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Most of us have shared what Style(s) we practice, but what about the reason you study or how you came to find your art...essentially, what drew you in and what kept you there.

For me, It's a hella long story that starts when I was a small fry. Like most kids of the Karate Kid/TMNT/Power Rangers era I wanted to kick some serious a**.

At first, it got me into some serious trouble on the playgrounds at school. It wasn't that I was a bully...more like I felt I had to dole out justice to the punk a** kids I saw bullying others; and after I was suspendid from school in the 5th grade for pushing a kid who'd stolen another kids cassette player (I grew up pre-CD and MP3) off the big toy and feeding him a bowl of concreties my family had had enough...The next summer they put me in Kenpo lessons hoping to maybe teach me some self discipline and maybe burn off some of ADHD driven energy I had.

I started taking lessons and was told right away that I would probably enjoy full contact kick boxing more, I definitely had the power for it, but considering I was 12 and my frontal lobe was still developing my parents said no. Oh well, I was having fun anyway.

I studied at a school for 3 years; though in that three year period I had only reached yellow belt with 2 orange tips...(in kenpo it goes white, yellow, orange, purple, blue, green, 3rd brown, 2nd brown, 1st brown, 1st black...and so on) The school was so focused on generating revenue that the constant flow of new white belts to the classes kept the rest of us from learning new material. It wasn't for lack of effort...I was going every night.

Eventually, I got bored and dropped out!

5 years of vegging in front of a t.v with a controller in one hand and a hot pocket in the other had left me feeling like a toxic blob. I'd also started thinking about how I'd wished I'd never given up my Kenpo studies. Hell, I still remembered most of what I had learned and secretly practiced my salute when no one was looking...I really missed it.

I'd also learned something about myself; I no longer had the desire to be the bad add black belt kicking the s**t out of everything and anyone in sight. I just wanted balance of my mind body and spirit, and I knew Martial Arts would be the medium in which I could obtain that...call it ESP.

It turned out that a good friend of mine had a brother who had just taken over control of a Karate school but, he didn't know what kind of karate they practiced. Well, I was down for anything...the school I had been enrolled in had long gone out of business...I'd be happy with anything.

It just so turned out that this friends brother was an instrustor at a Kenpo Karate studio...just my luck.

We have a saying in Kenpo...goes something like "You can leave Kenpo, but Kenpo never leaves you."

It's true! My Block Set (Star Block) was just as crisp as it had been 5 years eariler. But, even so I opted to decline the Instructors offer to promote me to my previous belt and instead joined ranks with the white belts in the back. I wanted to learn it with the right goal in mind.

Before, my focus had been 'Bad a**...kick a**...take names..." I knew this time I wanted to learn to use kenpo the way it had been intended. To know that I could, and still know that I didn't have to. My focus was no longer power and muscle but technique and skill.

When I came home from my first lesson, I went home and dug through a box from my previous kenpo escapades...a dingy white belt and a faded yellow belt with tape peeling off the tips...a broken board that I'd cracked with a downward elbow strike...and something I didn't realize I had.

I'd long ago, while waiting for the advanced students class to get out, had written down a poem plastered to a wall in the old studio. It was the story of our formal salute:

'The Warrior and the Scholar come together;
Fight back to back to pull our country together.
We have no weapons, we hide our treasure, Kenpo;
And pray we never use it."

It made sense to me now...I wanted to be that unification of the warrior and the scholar with the ability to strike down anyone that toiled with me, but also wanted to understand when simply walking away was the best option.

There are so many reasons I've stuck with kenpo over the years...One is that to me, it's not just a martial art but a way of life. It came back to me during a hard part of life and helped me through a lot. (That's another discussion that isn't for this time or place)

The second reason I stay in kenpo is because it truly is a Martial Science. There are so many nuances to the concepts and theories he put into place that I feel I will never completely understand the system in its entirety. Which, in a way is nice.... I have completion anxiety and don't like finishing big projects anyways! xd

I tried to keep this short and sweet...I had a Prof in college that used to say a good essay is like a womans skirt...long enough to cover it all but short enough to keep it interesting...

Hopefully, I've done that. And I look forward to hearing your stories as well!

Wow, geeze long stories, and very interesting, mines kinda dull compared to yours.

Well, mine really started when i was 4 years old. My parents had beat on me and my older brother almost every day, and unlike my older brother, i was sick of it, i hated my parents, didn't love them at all, and i was seeking for someone to basically replace them, and i found someone. Unfortunately it was just one person, and male, so i only found a replacement for my dad, but this man was good enough for me, i felt like he really was my dad, or at least better than my dad. Lol but now looking back, i realize that he didn't treat me well either, but at that time he started to teach me self defense, and instead of just teaching me, he drilled it into me every day. Now i had ADHD, for those of you who don't know what that is, it basically makes you hyper, and you can't/have a hard time paying attention, so learning these Martial Arts from him was really tough at first., especially sense i started to devote all my time to him, and my school work was dropping, i got kicked out of kindergarten, and had to take it over again, lol.

