God in the Octagon

Round 1

I can do all things through Him who strengthens me.-Philippians 4:13

I'm bleeding. His left hook connected above my eyebrow and I feel wear he it begin to throb. Blood begins rushing down my forehead and into my eye. Through the red mask I am now wearing, I see him shoot for the takedown. I sprawl, praying I can stuff it before he gets to my legs and gets me on my back. I know his ground game is much stronger than mine, since he's a black belt in jujitsu and a freestyle wrestler. I'm not fast enough and the crowd erupts in a volley of cheers as my back slams into the mat. The wind has been knocked out of me, and I feel him swarm on top of me trying to finish, but I won't let him. Why am I doing this? Maybe it's the money, maybe it's the adrenaline rush you get every time you step into the ring. It doesn't matter anymore. Once you're in there, you never want to get out. Fighting takes over your life if you let it, that's what happened to me, and it nearly destroyed my life and everything I held dear. That's why my son and wife are currently watching the life get beat out of me, watching what at one time was considered me being drawn further and further away from my relationship with them and God, but now it's what I use to connect with them. With every punch, kick and takedown I do, I grow closer to my creator, my wife and my son. But to understand why I am currently trying to stop a very violent waiter from delivering a buffet of knuckle sandwiches I didn't order, we have to go back to where it all began; where my craving to be force fed fists started, and that place is in the basement of a small church in Drumston, Alberta.

The first time I walked into Drumston Pentecostal Church, I thought about how strange it was that a karate dojo to be held here. In my 10 year old mind, karate had always had an ancient Buddhist monk on a mountain mysticism to it. Quick history lesson that I later learned, martial arts like karate have very deep ties to the Ryukyu kingdom, whose dominant religion was a combination of Buddhism, Confucianism and Taoism. So the thought of a bald Tibetan man teaching the word of the Christianity and a martial art that I thought at the time contradicted those same beliefs inside a church was hilarious and to this day always gives me a good laugh before a fight. However, when I stepped into the basement of that church, I knew this was not going to be fancy hand movements and constant bowing to higher belts like in those Bruce Lee movies my dad had shown me the night before. There were people sparring, people learning spinning kicks and arm breaks and people just talking. The sensei who was an old friend of dear old pa, came over and gave in a big bear hug. The man was 6'10 and looked like a 90's porn star in a karate gi. He had short black hair that was slowly turning greying on the sides, bushy eyebrows that looked like caterpillar corpses that had been dug up and put on his face and he had that special moustache that like I said, made him look like he should be delivering an extra-large sausage pizza to Monica right before Phoebe, Chandler, Joey, Rachel and Ross came in and asked to join in to make the weirdest episode of Friends yet.

"How are you, Daniel?" the sensei asked with a grin that could have reached to the other side of town.

"I'm good, Neil." my dad said, still slightly jostled by the giants hug he had been consumed by just moments before. "I'm here to enroll Jack in karate."

"Hi there Jack!" Neil said to me, bending down to get to my level. "I'm Sensei Neil McGill, the black belt in charge here at karate for Christ. What brings you to karate?"

"Well I've played a lot of different sports but I never really liked them, and I wasn't much good either. I figured that before I stop with sports, I may as well try one last one." I really did suck at sports. And when I sucked at something, I got angry, and anger for me always turned to violence. When I played hockey, I wasn't fast enough on skates to be on offence and not big enough to play defence so my coach would always just throw me on randomly and hope for the best. In one season, I had a single goal and the league record for most intentional penalties and minutes spent in the penalty box. In total, I had spent over 65 minutes in the sin bin; the equivalent to one regular season game, plus one period of overtime. I was too skinny to play football and not flexible enough to do gymnastics, so martial arts was a last ditch effort to keep my dad to keep me somewhat physically active so I didn't become a fat old man and die of a heart attack like my grandpa and uncle and also a way for me to channel my violence, at least in my father's eyes. Little did he know that as I started going to karate, I was slowly becoming addicted to it. The rush I got every time I threw a punch, the sheer joy that filled by body when I heard the words "sparring night next week" uttered from behind sensei Neil's strangely pornographic moustache. It was better than a Christmas or birthday present my parents could have ever gotten me. My first sparring session went horribly. I lost all of my matches and when I came home that night with two black eyes, my mother gave my father a look that she only reserved for when I broke something like her special vase. After many sleepless nights practicing my katas and spinning back fists and left hooks, I got better and I worked my way of the ladder. In two and a half years, I was a junior black belt in Shotokan karate. I joined the competition team and won second place for sparring and third for katas in an international competition. The smile on my dad's face that day was the biggest I've ever seen him have. He said it was the happiest day of his life since the day I was born and that he was proud of me. I'll never forget that day for as long as I live. However, I eventually craved different ways to fight, different ways to take down my enemies, different ways to get that winning high. After much convincing of my parents, specifically my mom, I joined my middle school wrestling team and still continued with my karate. Wrestling is where I really took off. The first, year, I won second in my weight division at the school board championships. The next year after a bit more rigorous training, I won first in not one but two weight classes, beating the first place guy who had beat me the year before in under 45 seconds. After that, my passion for martial arts exploded. I "graduated" to high school, the most awkward 4 years of my life, full of testosterone and even more fighting. My karate dojo in the church shut down and having no more wrestling team either, I looked for something new. I took up taekwondo and judo at the local YMCA, and man did they get a surprise. My wrestling was a major surprise for all of the judoka and earned me the respect of everyone, even the sensei after I got a lucky submission on him. But it was the taekwondo where I shone brighter than a diamond in the desert and by the end of high school, I had earned my black belt in the art of kicking as well. After high school, I had no idea what I wanted to do. My dad wanted me to go to university for law but my mom always wanted me to be a carpenter, just like Jesus I guess. My mom was a short, black haired Italian woman with a temper that would be triggered by simply talking to her about something she disagreed with. Once, when my best friend mike was over, he said that he thought that the French had better wine than Italian made wine. He left my house running, blood streaming from his nose, my mother screaming behind him about how he had insulted her family's heritage, waving a rolling pin covered in what could be mistaken for tomato sauce. Mike didn't want to come over to my house for a year after that. Like her parents from the homeland and their parents before them, she was a strong catholic. And when I say strong, I don't mean crucifix hanging in car windshield strong. She had one in her windshield, but also in her living room, dining room, washroom and every bedroom in the house. She'd always say "Jack if you don't have Jesus in your life then you're no longer my son." And how could I blame her. She was the mother of a boy who loved fighting and partying, so for her it was like having Satan himself as her son. But I always went to mass with her on Sunday and went to pray with her on Wednesdays as well. For what it was worth, I believed in what I heard in that old building from the man in weird robes. After four years of prayer beads, communion taking, martial arts training, teaching both karate and taekwondo classes and going to black belt classes six days a week and surviving the living hell they call high school, I was ready to move on to greater things, like university. Unfortunately, I didn't believe God wanted me to be like his son, or go into law enforcement either. I decided to go to University to study philosophy, and you could see the disappointment on my parents' face when I told them. My mom just walked away and I could hear her screaming curses from the other room. My dad gave me this huge lecture about how I wouldn't be able to do anything with a degree in philosophy and that I was a huge let down to my family, that my mother would never love me again and that neither would he. It was in that moment I knew I was never going to be coming home, never going see my family again, never going to taste my mother's cooking or hear those words of wisdom from my father. So that was it, I packed my bags and left for University. That's where my journey to become who I am today all began.