To pick up where my last story left off; I was wandering the dusty, time resistant passages of what I’d come to accept as the eighth wonder of the world. As I walked I was deep in thought. I contemplated the complexities of Lalibela’s wondrous churches like a child seeing a big city skyline for the first time, trying to make sense of something larger than life. As we explored, my two travel companions from New Zealand and I clamored up centuries old steps etched in rock, scrambled over hills, passed under venerated archways and through tunnels so dark that in the middle there was no light ahead or behind.
In addition to my companions and guide, I became increasingly aware of the watchful presence of the young guide-in-training who had been shadowing our group at a respectful distance. He had a bright alertness to his gaze that seemed to indicated intelligence. He was skinny, tall, and pubescent. Both days of the tour he had dressed in the same worn out white t shirt with the seams ripping at the shoulder. I was especially conscious of the boy’s eager attentiveness as the guide began to shift the topic of conversation out of the realm of historic certainties and into mythology and his own religious lore. It was a little disappointing to hear our guide present only his own version of history as confidently as if it was common sense fact, as if he were stating something as simple and incontrovertible as declaring that Africa is a continent and not a country. In my mind the worst effect of his bias was that he was demonstrating this behavior in the presence of an impressionable young student that was hanging off his every word. One who would lead tour groups of his own along those passages someday.
As we climbed another embankment of sun bleached steps and the group became more spread out, my sense of historical justice became so great that I couldn’t help but seize upon the opportunity to actually broach the subject with our quiet companion. I lingered at the back of the group and spoke to him as soon as we were no longer within earshot of the others. “A little feedback,” I said. “As a guide it is good to share your own beliefs, but if a subject is controversial then you might want to consider presenting alternative viewpoints and then letting your audience decide for themselves what to believe. Trust me, you’ll get better tips that way,” I advised. He was as receptive to my opinion as I could hope for.
With my crusade complete we began making small talk and moved on to other topics of conversation. I learned that his name is Simen. He is 17 and moved to Lalibela from the countryside where he was born. I was impressed with his English, which at such a young age was already superior to the guide’s. While we talked we were moving through a narrow chasm. It was at the same level as the church’s doorstep, but way below ground level. Suddenly Simen told me he told me he knew a shortcut. With an inexplicable urge to impress Simen, I rather unwisely followed him as he darted up the cliff like a mountain goat. I clambered up as quickly as I could using both hands and feet. With some degree of satisfaction I then walked with him alongside the rest of the group who were well below us squeezing through the narrow trench we had climbed out of.
“You look strong” he said. Then he asked a pivotal question. “Do you do martial arts?” I thanked him for the compliment. “Actually, it’s funny you should ask,” I replied. “Back home I’m a martial arts instructor for a fighting style called Krav Maga,” I added, more than a little surprised that he would ask me something so specific. “Why do you ask? What do you know about martial arts?” was my follow up. I was expecting that maybe he’d seen something on TV or the internet. “I am part of a Taekwondo club at my school,” he answered, to my astonishment. He continued, “Maybe you can come to visit us. There is a class tomorrow night. It is right after our tour is finished.” And so a friendship was born.
The following day I wore my most presentable outfit on the tour. I scrounged together some loose fitting brown pants with a drawstring instead of a belt. It was the closest thing I had that resembled the type of uniform I always saw traditional martial artists wear in the movies. My ninja pants were accompanied by a fitted black wicking t shirt that I had intended to use for hiking, and black work boots from my time on a construction site earlier in the trip. I imagined my new look to project strength and show readiness for action. The dark colors were a bit sinister though, and I was a little worried that I might come across like a Cobra Kai member from the Karate Kid. When the time came Simen and I made our way to Lalibela’s one and only vocational college.
We approached the nondescript schoolhouse to the commotion of students of all ages entering and leaving. I took off my shoes at the entrance and bowed in deference as I entered the dojo. Simen secured a crucial spot for us at a rickety wooden school desk tucked away in the corner. The rest of the students had to sit on the floor, stuffed into the narrow space like uniformed sardines. The room was much too small for the fifty odd students crammed within its walls. Almost comically so, like the classic old black-and-white skit with the overstuffed clown car. If the room had a maximum capacity sign like an American school would, the group would’ve exceeded that fourfold. Luckily I’m not prone to claustrophobia, because not only was the room crowded but it was dimly lit as well and getting dimmer by the minute with the waning evening sun. Despite the inadequate quarters, the energy in the room was electric with anticipation.
