My First Fight

I had only been in Taekwon-Do for about three months when I went to my first tournament. I’d never been in a ring with a stranger who was going to try to punch and kick me in the face. I was skittish and ill-prepared.

I was in a beginner’s class at Apollo Taekwon-Do with my two kids and a lady about my age with two kids of her own. When we would spar, it’s not like I would go very hard. I didn’t want to hit anyone in the class, and none of them wanted to hit me either. Or, even if they did, there wasn’t much at stake for me. The mom in the class could wind up and hit me as hard as she wanted and not do serious damage. I had a feeling it would be different when I was up against some other 45-year-old dude chasing glory days or hoping to become an authentic badass.

So I went to Master Arden on the Wednesday night before our Saturday tournament. 

“Sir?”

“Yes?”

“I have a couple questions about the tournament.”

“Oh, yes, about that,” he said. “We are throwing you right into the fire.”

“Excuse me?”

“Your age division only has three other competitors. Two of them are only a few levels above you: a Green Stripe and a Green Belt. But in the draw for match ups, you got the Blue Belt, so he’s five levels above you.”

“Oh. Uh… so that’s, like, halfway to a Black Belt, or something?”

“A little more than that.”

“So… would he have done this before. Like, fought in tournaments?”

“I don’t anything about him. But, yes, I’m sure he’s been in a few tournaments. I can see he’s from a good school. I know the instructor there.”

I paused, waiting for Master Arden to say something encouraging. He did not. 

“’K,” I said, “I’m trying to think of how to say this without sounding like a jerk.”

“You should try just saying it.”

“Okay. I’m in this class with a few kids and one lady. We’ve barely sparred at all. We’ve only put on the gear twice. And when we have, I’m almost trying not to hit them, and they barely hit me. Like… won’t the tournament be different?”

“It will be very different. He is going to hit you.”

“Okay, well, that’s my concern. I don’t go around getting in fights…”

“Good. You shouldn’t.”

“Right, but I’d rather it not be the first time when I go on Saturday. Like, you have other classes. Is there one that I could come to and maybe get a feel for what more serious sparring is like?”

“You can come to the 8 o’clock class tomorrow. My Black Belts would love to kick you around.”

“Really?”

“Yes.”

“All right. Well… good night, Master Arden. See you tomorrow.”

“Good night.”

I didn’t know it yet, but I had just merged into the fast lane of Taekwon-Do.

I’ll never forget showing up to that advanced class. First of all, there were a lot more people, about 16. And they were much older. The youngest were in their upper teens, but there were some other guys my age in there, and most of these people were Black Belts. Some of the Black Belts were second, third, and fourth degree. This was a distinction I did not know much about at the time, but even I could surmise that the roman numerals on their belts must represent many years of throwing punches and kicks.

There was a palpably different spirit in that room. The classes run back-to-back, and the advanced class milled about at the entrance and spoke quietly amongst themselves as they waited for the other class to finish up, but once they were called to attention with the Korean word Charyut, it was all business. Faces were grim, stances were precise, motions were crisp. They took their Taekwon-Do seriously.

The class was difficult for me to follow. The drilling stretched my knowledge, my body, and my recall. Master Arden would rapidly call out a series of attacks, and the class would then perform them in unison. He’d say, “Front foot turning kick, hook kick, back kick, sliding double-punch, guarding block.” He’d wait one second for that to sink in, and then call out, “Si Jak!” This is the Korean word for begin, and the class would perform the series as one. I was used to one or two movements at a time.

The time flew by as I tried to keep the pace, and then I heard Master Arden say, “Go put your sparring gear on.”

The class responded with a loud, “Yes, sir,” another thing I was not used to, and they all ran swiftly to their gym bags at the back of the room.

I ran over to my rented-for-the-week bag of sparring gear and dove in. There’s an emphasis on getting into the gear quickly, and the advanced class was fast. I was still strapping on my gloves when everyone was finished.

The sparring gear is not as protective as you might think. For example, the footgear is not for the protection of the defender at all. It only protects the bridge of the attacker’s foot. So if a competitor’s kick is blocked by an elbow or forearm, the kicker isn’t going to break their foot bones on those blocks. But the bottom of the foot is where all the weapons are. You hit people with the ball of your foot, the heel, or the blade (the outside edge from pinky to heel). There are no soles on the footgear, so these weapons are un-blunted.

The gloves do take the edge off a punch. Because they cover the knuckles, a hard punch won’t cut open the skin, but I can assure you that the force is not diminished. They are very light weight.

The headgear feels protective, but it is a false sense of security. It gives you a bit of cushion in the critical areas like the temple, and it hugs the jaw with only the chin left open. That paired with a mouthguard can prevent or mitigate a few concussions, though not all.

I was blissfully unaware of these facts as I strapped on the gear.

