{"id":418,"date":"2011-04-06T22:50:00","date_gmt":"2011-04-06T22:50:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/hugotorres.com\/index.php\/2011\/04\/06\/white-belt\/"},"modified":"2011-04-06T22:50:00","modified_gmt":"2011-04-06T22:50:00","slug":"white-belt","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/hugotorres.com\/index.php\/2011\/04\/06\/white-belt\/","title":{"rendered":"White Belt"},"content":{"rendered":"

My father told me on many occasions that he needed to break my nose.<\/p>\n

He felt that by doing so he’d prevent it from looking awkward should one day someone else break it.<\/p>\n

Silvio had this concept that a man must to learn how to fight and defend himself physically from the randomness of life and that is how I came to be enrolled in my one and only karate class.<\/p>\n

As we walked into the training center that chilly rainy evening I felt a rush of heat surge through my body and jitters making my hands shake. The first 15 minutes or so were spent on introductions and instructions on the appropriate way to wear the tunic and how to tie the white belt we’d been assigned.<\/p>\n

Then for about 30 minutes we learned a few basic steps and repeated them over and over and over again. The entire time I felt growing hotter, slower, less capable. But he was looking on and expected sharp snaps at my elbows, fists and kicks and made sure I knew it with his cold glare.<\/p>\n

It was only during the last few minutes of class where were paired with another child for some simple sparing. I saw the more senior boys pick other boys to practice on and it was finally a brown haired girl who picked me. It was a flawed choice.<\/p>\n

With weak knees I stepped on the mat and in mere seconds I was pinned down for the first time. Experience, quickness, and boldness were overpowering and the inner heat I felt just kept on growing.<\/p>\n

The instructor thanked us all and sent us on our way. I changed, folded my new uniform and stepped out of the studio to greet my father.<\/p>\n

The first strike hit right before we hit the car. Like lighting his heavy hand hit at my ear and sent a shrill noise bouncing in my head. The second was was a hot slap to the face and the third a punch to the chin that felt colder because he wore his heavy detective ring.<\/p>\n

I dropped my clothes on the wet floor and felt tears welling up. I didn’t understand that he was disappointed in my performance and that my lack of talent had embarrassed him in his mind.<\/p>\n

We didn’t talk in the car. We didn’t talk for a week.<\/p>\n

He only broke his silence many a days later when the chicken pox had subsided and I was on the mend.<\/p>\n

I suppose I should feel lucky that my nose remains intact.<\/p>\n

<\/a><\/div>\n

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My father told me on many occasions that he needed to break my nose. He felt that by doing so he’d prevent it from looking awkward should one day someone else break it. Silvio had this concept that a man must to learn how to fight and defend himself physically from the randomness of life … Continue reading “White Belt”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1207,481,1209,1041,1208],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/hugotorres.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/418"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/hugotorres.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/hugotorres.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hugotorres.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hugotorres.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=418"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/hugotorres.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/418\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/hugotorres.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=418"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hugotorres.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=418"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hugotorres.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=418"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}