The Carbon Copy
by Christopher R. Martin
Chapter 6 – Gumball Watterson: Karateka
"Did you really have to bring your gi to school today?" my little sister asks me as the three of us walk through the front door of our school, setting her sights on the gym bag that I've chosen to bring instead of my backpack. "You know what happened last time."
"Yes, I know, and so what?" I respond to her nonchalantly, shrugging my left shoulder. "If anyone has a problem with it, let them say it. See if I care."
"Glad to see you've developed some extra self-esteem, but maybe dial down on the sass?" says Darwin sarcastically, furrowing his brow as he looks at me.
Near the staircase, Anais breaks off from us to go to her own class, bidding us "See you guys later," as she walks up the staircase. Darwin and I stop at our lockers, where we fetch the supplies we need.
He finishes before I do; inside the gym bag is my karate gi and belt. I plan to have the gym all to myself so that I can practice what I've learned—what little I've learned so far. Here's hoping that no one in the faculty contracts an ulcer when I ask them later. I stow them away in the locker and fill the bag with my textbooks, notebooks and pencil. But it still leaves me with a lot of unused space.
The small preparations done and dusted, we head to class and make it literally a minute before the school bell rings. Inside, I see Penny sitting on my desk instead of hers, oddly enough. She's been waiting for me all morning.
"Morning, Gumball," she says brightly, waving a hand at me.
"Morning, my dear," I say in a lame attempt to act gentlemanly. She apparently likes it when I behave like a stiff. Does she like it ironically or unironically? That's my question.
Having seen this shtick of mine more times than he'd care to count, Darwin rolls his eyes and takes his seat. As if he's not above impressing a girl. I wouldn't put it past him, especially considering that he sees Carrie at her seat and waves his fin at her flirtatiously, but catches herself and lifts his head high to act suave.
Yeah, I'm a try-hard.
"What have you decided on doing outside of school?" starts Penny, gazing at me from her seat.
"I'll give you a clue." I touch my paws together, one clenched into a fist and the other open, and give her a bow. "Any ideas?"
Penny chuckles. "That's really brave of you to return to karate, Gumball."
"Well, you know me," I reply, taking another stab at impressing her. "Bravery's my middle name." For good measure, I grin at her and wink.
"I thought your middle name was Trisha," Alan butts in, a conscious move to kill the mood between me and my girlfriend.
Miffed by balloon boy's interruption, I lean over my table and glare at him detachedly. "I'm sorry, does this concern you? Do I have to bring out my pencil and sharpen it?"
"No, no, carry on," blurts Alan, giggling nervously and shutting his mouth.
"Hmph! Thought so."
"Are you aiming to get to a certain belt?" asks Penny.
"I guess a black belt." To be honest, I haven't given that much thought. Though a black belt does sound nice. It'd be great if I earned one legitimately.
Another interruption, except it's not from Alan. Otherwise, I would have definitely popped him. No, the person joining our conversation is Masami, hovering between us.
"Did I hear you say you're taking up karate again?" she asks me.
"Yeah. Why?"
"Is it Yoshida-Ryu?"
"Yup. Wait a minute. You're… Oh, of course! Why am I such an idiot?" I might never know why.
It had temporarily escaped me that the style of karate that I'm learning has the same name as Masami's family. She did say that her mom, Yuki, and my mom trained under her grandfather.
Where does Masami in particular fit in this equation?
I guess she was about to tell me, because she expands her legs and arms and takes out a piece of paper from her backpack and gives it to me. There's a drawing on it of a man in a gi and a black belt throwing a kick against an empty orange background. At the bottom of this leaflet are the Japanese letters on the banner in the tool shed and on Mom's black belt.
It's a flier for an upcoming karate event – a kumite held by none other than her family's company.
"I hope you can make it," Masami comments. "It'll be a good experience for you."
"But I'm only at my white belt. I can't possibly go to this."
"Don't worry too much about it. The event's open to everyone, regardless of what belt they have."
"Will you be there?"
Masami gives me a shrug. "Obviously. And so are my parents. We'll be overseeing the entire event from start to finish. Have a think about it."
The door to the classroom swings open for Miss Simian, cueing Masami to take her seat. While our primate teacher does roll call and other homeroom stuff, I give the flier a once over and rest my head on my fist. Then I picture the event itself, what it would be like. The scenario that springs to mind is that of a giant hall teeming with people around my age all dressed in karate gi's of their own and their parents looking on from the bleachers.