The class formed two lines facing each other. As the last one ready, I ran to stand in the empty spot. I stood across from someone I’d heard referred to as “Mr. Smith” throughout the class. All the Black Belts get called by their Misters. Mr. Smith was about my age, a little taller and thinner than me, and he wore a Black Belt with the roman numeral II on it.

Master Arden called out the commands to bow to our opponents and assume ready position. There’s always a brief pause after we get into our guarding block and before he says Si Jak. In that brief second, I saw Mr. Smith look over my left shoulder; he gave a slight nod in the affirmative. I took a quick glance over there and saw Master Arden, face inscrutable except for just the hint of a smile.

“Si Jak!”

Mr. Smith advanced immediately, and I do not recall what he threw at me. I do remember that the first few shots where simple sidekicks and punches. I blocked these or dodged them. I didn’t throw anything back because I was just trying to evade and assess. As I blocked the blows, I began to feel more comfortable. I could feel the weight and strength behind them. This was real, not fake. If I didn’t block and evade, I’d be stunned or hurt, so this was real sparring now.

I was beginning to think of how and where I’d strike back when the combos started landing. Beginners typically kick, step back, reload, and kick again, and though he’d started our match that way, Mr. Smith was not a beginner.

It was like someone hit the fast forward button on him, and he was hitting me with a series of blows just like the drills we’d done in class. Hook kick, side kick, sliding double punch, and back kick to finish. I typically blocked the first two of these and ate the rest. The first sidekick to land clean rocked me. As I said, there’s no protection on the bottom of the foot, and there’s also no protection on your torso. So when someone lands a sidekick in your ribs in Taekwon-Do, you get 100% of the impact. 

I was thrust back a couple feet, and it felt like I’d been tackled. And that wasn’t my only surprise. I had learned about a downward kick / axe kick in theory, but I’d never seen one. Imagine that the opponent you face swings their leg straight up in a big kick, but their foot misses you. The foot whistles past your shoulder and face and over your head. But it did not “miss” because that’s the wind up. The strike itself lands as the foot comes back down, and the heel connects with either the top of your head, the bridge of your nose, or your collar bone and chest. The first couple of those clocked me because I didn’t recognize the attack.

I had four matches that night, each with its own brand of ass kicking. There was Mr. Smith, his was sort of an all-purpose beat down, lots of strikes, good amount of force behind them. Then there was Mr. Hosseini, a kid of about 15, but who’d been doing this since he was six. His striking was not as heavy, but I could not put a glove on him, his speed and reflexes at that age were such that I could see his reverse hook kick coming and still get hit by it.

There was one very large Mister, both tall and wide, who I got paired up with. Despite his experience, I was able to block most of his strikes, but they landed with about 275 lbs. behind them. I haven’t seen him before or since. And then there was Jason. Because Jason’s not a Black Belt, I don’t have to call him by his Mister. However, even though he’s only a few belt levels above me, he’s quite a bit taller, and he’s in the advanced class where he fights all of the Misters on the regular. He wasn’t teeing off any head kicks, but I did have some trouble slipping his jab.

If those four rounds had been scored by judges, I’m guessing the final tally would about 65 to 3 against me. Each guy easily got into double digits on hitting me. 

Nevertheless, I was absolutely elated. Most of those strikes were mitigated by a block or a dodge, but a few of them were solidly on target with nothing to slow them down, and I was thankful they had.

See, you learn something about yourself very quickly when you’re overmatched. You find out whether you buckle under the punishment or tuck in your chin and walk into the fray. Turns out, I’m the latter. I found out what it’s like to get hit! I found out that even if I get tagged really hard, I can still keep going. I found out I’m not made of glass.

I went to the tournament with confidence. I didn’t expect to win, but I figured this guy I was facing wouldn’t clobber any worse than what I’d seen that week, so bring it.

The day of the tournament was strange. Both my kids were in it, and they had their own concerns about their first fights as well. And, as I’d learned to expect after many more tournaments, all things will conspire to make family members compete at the same time. Our whole family waited all day for our turns to compete, and suddenly we were all up at virtually the same time. 

I wanted to take some time to get focused, and instead I was rushing away from my daughter’s match when she was halfway through, and jumping into my matches without even knowing how hers turned out.

This is when I got my first look at the guy I’d face. I only had a couple minutes to assess him before the match. He wasn’t tall, maybe an inch taller than me. That was good. Even in my one night of sparring, I realized I had no idea how to overcome a reach advantage. 

More good news was that he wasn’t a lifter. Lifters know lifters. We can spot each other a mile away, and I could see this guy was not on a first name basis with dumbbells and squat racks. He was probably the same weight as me, but he was soft, and I knew it. This shouldn’t matter in a Taekwon-Do match, where we are judged on precision of attacks—scoring by hitting the torso and head—not by the force of the impact. To prevent injury, we’re not supposed to follow through with punches and kicks, just make contact. You can be disqualified for excessive force (though the refs will let the adults swing away pretty good before handing out any minus points).

