Mat tales, episode 1: The Window Maker
In recounting these events to my friends and current batch of members, they often find it surprising, amusing and thought-provoking. Some are sad, some weird ones, others inspiring while fewer have unexpected twists and turns. Most of them are funny stories, well at least for me they are funny.
Prior to this, I was simultaneously involved with the family business, running a side business based on my interest in motorcycles after work and eventually expanding into my self-taught web design business too when the bike business closed due to the '08 economic crisis. Back then we didn't use the word "hustle". We just got on with it without having to label anything. Anyway, I digress, so back to the story.
I had no prior experience in owning or operating a full-time gym but jumped in head first and fully blindfolded. I didn't have anyone's gym to emulate, only a handful of boutique gyms existed nationwide at that time. Most operated under the non-profit association work around as means to get reduce personal income tax. Forming a nonprofit association here required getting a bunch of people together, meetings, paperwork, yada, yada, yada. This type of business won't make you a millionaire, so I concluded it wasn’t worth the effort or stressing over the ensuing inevitable politics of dealing with committees and such so I registered a company and went the commercial route.
With some write ups in popular health and lifestyle magazines of the era and being interviewed on BFM radio a couple of times, the gym and my brand soon gained a reputation of a good martial art and fitness provider that was different from the big box gyms that were all the rage at that time. This exposure brought in the paying members from all walks of life and all sorts of expectations.
Like many gyms, we offered trial classes that anyone can try at no cost. It's a chance for them to visit the space and check out the vibe, facilities, subscription rates, etc. Most commercial gyms do this so it's no surprise that often, especially here in Malaysia, people show up unannounced but more often than not, they ghost any bookings which is a sad reflection of our culture.
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My boxing classes back then typically finished the night with at least a half-hour of conditional sparring. It's usually at this stage of the night where things got interesting and that night was no different.
Once a couple of “Kung fu” guys showed up for a trial class, did the warm ups and drills, with an uncanny recollection, I remembered that they didn't move well for someone who claimed prior martial art training but insistent on wanting to "explore" what other styles had to offer.
When the sparring started, the two visitors were paired up with the more advanced students. They seemed eager to sparring and didn’t display the shyness or self doubt I see in other trial students. I usually asked, lets call them J and G to handle the trial class beginners as they had better control and I was confident they could defend themselves well, if nothing else.
Within the first minute, loud thumps echoed off the walls, full powered punches whooshed through the air, strained gasps of lungs working at full capacity struggling for the next inhale.
At my gym we have clear safety rules, implemented to prevent injuries, unnecessary knock-outs, use of verbal communication, a slow sparring pace and be as technical as possible. The practice sparring session was an opportunity to work on the techniques we drilled earlier and I always gave a safety briefing before each session with the option to sit out if they didn’t feel confident. The sensible thing to do for visitors would have been to watch a few rounds before jumping in. This way they would have seen the level, get the vibe and purpose of the exercise. If they had extensive experience and were confident then they might have joined from the get-go. From what I recall, the sparring conditions rapidly evaporated into thin air as egos flared popping up like a fire cracker on New Year’s Eve.
Pausing from my own sparring, I looked over to J in time to see him land a cracker of a body shot to the visitor’s gut folding him in half, while taking a wild swing to the head thrown in desperation. Everyone wore boxing headgear then and J’s head gear was knocked to a funny angle due to the impact and sweat. Despite the head guard blocking his view, J continued combination (as trained I’m happy to say), this time sending the visitor backwards with a chest or head punch, stamping a large sweat patch on the wall and on the rebound J tied him up in a clinch where they remained while the visitor recovered with a groan. I made a mental note to clean up that sweaty wall patch.
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At the old KDT gym, I had wall full of casement windows along one side opened for ventilation. As I looked over to G to see how the other visitor was doing, G was in mid-throw trying to eject him through said open windows! Throwing off my gloves I ran over and pulled them both back on the mat. "He started it!" G garbled over his mouth guard and head gear, angrily pointing at the visitor with his gloves hand as I separated them. Perhaps the pre-sparring excitement got the better of the visitors or they deliberately wanted to have a go and test our skill, I'll never know. G's partner looked at me sheepishly. The almost-ejected visitor was slumped down in a mess. Drenched with sweat pooled from the head guard and busily gasping for air through a reddened, puffy face, he resembled a wet rag doll that had been mauled like a puppy's favorite chew toy and was clearly spent. A few moments earlier, G was landing clean technical punches frustrating the visitor who replied with a flurry of wild haymakers only to end up in a clinch. Unknown to the visitor, G was an adept judoka who promptly established his grips while still wearing boxing gloves and attempted a throw. It was probably an instinctive reaction on his part and I suppose I should be thankful for the window frames which obstructed an otherwise free fall to the pavement one floor down. The fall would have been high enough to result in bone fractures and legal drama neither of which would be beneficial to the gym. It would have been a widow-maker moment if the throw was not interrupted.
I called the round and had everyone stop. I told the visitors to sit out the rest of the sparring time seeing that their red faces, sweaty shirts and lack of conditioning would have stopped them soon anyway. The rest of the class resumed the sparring nonchalantly. It wasn't the first time they've seen this sort of drama. My decision to end their sparring adventure became a face-saving excuse for them to exit to the changing room never to be seen again.
Sadly, most people tend to over-react in such situations. Their previous training did them no favours and I wondered if they tried again at a different gym. Perhaps if they had checked their egos and followed the sparring rules they would still be training today? Unfortunately youth, vim and vigour's way of surviving the proving grounds of masculinity steer some folks directly on the path of danger, as validation of their manhood and their personal rites of passage. Whatever motivation prompted them to visit my gym left with them that night.
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