Becoming Badass

Master Kang was, and is still an enigma. A slight man, he stood maybe five foot eight inches tall or so and couldn’t have weighed more than a buck forty. He had the look of someone who was somehow thirty and eighty years old at the same time. In every picture I saw on the wall of the dojang he looked the same. Whether doing split kicks in front of the Eifel Tower, or a leaping jump kick over 8 crouched men a calm presence surrounded him. At the same time I knew a very small amount of what he was capable of. Sorta like one of those big green generating boxes you see in suburbs, you can touch it and it won’t hurt you, but the subtle humming of the energy store within warned it was not to be trifled with.

As I stared at the wall of pictures and achievements I read his marital mastery:
…Presented with the title of 8th Dan Master Tae Kwon Do
…Presented with the title of 7th Dan Master Kendo
…Presented with the title of 8th Dan Master Hapkido

There was one more title he had that I noticed:

…Presented with the title of 6th Dan Master &^DHW^&%^#

Never heard of ”&^DHW^&%^#” before? Neither had I. Why is it called ”&^DHW^&%^#”? Well that’s because it’s so epic I don’t think it registered in conscious thought. Not because I can’t remember…

&^DHW^&%^# is the same martial art he simply described as "You use anything. To, uh keeel your opponent". Oh yeah, that one.

Wow. For those of you who don’t know martial arts, that means he knew the high flying and spinning kicks of a Tae Kwon Do master, had the ability to cleave someone in half with a kitana – the sword of the samurai - and the means of tossing your around then breaking all your limbs through Hapkido, and just for good measure if his hands, feet, or sword didn’t end your existence, he could batter you with anything in the room. Impressive stuff.

Lucky for me I trained to at least a noob first class in Hapkido, Tae Kwon Do, and even sparred in Kendo. Too bad I never trained in that other one, because if I had, my yoga mat of doom would have done the trick. Who knew at the onset of a zombie apocalypse I wouldn’t be able to catch a break. Sometimes it just takes a maniacal, bright red, black eyed fiend trying to pancake your noggin to bring back the good memories. Apparently said fiend will also trigger the unconscious movement of a body trained for defense…