The master wore no uniform, but I knew right away that he had arrived when the room suddenly fell silent. The reaction was so instantaneous that it was as if someone had pressed a mute button on the crowd. I was awed by the level of respect and discipline that he commanded over an impossibly oversize club of widely varying ages and experience levels. I could see why he didn’t wear a uniform. He didn’t need one. His position was unmistakable. It crossed my mind that there may not be that type of uniform available in Lalibela, but that’s beside the point.
With the utterance of just a few words by him in a subdued tone, students began forming into a line and striking one by one at a target held at chest height with a flourish of round spinning kicks. Simen leaned toward me and whispered, “They are doing this for you as a demonstration.” I nodded that I understood, but couldn’t take my eyes off the action. The students hurled themselves determinedly at the hovering target. Just when I thought they were done showing off, the master began to raise the target even higher. Some of the senior students were kicking at the level of their own heads, while the elite black belts reached even above that, jumping nimbly off the ground as they spun like daring gymnasts performing acrobatic feats.
Once this was over, there was a pause in the action. Simen turned to me and said, “Now is your chance. Do you want to show something to the class?” I was startled. This was the first time that Simen had mentioned such a proposition. I wasn’t even sure if the master knew in advance that I was coming. A mental catalog of exercises and techniques flitted quickly through my head. I had only a fleeting moment to come up with some kind of demonstration that would be appropriate for such a challenging audience. More than anything I had an overriding impulse that pushed away any anxiety. I absolutely had to take advantage of the experience, which was sure to be once in a lifetime. Like one of the black belts lurching towards his target, I resolved to seize the moment and react quickly. I nodded affirmatively to Simen, who immediately rose from his seat and began to exchange indecipherable words with the master in Amharic.
The next thing I knew I was standing in front of a fairly large group of Ethiopian youth, gesturing wildly as I attempted to orchestrate a warm up with Simen as my translator. At the time that I began teaching I didn’t have a fully formed plan in my head yet, and I needed to buy myself some time with a warm-up creative and versatile enough to hold their attention. I told everyone to pick a partner of roughly the same height and line up along the two far walls. It was some minutes, and much confusion, before even this small task could be accomplished. Then I told the people on the longer wall to have their partners get into a push up position and grab their ankles. From there I wanted them to wheelbarrow walk to the other side of the room. After they arrived there they were to pause and let their partners do some push-ups with their legs elevated before rejoining the group at the back of the line. This arrangement worked remarkably well at first, but began to deteriorate as the younger and more impatient students ignored my directive and started doing the push-ups all around the room where they pleased. This bit of anarchy disrupted the whole thing. Coming to terms with the crisis for space, I switched tactics and proceeded with stationary warm ups, such as planks performed side by side parallel to a partner. I added in my own variation. A more aggressive take on the normal plank that I’m sure they hadn’t seen before. In my Krav Maga version, as if holding a plank in the push-up position wasn’t hard enough they had to nudge and push each other to add instability while holding a plank at the same time.
With the ice-breaking warm ups (pun intended) out of the way, I began to introduce my martial arts style by way of extemporaneous speech and translator. I wasn’t sure how long I would have for this presentation. I wanted to at least communicate to my audience how the basic principles of the combat system I teach compare to Taekwondo, which is likely the only style they’ve ever known. I demonstrated several moves, and even went as far as to teach a few simple techniques to the group’s black belts while the rest of the class looked on. The students had a lot of questions for me as did the instructor. What I teach is purely for self-defense and was developed by the Israeli military. By contrast, Taekwondo is an Olympic sport with its roots in Korea. There was a lot of ground to cover. People wanted to know how to get out of this type of hold or that kind of attack. One student asked, “Using your self-defense system, how can you react if the attacker picks up a rock?” He was clearly trying to stump me. I responded, “Pick up a weapon.” I traded an irreverent question for an irreverent answer.
