It all began when I walked into Tiger Schulmann’s Karate Center on 19th Street. I don’t know why I decided to go in and have a look-see. Maybe I wanted a new and exciting workout that would set goals for me and keep me interested. Maybe I wanted to meet new people; maybe I wanted to explore the ancient Eastern principles of the martial arts. Maybe I had just walked out of my gynecologist’s office with the distinct feeling that she had ruptured an internal organ, since she seems to have confused the Pap smear concept with the medieval jousting tournament concept, and I know that she needs to get that big old Q-tip way the hell up there to scrape the cells off of my cervix and everything, but does she really need to pull down the visor of her plate mail helmet and yell “avaunt, blackguard!” at my vagina before galloping across the room on her charger and impaling me on the fuzzy end of her lance? I REALLY DON’T THINK SO, AS A MATTER OF FACT.

Suffice it to say, then, that I felt just a little bit hostile. (Well, just a little bit more hostile than I usually feel — i.e. quite hostile. Anyhow.) I passed by the Tiger Schulmann school and I looked in the window at the students in their neat white uniforms, going through the movements. I thought, what the hell — I’ll go in, I’ll get a brochure. I spoke with a pleasant woman named Francine, who signed me up for an introductory lesson for fifteen bucks. She wouldn’t give me a brochure; she wouldn’t let me come back later. I literally could not escape without signing up for the lesson. I didn’t want to come out and say “no” because she knew karate and I, um, didn’t, so I handed over my credit card and tried to look limp and unthreatening.

When lesson day rolled around, I really didn’t feel all that much like going. In fact, I really really really didn’t want to go at all, because the night before I had attended the MTV Video Music Awards, and then I had spent the entire following afternoon busting out an article about the event, which naturally my editor didn’t deal with putting up until three days later despite the fact that I had busted my hungover and sleep-deprived ass getting the thing done in two hours. But I didn’t want anyone to come over and put a foot in my ass, so I went to the lesson. Francine gave me a white karate outfit to put on and directed me to the locker room.

In the locker room, I noticed a couple of things. First of all, it didn’t have a door. How . . . open. And . . . revealing. Second of all, did I mention that a door did not separate my nearly naked self from the hallway outside? Oh yeah, I did mention that. So I went back upstairs and Francine introduced me to my teacher for the day, Deshi Subowitz, who reminded me of my boss at the pizza place where I used to work (an ex-Marine who used to keep us in line by threatening to bring in his monitor lizard when he hadn’t fed it in a while). His handshake almost broke my finger. Then we went downstairs and entered our practice room.

Apparently, at Tiger Schulmann, tradition demands that one bow upon entering the practice space — it serves as a ritual to separate the outside world from the world of karate. Once I entered the room, I saw that we had actually bowed to a picture of Tiger Schulmann. Little things like this contributed to the overall impression I had begun to form of a subtle but persistent brainwashing. Then Deshi — whose first name I never did learn — began going over the principles of karate: what the word “karate” means; the type of karate the Tiger Schulmann schools teach; the history of Tiger Schulmann’s illustrious career. Then we warmed up. I hate jumping jacks, especially when I have to do them while facing a strange man who has no body fat and could probably do two hundred thousand jumping jacks without flinching, whereas my boobs defied the sports bra and flailed about and I started sweating and my sweat smelled like bourbon and I prayed sort of half-heartedly for death, and my prayer was nearly answered by the toe-touches that followed. Then I sat on the floor opposite Deshi while he indoctrinated me in more Tiger Schulmann tenets. I think that they consider Schulmann a minor deity over there; I didn’t learn Tiger’s real name either (probably Arnold or Herbert or something like that). The whole time I nodded and tried not to yawn.

Finally I got to learn some self-defense moves, which I appreciated and will probably remember. I learned the defensive stance; I learned the back-punch; I learned the front kick; I learned to block, and I learned to yell. And I guess the bow worked, because I forgot all about everything else while yelling “yah” and kicking the body pillow. Unfortunately, once I bowed out of the practice space, got changed, and went back upstairs, the real world intruded once again, this time in the form of Mike Barnacz, the program director. Mike wanted me to sign up for lessons twice weekly, as soon as possible. He reiterated many of the positive aspects of karate that Deshi had gone over with me — the increased fitness and flexibility, the sense of accomplishment, the ability to defend oneself. I found myself staring at his lashes, which were absurdly long for a man. Mike is one of those guys that young girls — not teenagers, but nine- and ten-year-olds — think is dreamy. Every little girl has a Mike — he might teach swimming, he might come over to her house to hang out with her older brother, he might mow the lawn, but whenever he casts his slightly feminine and extremely darling gaze over at the little girl in question, she melts (like Lisa Simpson with Corey).

Anyhow, Mike tried to make me swoon into signing up for a full course of training, but since my taste runs more to the Chris Noth type these days, I resisted. He continued the hard sell, telling me that “Deshi says that you have a lot of talent. He tells me that you’re a natural athlete.” Now, excuse me, but anyone that gets me confused with an athlete of any kind, much less a natural one, obviously uses large amounts of crack cocaine, and since Deshi didn’t strike me as a rock-smoking kind of guy, so I knew that Mike probably spreads this layer of bullshit over every prospective student. Eventually he wore me down and I agreed to sign up for another introductory lesson the next Monday.

The second introductory lesson did not differ from the first in any way, except that Mike (a brown belt and not yet a deshi) put me through my paces. It occurred to me, as I watched his rather small and impossibly limber body do some V-stretches, that both Mike and Deshi probably got sand kicked in their faces at the beach and started doing karate as a result. Deshi stands as tall as I do — barely — and Mike is a couple inches shorter than I. As I stretched, I could see out into the hallway to where Deshi was giving a lesson to a guy with cerebral palsy. I don’t know quite how that works, exactly, but if that guy can throw a self-defense technique from a wheelchair, I think that rocks. (Another annoying facet of the Tiger Schulmann experience — the constant use of jargon. You don’t say “yes” to respond to something; you say “us” with a long “u.” Apparently this means “yes” in Japanese, as well as “hello” and “goodbye.” People walk around the T.S. compound us-ing at each other all day. “Throwing a technique” is another example. Mike explained to me that getting into defensive stance sets me up to throw a technique. Couldn’t we stop the gilding the lily and just say “beat the living shit out of your assailant”? Because, quite honestly, if somebody attacks me and I know karate, I intend to use it. All of it. Including the choke hold.)

After learning a neck chop and a choke hold, I got changed and went upstairs and tried to explain once again to Mike that my budget doesn’t really allow a full course of lessons (read: money-sucking mind control) at this time, but if he gave me a few days to think about it, I would get back to him. He suggested financing. Since when can you finance a karate lesson? I continued to stonewall. Finally, I made my escape by promising to call him on Wednesday. “Okay, Sarah,” he said, “but if I don’t hear from you, I’ll call you, because we’re really eager to see you on the mat.” The whole thing reminded me of that Isuzu ad where the guy tries to leave the car dealership and the salesman clings to the guy’s leg and moans “nooooo” and the guy drags the salesman all the way off the lot still clinging to his leg. Mike still hasn’t called me. So much for that natural athleticism.

Anyway, I like karate, but I don’t like them pretending that I should sign up for ten lessons a week “for my own good.” I walked into the place with an interest, which promptly turned to dismay when they tried to sign me up for a three-year plan after only an hour. And something about a bunch of white guys from the Five Towns walking around calling themselves “Deshi” and bowing to a picture weirds me out — not to mention the fact that I overheard someone in the women’s locker room say, “Janine just doesn’t grok the whole blue belt thing, man.” Grok? I can’t work with that material.

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