One of the bad things though about being taught by him, was the fact that he never told me what i was learning, he just commanded me to do these moves that he showed me, he would walk me through it a little, but most of it i learned just by watching, he never praised me, but i didn't care, he was much better than my parents, he never beat on me either...well except when we sparred, we sparred hopefully like you guys do, without holding back, and actually fighting like it was a matter of life or death. By the age of 9 he had turned me into a killing machine, and i was too proud of myself to see what his true intentions were.

When i was 13, it was Halloween night, and i was out alone, and a drunk man had attacked me, i don't know how old he was, well im not sure how good i was, i suspect that one of the major reasons i subdued him was because he was drunk. Well anyways, i didn't know that his two older brothers were in a gang, and apparently the man wasn't drunk enough to forget my face. So from there for about a year and a half, i was battling a gang, that wanted me dead. At first they were just going straight on to me, but like all gangs, they decided to go for my friends and family to get to me. At that point i decided to go out every night, finding out who was in the gang, and taking them down, getting all the information that they had from them, and destroying the info about my friends, and keeping the info about the gang to myself, but then again gang bosses usually don't tell their peons anything, so i didn't get much out of them.

About in the middle of me fighting them, i had mobilized a team of five people, who if you haven't guessed by now, im keeping all names confidential, well basically my team was composed of a electronics technician, a doctor kind of person, like my own private nurse, two fighters, hand to hand, and one insane demolitions expert, lol i luv him, hes crazy.

I guess after i found my team, that was when my sensei decided to leave me, or to be more precise, he betrayed me. A year and a half later, i was 14 1/2, I learned that the only reason he took me in was to train me to be a killing machine, i was supposed to be just a tool for him, and he told me that, and offered to go with him to gain power, but he only wanted to power for himself, not for others, so i declined. He then tried to kill me, but the coward that he was, he couldn't do it himself, and sent 6 men after me, just what i needed, more people trying to kill me. At that point though i was in tears, i made a promise long ago to never kill anyone, that i could solve everything without killing, but at that moment my feelings took over me, i blacked out and couldn't remember much. All i could remember was getting into a rage, and starting to fight all 6 of them at once, the next thing that i remember, i was on the ground crying some more, with 6 dead bodies around me, all in pieces, with skin in my mouth. After i had gotten myself together, and after further examination of the bodies, it looked as if a friggin monster had attacked them. I was scared of myself, i thought of myself as a monster. And whats worse is that i didn't have any friends, besides my team. But soon after that i got over it, i found out who was the leader of the gang that was trying to kill me, and i killed him, he threatened the lives of my friends, and that was enough for me, i slowly stated to eliminate the rest of the gang that was left.

Now im 15 1/2 turning 16 in November, and ever since i took care of the gang, ive been looking for my sensei, eliminating anyone who gets in my way, i have vowed to find him, and take care of him, any way necessary, sorry if this wants you guys to want me out of the guild.

the story behind my Krav Maga and Wrestling is from the age of 7 till now I was always getting jumped by these kids, and I could bear that, but one day they took it too far, they jumped my friend and beat him till he was bloody, so i promised him that i would get revenge, so after about 1 year of wrestling and studying krav maga I challenged that group of kids, I got ruffed up pretty good but when i was done with the I broke one kids arm, and brroke the other kids noses, I almost got charged for assult by a neighbor got them beating me AFTER i challenged then so i still ahve the video of me beating thm a getting revenge twisted razz

It made me think of anime and stuff like that XD

Well, my story is really boring and lame so yea.. Anyhow, don't say I didn't warn you..

Ever since I was 7 or so I hated boys(Don't get the wrong idea though, I'm straight!). I hate sexist and people who take pity on girls. I HATED when I couldn't play with the boys at recess 'cause I was a girl. So to prove all of them wrong I decided to take Martial Arts. I take Martial arts for many reasons. To protect myself, To protect my mom, To protect my friends, And to prove to guys that I'm just as tough and strong as them!! Martial Arts has also made me into a tomboy sweatdrop ...But that's good!! I mean, who wants to be a weak girly anyhow?


(P.S. I think the very BEST part about being a Martial Artist is seeing the guys working out and their shirts slowly opening whee I'm such a sucker!!)

Hellz yeah! Expecally when their sweating.. whee Omigwad, and my love for wrestling has a few other reasons why I love to wrestle... *-.*

LMAO! You just reminded me of a few years back at one of John Sepulvedas Training Camps, a friend of mine asked me to follow her around just before camp wide lights out. We ended up stalking around at 10:30 through the camp ground looking for men that wanted to grapple (well...she did...I already had my sights set on the guy that eventally became my current boyfriend. (He was one of my assistant instructors at the time ninja ) I just kinda followed her around to make sure she didn't get into trouble.

I think she creeped a few guys out...lmao! It was so much fun though...good times at Kenpo we have lots of stories that start out "This one time at Kenpo Camp" lol!

lol XD

mrgreen