At one point the topic was raised as to what kind of patterns, or what I’ve heard called forms, we have in my martial art. “We don’t have any kind of forms,” I explained. “Krav Maga is modern, so there is very little ceremony or ritual. There aren’t even uniforms. The focus is on technique.” I didn’t mean for this statement to detract from the value of Taekwondo, despite the fact that the two styles have far more differences than what they have in common. In an attempt at reconciliation I added, “Taekwondo has a much longer history, and a rich tradition all its own.”
Following this statement the master asked me to have a seat with the hint of a smirk on his face. “They are going to demonstrate for you again,” said Simen. “For me this is one of the most beautiful things in Taekwondo,” he added. Since I had only ever set foot in traditional dojos on rare occasions, I had only ever heard of forms in passing. I might have caught occasional glimpses of them on TV in Kung Fu movies. I was much more familiar with boxing rings and MMA clubs when venturing outside my own style. To me, forms seemed like nothing more than a macho, stylized attack on the air with a healthy dose of grunting and “Hiyaaas” for emphasis.
All I really knew was that forms were some kind of ritualized pattern of motion memorized by students of the East Asian styles such as Karate, Kung Fu, and Taekwondo. From my own background, I always dismissed these styles as the least useful for real world self-defense, and so I never understood why they placed so much emphasis on memorizing ostentatious patterns of movement that didn’t seem to serve any practical purpose. Even though I was admittedly a little biased against the Asian arts, I had never seen it in person, demonstrated live right in front of my face.
By this time the weak evening light outside the room’s few windows had long since faded into night. The students silently organized themselves into rows so many students deep that as my eyes scanned the room their individual features became less distinct the further back into the shadows I cast my gaze. I had to adjust to the faint fluorescence of a single yellow light bulb dangling by its wire overhead, affixed to an unpainted mud ceiling. The students weren’t exactly silhouetted, but by assembling in the artificial twilight they seemed to renounce their individuality and become part of a grander gesture of their discipline.
With such limited space, all of the students were well within arm’s reach of those around them. In fact they were practically shoulder to shoulder. By the master’s orchestration, despite every disadvantage of their makeshift dojo, the students moved in breathtaking unison. They spun and gesticulated energetically as one unit. In such close quarters, without practiced precision they would have been clobbering each other instead of striking the air. This was not the ancient ruins of hidden temples that I had become accustomed to gawking at over the past few days. It was a different type of marvel altogether, but I was blown away just the same. This display was unlike anything I had ever seen, and far more sophisticated than I had assumed the ragtag group capable of. Watching Taekwondo in the Olympics couldn’t have been more inspiring.
Eventually the form reached its conclusion and the majority of the students retreated back to the periphery of the room where they sat on the floor expectantly, practically on top of one another. Only a select few of the senior students were left standing in line, distinguished by their proud upright posture and their colored belts. Simon leaned in again and whispered, “Now they gonna fight” with palpable enthusiasm. At the master’s word they began unleashing a whirlwind of spinning kicks at their sparring partner’s heads and midsections. Even through the barrage of attacks it was clear to see that the students were exercising restraint. “What are the rules?” I asked Simen curiously. “Don’t punch to the face. Kick only to the body and head, but not the legs. Kick only with the foot, not the shin,” he told me. Considering the kind of full contact I’m used to from other combat sports these rules actually sounded quite tame. The type of attacks permitted were much more limited in scope. Nonetheless, the black belts putting on a show for us were going at it with intensity. The black belts used their aerial spinning style to aim for the head yet tempered their attacks with the discipline not to put their full force behind the kicks. Body shots were another story. I wouldn’t be a martial arts instructor if I wasn’t at least familiar with the feeling of taking a shot to the center of the chest that knocks the wind right out of you and brings you to your knees. There were no restrictions against this in their sparring session.