I put myself in that scene, nervous by these people surrounding me, but holding my ground anyway. Mom would be on the bleachers, encouraging me from afar. The outcome remains a blank in my mind to be filled.
Outside the teachers' lounge, I sit on a bench and lean on the wall behind me. The seconds tick away, and I spend them drumming my fingers on my knees and tapping my feet on my floor with no rhythm behind them.
Past the door next to me, a multitude of voices flutter by and fill my ears. One of them is the coach, who I just called for and had told me to wait out here for five minutes. It's been ten now, and still counting. I'm ready to get up and leave, but before I know it, out the door she comes, squeezing her cube stature through the frame. Why is she a gym teacher, again?
"Alright, Watterson. What do you need?" she asks, her hands on her… Well, I would say waist, but they're nowhere near close to reaching them.
Holding in my banter, I stand from the bench and look up at her. "I need to borrow the key to the gym," I say plainly, unabashedly.
"I can't just give it to anyone. Why do you need it for?"
"I just do. I wanna, um…"—think, Gumball, think. Think of something good—"practice my basketball for a while. My free throw game could use some work."
"Hmm. You're right. About your terrible free throwing, that is." Out-of-shape and blunt. Boy, she's the complete package, alright. "I still can't give you the key, but you can use the gym. Come with me."
The two of us begin the walk from the teachers' lounge to the gym, which is all the way on the ground floor. There she takes the key out of her pocket and unlocks the door. Inside, she leads me to the locker where all the sports equipment are kept and unlocks that, too.
She starts explaining where the basketballs are, but I stop her there and assure her that I can find my way around the locker. Once she's gone out the door, I ensure that I'm the only one in here and enter the locker room, where I slip into my gi and belt. I then set my bag down on the nearest bench and walk to the center of the gym.
I recall every single thing I learned during my lesson from yesterday. I start with the way I'm standing, spreading my feet to shoulder-width and clenching my fists. My stomach clenches as I shut my eyes and pay close attention to my breathing. Mom taught me her method of counting to four in my head, and I apply that method for myself.
At the end of my meditation, I put my paws up, bend my knees and move my feet to where they need to be. I hold my stance, my datchi, setting a one-minute benchmark for myself, my back and neck straight and stiff as a board. My eyes are set only forward, on the plain, dull wall. Though she's not here with me right now, I picture my mother in her gi, walking around me in a circle, scrutinizing and correcting me if need be. Moving her mouth as if she's telling me what to do—what I've gotten right, what I need to improve—though she doesn't actually make a sound.
Time unwinds, and my legs are starting to burn. My core feels like it could collapse from the weight it has to bear. A sheet of sweat oozes from my pores and drenches my fur, growing denser each time I arrive at the benchmark and reset it. Still, I maintain my foundation. I urge myself to hold this stance for a little while longer. Before long, the pain becomes a part of me. It devolves into a sensation that I get more and more accustomed to.
It must have been five minutes since I've held this posture. I relax myself, shaking off my paws and my feet. My breaths thicker than normal, but still coming and going at the same pace. The concocted apparition of my mother stops in her tracks to commend me for a job well done.
My next exercise is my straight punch. I thrust my right arm out while also focusing on my form. Feet apart shoulder-width, turning my fist at the moment of impact, shoulders unmoving. The untapped power emanating from my core and erupting out of my fist surprises me yet again. I can only imagine what it would be like if my fists were to make contact with another person. That is, of course, if I train some more. When I train some more. When this power is refined, transformed, into something more ornate. What I lack in size, I can more than make up in my own way.
Come to think of it, I did tell Mom that I can be the winner she always wants me to be. When I told her that, my emotions overrode my better senses. I was so angry at her for not allowing me to learn. So lost in the moment that I had to give her a valid excuse to justify my wanting to learn in the first place.
But I did mean what I said. I know I can be a better person than I am. I know that I can be so much more if I really applied myself. If I put my heart and mind to it. For instance, cooking is one of my favorite pastimes. When I'm in our kitchen whipping something up, be it a crème brulee or a tray of cookies or a scorching hot curry, I like to exert more than a hundred percent into it so that it comes out beautifully. So that anyone who partakes in what I've created can leave satisfied and wanting more. If I can be passionate towards cooking, if I can be proud of that, then I can direct that passion to other aspects of my life.
