Blue Belt

Chapter 16

                                                                        XVI.

        A month had passed since my dealing with Bobby's "supposed" threat, and the unfortunate accident that Cody was involved in on the sailboat.  I never actually confirmed what Jorge had reported to me, but I reached a place where it all meant a bit less to me.  I really had so many other pressing concerns in terms of both my training and my work at the shop, that life became too busy to sit and ponder Bobby as much anymore.  Speculating what Bobby would or would not do, what might or might not happen, was not going to help matters.  So as the time passed, I forced much of it out of my mind, and would deal with any side effects from that whole thing if and when they surfaced.  Whether that was being in denial, or it was being judicious, it was what I had to do.  I also saw much less of Cody, as he was indeed forced to take serious time away from the school to rehab his arm.  Deep down I still had that uneasy feeling regarding the set of unfair events that I perceived as happening in my life, but for the sake of what I needed to do here, I did my very best to push that aside in my mind. 

            We were beginning to feel fortunate to be able to work closely with Mr. Vargo.  He had become much more like a friend to us than anything else.  He and Brandon helped us work on the things that Mr. Reeder would probably be asking of us in the near future.  We had yet another new student in class, named Clay, who was from a school up in LA that was geared somewhat close to this one.  For some reason he choose to still wear pants from the uniform he had up there.  They were interesting because they were actually light blue, and had a stripe running down the side that had the coloring of a rainbow.  Vargo sometimes called him "rainbow guy" when he was calling on him.  Of course sarcasm was a big part of Vargo's language at times.  He called it a "positive sarcasm".  Clay was cool though; perhaps one of the nicest guys I've ever met.  Although he was not real outgoing, he fit in with us very well.

            "So Clay, you want to demonstrate the reverse round house?"  Vargo asked him as we were beginning class.

            "Yeah.  I can do that."  He said nodding with a smile.  Clay had incredible flexibility.  Since he was new with us it was surprising how often he was asked to demonstrate his moves.  With his back turning away from us he began to spin around and then his leg straightened out, in a real high position, as he attacked with the heel of his foot in one swift motion.  I could see how he used his entire body to get momentum for his kick.  His balance was great.  We paired up and practiced the kick.  We were beginning to learn more moves like this where the move was just a part of larger body motions that were going on.  I could see how all the balance work we had done to this point was now beginning to really be put into practice.

            "Tomas, why not try a lower version of that then if you are losing balance going up that high."  Mr. Vargo had come around to watch Tomas and I working on this kick.  Both Tomas and I were trying to duplicate Clay's kick height, but it had not worked out as of yet.

            "Here.  Let me give it a shot."  I said as I gained an insight from something Tomas was doing.  I wanted to jump in and try another few based on an insight that came to me while watching him.

            "Yeah, that's the idea.  Hey, everyone gather round a sec.  Let Matt demonstrate this."  Vargo said while motioning to the others.  I felt like I had got the motion of this kick, even if not quite as high up as when Clay did it.  "Excellent."  Vargo added as I did a couple more.  "Good intensity too."  He added.  I felt proud too as I'm not sure he every complemented me quite that much.  It was always more Brandon that was a bit looser in the way of dishing out complements in the middle of a lesson.