Chapter 5 / Page 1

5


Roselle, Illinois
Saturday, November 15, 1997
1:30 P.M. CST

Karate schools are simple places. In the best ones, there are mirrors on one wall, handrails along the other walls, and a fairly good industrial grade carpet. The carpets usually have a different colored square in the middle. It defines a ring without the need for ropes and posts in the conventional sense of a gymnasium. This floor had a red center with a gray border, and it contained two fighters. Each was clad in workout pants and T-shirts. They looked more like aliens than people with their cage masks, rib guards, and hand pads flashing about.

For some, the best part of martial arts is the intricate forms. A form, or kata, is simply telling a story of a fight in classical stances and moves. Indeed, classical basics have their place in training and self-discipline, but for others, it is the chase and the fight that holds the allure. Most instructors will explain to new students: “This is a contact sport and you will get hit.” In the very next breath, they explain that the first rule in sparring is to not get hit.

So it was for Jim Harper. He had learned his forms, and worked on his classical basics, but fighting was the chance to test himself against another trained fighter. The most difficult challenge seemed to be against people he fought on a regular basis. They began to recognize the feints and fakes. They understood the tendencies to hook kick towards the head and sidekick towards the stomach. Good fighters made good friends who pointed out things to each other like steel sharpening steel.

Jim Harper was no novice to fighting. A fourth degree black belt represents at least ten years of training as a black belt, and probably another two or three years as an under belt. Today, he was working with an under belt, just as his trainers had worked with him. He was giving back to another generation what he had been given. He surveyed his opponent—a brown belt teenager. Teenage boys were fascinating adversaries. They had magnificent physical capabilities. They could kick and jump higher and faster than Jim could. But youth and speed was rarely a match for age and deviousness.