Stu passed that little test with full credit, but the time comes for all guys when their commitment to suck it up and do the things that will likely crucify them will be tested. Sometimes it is big, horrifying tests; sometimes it's more minor but still unpleasant ones. Take, for example, my recent experience when I joined (under the duress of geological-scale peer pressure) a karate class. In all honesty it wasn't just the peer pressure that got me to join - it was also a capitulation to the overwhelming urge to run around jumping and screaming. Guys love to jump around screaming - it's kind of what we do (well, some of us anyway). So anyway, it's my third class and I know pretty much nothing. We come to the part of the class where we practice rolling, which for mysterious reasons is viewed as important in karate. Don't ask me why, it's fun so I don't question it. At this point, all I had learned to do was a basic little front roll that was essentially a summersault. We all line up to begin doing rolls, but this time the instructor stands in the middle of the class, bent over. People begin running down the classroom and diving over him, landing in a headfirst roll and exploding back onto their feet. I am stunned. This is not the happy little summersault I have learned - I have no idea how to do this, so I am suddenly faced with the choice of stepping aside and doing nothing, or just winging it and seeing if I can pull it off. I do the only respectable thing and break into a run straight at the instructor.
As I reach him I hurl myself into the air, sailing over at shoulder height, and then pivot into a dive that I hope will end in a graceful roll. This is the point where problems start to develop. My tail end breaks loose, like a semi jackknifing on a rain-slicked highway. As my lower regions develop an independent will and whip around, I loose control of my legs. At the same time, the arms that are meant to take the initial impact and direct my body into the roll, are suddenly not pointing earthward. I have about half a second to reflect on how badly the landing is about to go; a half second when the laws of physics have taken temporary ownership of my body and seem unlikely to return it in its original condition. Then I proceed to have the sort of crash that would make Evel Knievel wax nostalgic. I land on my tailbone, then my head whiplashes against the ground. I burst back into the air, hurling towards the giant glass windows of the observation area. Normally I would get my feet out in front of me to try and absorb the forward momentum, but they are puzzlingly tucked under my ass. As I hit the ground for the second time, some of the force is absorbed by my overextended ankles, cutting my tailbone a bit of slack and probably saving my spine. As I slide to a stop I hear a collective "oooohhhhh!" rise from the class, as if a goal in a critical hockey game had been narrowly missed. Pain is corkscrewing up my spine from an icy spasm at the base of my tailbone. I want to crumple into a little ball and scream like I'm six years old, but a foot in front of me, arrayed in the observation room window like figures in a Grant Wood painting, are the wide-eyed owner of the school and a battery of alarmed looking prospective students. Acutely aware of my audience, I spring (sort of) to my feet and return to the lineup, trying to act like I could still bend over if I had to. So I manage to ride it out through the rest of the class, but I'm forced to wait a couple of days before returning as I'm temporarily unable to bend over without experiencing an overpowering urge to cry. I return to class with a small feeling of satisfaction because I know that even though I didn't pull the diving roll off, I didn't back down. Ok, ok, so I didn't jump fourteen buses - the little victories count too. The problem is, we almost immediately are thrown back into the dive roll exercise.
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Bruce Lee started somewhere
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