And if I take my karate as far as I can, it might just reverse the faults that I've made. The actions I've done that I'm not proud of. Whether it's disappointing someone I loved at every other turn or making a laughing stock out of myself or endangering myself or another person. Once in a while, I wish that I could conjure up that idiotic, apathetic and pitiful version of me and give him a wallop. Knowing how crazy and out-of-control this town has gotten in the past, it could happen.
If I can fix everything wrong with me and come out stronger, better, wiser than before, then I won't ask for anything more.
These thoughts swirl in my head and give my punches extra weight, like gasoline poured into a fire. There is a fire in my core, in my chest, and I let it out with one final punch and a resounding yell that bounces across the gym. The world around me stands perfectly still at the piercing sound of my voice.
Holding my posture for five seconds, I then bring my feet together and take a bow.
That afternoon, Mom and I are back in the tool shed. She ignites a match from a matchbox and lights up an incense stick that she brought into the shed for today. She places the stick in a jar, puts it near a wall and returns to her meditation.
The scent wafts around us, tickling my sense of smell. It's a sweet aroma that isn't sickeningly sweet. Inhaling it is purifying.
"Nothing quite like the smell of lavender, if I say so myself," Mom mumbles between her breaths.
Lavender. That's what it is. I thought it was more of a daisy-ish smell. But I'm no botanist, so…
"How was school today, Gumball?" asks Mom.
"It was alright. Masami gave me something that I think you should see." I quickly break from meditating to show her the flier for the upcoming kumite. I set it on the floor and pass it to her.
We meditate for thirty more seconds, and Mom picks the flier up and reads it. It doesn't elicit any kind of emotion from her. She holds on to it and gazes intently at me.
Mom rises to her feet. "Did she invite you?" she asks, dusting the back of her pants.
"Yeah." She lifts an eyebrow, to which I double-take and shortly after correct my mistake. "I mean, hai! She said that anyone of any belt can come."
Reading through the flier again, Mom rubs her chin in thought. At least it got her to think. I suppose that's better than nothing.
"It's been a while since I went to one of these," she muses, a certain gloom creeping in from her voice. She must be reminiscing on her friendship with Yuki Yoshida. A strong camaraderie that was once broken and now whole again. I wonder if the two of them get in touch a lot lately.
I also wonder how much Masami resembles her mother. Given the highs and lows in the several instances we talked to each other, maybe more closely than she'd like to admit.
"So you want to go," Mom beams at me.
"Uh-huh." I give her a diligent nod.
"And what do you hope to get out of it?"
"I have no idea. I guess I'll find out when I go there."
Silence descends upon the tool shed as Mom and I meditate. All the excess in my mind, in my heart, vanishes as I breathe deeply, in and out. Every muscle in my body tingles and then goes still. The euphoria is made more powerful by the lavender aroma.
During our meditation, Mom casts a compassionate, if not wistful stare at me for what I can only tell is the last time until this lesson is over. She tilts her head to the side at a small angle.
"You know that I'm always proud of you, Gumball," she starts.
"No, I don't," I say matter-of-factly, which throws her off a bit.
"It's true. I don't show it a lot, but you, your brother, your sister and your father have made me proud beyond my wildest dreams. You've made me proud in your own way, my little boy. You may not think that's true, but it is."
"Really? I always figured that it was the opposite." After seeing her sit with her feet tucked underneath her, I do the same.
"I know why you want to do this, but I want you to take this to heart. What you accomplish in life, no matter how big or small it may be, is still an accomplishment. It's still worth being proud of. I will be proud of it regardless. Don't ever let anyone take that away from you. Understand?" The way she tells me all this, it's as if it's coming from first-hand experience.
"Thanks, Mom."
We nod at each other and then stand up. Our lesson begins as the one from yesterday did – with a bow and the initial focused stance.
To start the lesson off, Mom and I recap on what I've learned the other day – my datchi and my straight punches. I perform them almost flawlessly, from the first, slow set to the second moderate one to the last and fast one, and cap it off with a fearsome yell. Or kiai as karateka seem to call it.
After that, she runs me through several new techniques. The first is an elevated straight punch. The same principle applies here: feet apart at the width of the shoulders, a straight arm for every punch thrown, shoulders and hips both unmoving, and fists turning at the moment of impact.
