My Best Student Just Legimitately Kicked My Ass.

There are a couple things that dawn on you when you pull on a kendo mask
1) You're reasonably well protected now from the wooden sword you're about to be repeatedly hit with.
2) That itch on your masked nose is now so out of the reach of your gloved finger that you're just going to have to deal.

Kendo is Japanese fencing. It's a pretty common thing to practice in gym class in the winter when it's too cold to have the usual relay races or swimming. Since I can see my breath in the English Classroom I guess it's time for Kendo.

After a moment of meditation, students put on their armor. At my junior high school, these pieces included a large chestplate (with an adorable little pot belly) glove and wrist guards, a sort of protective kilt, and finally the helmet made of some thick woven material with a hard metal cage over the face. It's all pretty light and easy to move around in, except for the helmet, whose unforgiving chinguard makes it a little tricky to speak, let alone speak in your third language.

After watching my students take turns walloping each other for two minute intervals, it was easy to see how their personalities in class translated to their fencing. My best student, a 15 year old girl who just recently passed a very important national English test had a very slow, methodical approach to her fencing. She rarely made the first move and almost always found an opening on her opponent, the star baseball player who had at least a foot on her in height. After he made a quick move towards her, she would do a quick forward hop, bringing her sword down across his guard and then further extending and angling her swing with a sharp downward wrist movement, thus bypassing the additional defense given by the hilt of his sword. There were no huge hits, but they did connect.

One of my other students, really more of a class clown but still one of my favorites, had a much different approach. His tactic was to almost ignore his own defense completely in favor of landing as many quick swings to the gut as possible. While his strategy seemed to yield some results against his opponent, it was difficult to imagine how he and the one girl in the class would have matched up. I knew his tactics were unique when he turned and ran away from his opponent at one point to get away from his counter attack and all the other students started laughing.

When it was finally my turn, the Gym teacher strapped on my helmet and told me I would be matched up against my best student, the careful fencer who I'd watched take down someone twice her size not 10 minutes earlier. I had an itch on my nose, was fighting in my socks, but I knew that neither of those minor handicaps really made a difference for what was about to happen. Itch or not, I was about to get my foreign, non-sword weilding butt handed to me.

The first half of the fight, she went on the offensive, and I was able to deflect her attacks for what felt like a pretty long time (maybe 5 seconds in reality right?) before she landed a hit to my forearm just above where the guard ended. As we retreated back to our starting positions, she apologized endlessly, as expected, though it really didn't hurt at all. The next go, I had her on the defensive for a while, landing maybe one or two glancing blows to her gloves before she whacked me square on top of my head. Third try: smack to the head. Fourth: Two quick smacks to the head. The 2 minute buzzer sounded and the match was over. I don't think anyone bothered keeping track of the score, the fight being as one-sided as it was. She and I were both laughing as we sat down and began taking our armor off for the end of class meditation. As soon as her mask was off though, she turned to me one last time to say, "I'm sorry!"

I know she was going easy on me. I found out a couple days ago that she's the best in the class, and has fought in competitions. I'm lucky I got away with as few knocks to the head as I did. I am hopeful I'll be invited to class again so I can strap on my potbelly armor one more time. Maybe I can join the 7th graders. They're smaller and haven't been practicing as long. I might be able to beat a 12 year old... But 15 year old girls are way too tough for me.