC fights. This person is not .. me.

Interestingly, I am actually a pacifist. I do not seek fights, to my best not to praticipate fights, and in the event of a military draft would refuse to serve. It is an interesting clash of cultures which I enter weekly. *sigh*. Still, it is an excellent work out and has put me in much better shape than previously.

All told, though, the contrary natures of pacifism and practicing such a martial art are probably a bit more cognative dissonance than I like to handle, so, at MIT I will either switch to a less violent one ( I am interested in akido), or possibly jump all the way to dance (which is very different, but uses similar muscles).

Oh and don’t think about making fun of me for wanting to do dance, because while I am morally opposed to it, I totally am trained to beat you up!

~Donald Guy

P.S. I am aware that my “minipost” is longer than the one introducing it… what can I say? I am a bit voluable.