Intent is The Power Behind Technique [Writer's Journal]

I was a tight-lipped sixteen year old sitting at Buffalo Wild Wings across from a man who told me "You only smile with half your face. You're going to get an aneurysm by the time you're thirty."

My dad was confused why I burst into tears in the car, because I'd been smiling and laughing all throughout dinner. He didn't understand it's because you learn early not to show your true face. Because laughing is how you keep your teeth from breaking. Hide the pain, bury the lede, turn sideways so they can't see the mask inside that's grimacing.

We were all in the Kung Fu "leadership" team. My brother and I helped with the classes my dad taught on Wednesday - the supposed "hardcore" class, so we also sat in on the monthly leadership meetings and then later, would go out to get wings. I didn't really lead anything. I mostly got thrown across the room because I was good at emulating pain, making myself soft like a ragdoll. I was a little fat back then, and I always felt awkward except in those brief moments when I was flying through the air.

Even these moments you don't believe in are crucial.

It was Jose, fast and small and lean, who first taught me that technique in passion. I was painfully shy, and you could tell by the way I punched, by the way I flinched, looked away. Then I joined his class. He was immediately different from the other people in the school- most who were white and soft like me and had never seen many real fights. He understood that more important than technique, was intent. That if your heart did not have the passion inside of it to kill someone, you'd never be able to defend yourself.

He also told my dad he should start feeding me tequila, so by the time I got to college I'd drink any boy under the table. (My dad didn't take this advice.)

He recognized the shyness in me and took an interest of eradicating it from my martial arts work. Don't look away. Don't overextend. Get close. Don't stop. Push through until the end. Until I felt moving through those actions, that I understood the implication of what I was doing, fully and completely, until I could actually respond with aggression and passion. Until the tentativeness inside each motion began to dissolve, rubbing at the edges of my bones.

It'd be many more years until I could apply this to the rest of my life, before I'd stop smiling when people hurt me, like flinching at a punch, like putting my hands up and looking away, instead of pushing through it.

I still don't know what all those lessons mean. I'm piecing them together, stranding them in reverse chronological order, and then looping them back.

I think now: Intent is what fuels the motivation of the muscles.
I think: If you start it, you need to finish it, or you've already failed.

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Self portrait by me canon t51

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