After sitting on the sidelines for so long, I couldn’t help myself. “Do you think I could join in?” I asked Simen tentatively. He gave me a funny look. “You want to challenge the master?” Simen seemed taken aback. “Oh no, no, no, that’s not exactly what I had in mind,” I responded quickly. The thought really hadn’t occurred to me, although if Kung Fu movies were anything to go by it could make for an interesting night. Then I remembered that I was in a country without the best medical care, and decided to restrain myself and proceed with caution. I said, “I just want to give it a whirl, that’s all.” Simen paused thoughtfully, and then posed some variation of my request to the master in Amharic. The room fell silent once again. This time the silence had a different quality. “I’ve never sparred in Taekwondo before, and I’m not familiar with these rules, so go easy on me,” I said, hoping that my plea came across as humility. I wanted to make it clear that I just wanted to have some fun and wasn’t asking for some kind of macho showdown, like ones I’ve seen all too often in seedy American gyms in this type of situation.
With that the master put what was clearly one of his best students in front of me. He was a formidable looking black belt, a little taller than me and solidly built. Earlier in my trip, while working as a volunteer on a construction project, I had challenged myself by seeking out the stone masons and spending the majority of my time on the site working with them. While some of the masons were on the skinny side and didn’t look too tough, that experience made me well aware of the nearly superhuman strength and endurance that could be packed into the frames of some of Ethiopia’s hardworking people. While I wasn’t sure of the quality of his training, I resolved not to underestimate him.
It seemed that from the moment the match began I was dodging feet right and left, whizzing past at eye level. I was unfamiliar with the range for such kicks, and while I was still sizing him up and judging the distance my opponent was already making a point of demonstrating his ability to perpetually aim kicks at my face. At first, I had no answer and could only dodge out of the way or occasionally check a kick using techniques from another form of kickboxing. Since round looping kicks like those in Taekwondo are mainly useful for competition and not recommended for self-defense for a variety of reasons, I have never even attempted half the kicks in his arsenal. Whenever I would throw a straight kick his way, which I invariably aimed at the body, he would skillfully shrink just out of reach. Clearly I was playing his game and on his home turf. Once I finally got my bearings I was able to unleash an arsenal of roundhouse kicks of my own, although still no spinning kicks because that’s literally not my style. My offensive was met by applause and even some cheering from the audience of about 50 onlookers, who occasionally had to scramble out of the way to make room for our intense bout.
As the match was drawing to a close, in my crowning move, just when my opponent had begun to expect only straight kicks from me I switched up my strategy. I feinted turning away after a botched kick in order to draw him in and then countered with a spinning back kick of my own. It’s the only spinning kick I know, and by that point I doubt he thought I was capable of it. It caught him square in the chest. Seeing a foreigner from a different style of martial art successfully use a Taekwondo move in their dojo was a big moment for the students. The crowd went wild with cheering and applause. Not to be outdone, at my opponent’s request the master asked if I would like to put on gloves and fight with punches and kicks as I am accustomed to. With safety in mind I decided to quit while I was ahead, and returned panting to my school desk in the corner. Before doing so I bowed to my partner to show my respect, which I sensed was customary. He returned the gesture with a broad and genuine smile.
At the conclusion of the class, the students sat down Indian style. For several minutes some of them took turns one by one standing and addressing me in the best English they could muster. Some of them simply thanked me for coming. Others wanted to know if I would be willing to help the club in any way when I got back, or even just keep in touch. Anything, they said, any form of assistance would be welcome. Online lessons, martial arts supplies such as pads and gloves, etc were some of their requests. One or two even went so far as to ask for money. The bluntest of the students informed me that he had to ask the master for leniency from time to time because it is too difficult for him to afford the monthly fee for the classes. He said many others are in the same position. If tonight seemed crowded, he said, I should know that there are so many other students who want to join that they take shifts. Some aren’t permitted to come on certain days and others come but can only sit on the sidelines. The 50 birr membership fee that he was referring to is the equivalent of $2.50 per month. It was heartbreaking. One boy stood up and wanted me to promise that I would help them in some way. I told them I would do the best I could.
Finally, at the end of the class the students lined up and faced the master. Not wanting to seem aloof I asked Simon if I could line up with them. Everyone turned to the instructor and bowed, then turned to the corner where I was standing and bowed again. Confused, I turned with them and bowed facing the same direction. After a moment I realized with slight embarrassment that they were bowing to face me. Over the six years I have been practicing martial arts I have been in many gyms, and often developed camaraderie. Of all places, in Ethiopia, I found the community I had always yearned for. The mats beneath our feet were a platform for far more than kicks.