I had to laugh: my annoyance at missing a maneuver in a kung fu class resulted in a quick smack to the right cheek. A self-inflicted smack, that is. With the handle of a six foot sword known as a kwan dao.
It was my own fault. After I missed the move, I yelled internally at myself to focus and to pick it up! So I did: I picked up the end of the kwan dao, swung it with more force than I should have used, and promptly whacked myself in the face.
There was no stopping though. I pushed the error and any pain associated with it to the back of the mind. It nestled in next to the realization that my internal reaction to the first mistake had itself caused the second misstep – and in turn the contact of the kwan dao pole to my right temple and cheek. But weapons’ work requires the martial artist to be in “the now”; I understood that any conscious acknowledgement of the first or second mistake could lead to a third. So I kept moving.
Later, however, while massaging my bruised cheek on the drive home, I ran through the sequence of events and broke into laughter. Then I laughed some more. In our school, weapons are taught only as part of open forms and demonstrations. We don’t use them in any type of combat against one other. Nonetheless, I had still managed to find myself on the wrong side of a kwan dao. And the kwan dao that caused me the problem was my own.
Our world has plenty of challenge and tragedy; it seems there is no shortage in contemporary life of valid reasons for worry or sadness. The media airways are full of vitriol. Our leaders are increasingly alarming. The planet may be dying. We kill ourselves and each other with less crisis of conscience.
There is room for laughter. We must make space for fun.
Which is where my close encounter with my kwan dao comes in. Not a day goes by when I don’t do something unusual or unexpected that is deserving of at least a chuckle. Some of my foibles are worthy of small giggles. Others warrant eye-tearing fits of laughter.
When you consider us, we humans can sometimes be a silly species. And I, for one, am a prime example of that silliness, often when I’m trying my best not to be.