Next is an upwards elbow strike. Most of the same principle is in play once again, but the turning of the fist serves a different purpose: it's to avoid accidentally hitting yourself in the side of the head, which many beginning students usually end up doing. I can never nail these moves on the first try. Every time, Mom ends up having to bring up what I'm doing wrong, patting the part of my body that's off so I can correct it. I'm not saying I'm not open to being corrected, but I hope I can turn this around within a few lessons' time.
The third technique is a swift, but still fierce punch to the gut. This one move is set apart in that there is no fist-turning involved. The palm of your hand is always facing up. Mom describes it as an attack based on speed. Because I don't have to turn my fists, it's faster, but has less power than a straight punch does. Its use is to debilitate an opponent for a window of time, which can be used to regain composure or prepare another more forceful attack.
Every one of these techniques adheres to a pattern for an efficient way to learn them. Three sets of a number of repetitions, between seven and ten. A slow set to learn on the move, a moderate set to get a better feel for it, and lastly a final set where repetitions of the move are performed in quick succession, finishing with a loud yell, which supposedly is for more than just being intimidating. Hard to believe as it is, it gives an extra weight to an attack.
Mom commends me for my efforts and allows us a five minute break in which I fetch myself a drink from my water bottle. I'm about to sit down, but she tells me to kneel instead – the proper thing to do in a Yoshida-Ryu dojo, or any school or dojo, for that matter, according to her.
"You look like you're done for the day," Mom jokes, her paws on her hips.
I chuckle at her remark and wipe my mouth clean. "Heck, no! I'm just getting started."
"That's what I like to hear. Okay, break's over. Up, up, up."
I let my bottle down carelessly and stand, dusting the front and back of my pants. Mom and I bow and go from there.
"The next part of the lesson is defense," says Mom as she clenches her fists hard. "Again, beginning students tend to overlook this, not realizing that protecting yourself is as essential as throwing a punch or a kick, if not more. Yoshida-Ryu considers every part of the body to be of equal importance, and thus worth guarding. The blocking techniques I'm going to teach you are designed to protect specific parts of the body. Are you ready, my dear gakusei?"
"Hai!" I shout, steeling my face.
"The first technique you will learn covers your head." Step-by-step, Mom illustrates the move. "You take your fist across to your opposite shoulder and bring your arm in front of your face and up to your forehead"—at the peak of the move, she spins her fist around—"like so. And when you bring your arm down, same idea as a punch. This covers many angles and directions aimed at your head, and that's the idea you want to adhere to. See, the head is very delicate. The skull may be covering the brain, but it's not built for protecting you completely. That's why you wear a helmet when you ride a bike or go roller-blading. You don't want too much pressure to be applied to your head." She does a few more blocks and returns to standing normally. "And it's your turn."
I heed my mother's command and perform the move. She approaches me and adjusts my form, steadily pulling my arm so that it's the right distance away from my forehead. That might be why I can't nail a technique down on the first move. In trying to perfectly imitate what I see, from an outward lens, I end up forgetting about my own form. I attempt to do a move without fully grasping what goes into the move. The proper technique behind it.
With my mother's guidance, I get the hang of the technique and coast through the sets of seven to ten repetitions breezily. At the third set, while Mom cues me in with her counting, I do my own counting in the back of my head – a decent method of familiarizing myself with some Japanese.
Ichi. One.
Ni. Two.
San. Three.
Shi. Four.
Go. Five.
Roku. Six.
Shichi. Seven.
Hachi. Eight.
Kyuu. Nine.
Kiai juu. Ten.
One more repetition and yell. Mom tells me to hold the pose with only her blade-like eyes. Those eyes that she uses on a daily basis, that people know and fear her for. I stay unmoving for as long as I can—ten seconds, twenty, thirty, forty—when she then commands, "Yame!"
"That was good, Gumball," says Mom, her paws behind her back. Using those eyes to scrutinize me. "Just don't forget, arm away from your forehead."
"Hai!"
"Shall we move on?"
"Hai!"
The lesson runs its course all the way until sundown.
Author's Note:
My apologies for updating the way I do, but I'm merely trying to adhere to a schedule. I want to space out the new chapters decently so that I can work on the story freely; 80% of it is actually done, as part of last year's NaNoWriMo, and the remaining 20% is still being written. Same with The Beginning, which is why it hasn't been updated in a year, but will be updated soon.
On that note, I'll get the video reading for Chapter 2 done very soon, after I get my current projects out of the way first, that is.
- C. R. Martin