But the thing is, there’s something to be said for looking at somebody and saying to yourself, “I can beat that guy up,” before you go into any competition. If you think that before a curling match, you’ll probably feel better going in. And I was feeling good.

Master Arden was an organizer for the tournament, so he had to assign some of his Black Belts to be coaches for our club’s matches. I’d never met the guy who’d coach me in my first match, and I only knew him by the Apollo Taekwon-Do jacket he wore.

“Hey, I’m Jeff. I’ll be coaching you.”

“Thanks, sir.”

“This your first tournament?”

“Yes, sir. I just started classes a few months ago.”

“Okay,” he said, looking down at my uber clean White Belt, and then over at the Blue Belt of my opponent. He shook his head. “Well… just don’t think about the belt he’s wearin’ and the years he’s got on ya. Just hang back, okay? You don’t need to get in there and start swingin’. Be patient. Then, if you see something, take a shot.”

Out loud, I said, “Thanks, sir. Got it.” But in my head, I was like, Sorry coach, but it is on. I had the Dropkick Murphy’s playing in my head, and I’m Shipping Up To Boston was building to a crescendo. I was going in hard.

I don’t even remember getting called into the ring, bowing to the judges, the ref, and my opponent. I just remember the ref calling “Si Jak,” backing out of the way, and me wading in.

The only advice I took from the coach was to not think about the belt the guy was wearing. I went for it. My one simple strategy was to keep moving forward, take any punishment that came but deal out more if I could. It was not what Mr. Blue Belt anticipated.

He was on defense right from the jump, and he was no Mr. Smith. He blocked and dodged, but he didn’t stop everything. I could feel kicks sinking into his midsection, and I could see his head snap back with punches I landed. At one point, he signaled for a time out. This is allowed for the fixing of equipment: if you feel like your foot strap has popped free, or the chinstrap on your headgear comes undone. 

The ref called “Haechyo,” which means you need to separate, but you stay in your guarding stance ready to go. The guy put his hand to his throat and told the ref I’d throat-punched him, which is an illegal strike. The ref didn’t see it, so he didn’t dock any points from me, but he gave the guy a minute to compose himself. That’s when I knew I had him. He was stalling. He didn’t want the match to start up again, and I did.

“Adam!” I heard called from my corner. “Back off a bit! Just relax.” 

I took stock of myself. The ref had one arm between me and Mr. Blue Belt, and the other was raised to signal we were in time out. But I was standing right there at the barrier of his arm, fists raised, poised to jump in, and wound up so tight I could hear my heart beating. It looked like I was positively aching to start throwing leather again as this guy was trying to catch his breath. I took a couple steps back and assumed a more relaxed ready stance.

I found a couple shots from my first fight that give some context for how hard you're allowed to hit in my division. You can see by where his head is right as I connect, and where it is right after, that they'll let us go pretty hard in the Old Boys division.

My coach started talking again. “Listen, you’re up, okay? You don’t need to score anymore. Just keep a bit of pressure on and you’ve got it.”

“Thanks, sir,” I said.

When my opponent put up his hands in his guard again, the ref glanced over at me, and said, “Si Jak!” jumping back out of the way.

Again, I did not follow the coach’s instructions and went right back to work. This time, I wasn’t purposely ignoring him. It just felt good to go out and apply all these kicks and punches I’d been learning. The tricky part was stopping when the ref called “Haechyo!” to end the match.

To be clear, this approach never works. You cannot just Get Angry or See Red and hope to prevail in a fight. You will be obliterated by someone with training every single time. The only reason it worked in this circumstance is that a Blue Belt, though miles ahead of my White Belt, is still just a beginner in the Taekwon-Do world. It’s like the difference between a toddler and preschooler, and any adult could simply take them in hand. This guy was just overwhelmed by a stronger, meaner mammal, and he didn’t have the training to handle it.

Case in point: in my next match, I faced someone who watched what I did, someone who fought out of the same club as me, Jason. Our match followed immediately after the fight I won, and he noted how I had just the one trick of coming in hot. He back-pedaled for our whole match and fed straight rights directly into my grill for two minutes. I just kept thinking, Come on! Go get him! and eating leather over and over. It was a rather pathetic showing.

After that match, my coach said, “Well… you aren’t afraid to get hit. That’s something anyway.” 

And it is something. It’s not such a bad thing to have the ability to take punishment and keep swinging. However, it can be a real liability. In Taekwon-Do, there are no points awarded for being a punching bag no matter how durable.

I have a very patient teacher in Master Arden, who reminds daily that I don’t have to push forward into every attack. Dodging and blocking are options too. Sometimes I manage to listen and apply the advice. Other times… I’m rushing in just like that first tournament. Foolhardy for certain, but tough enough to keep coming.