Self defense

Our self-defense class is taught by Miss Alder, who is an older, thin woman who doesn’t look much like a gym teacher, though she is. Self-defense used to be an elective—one could take either self-defense or CPR—but then Miss Alder lobbied the school board to make it mandatory. Now it is required for graduation. That is why the class is so large. We think the school board made it mandatory because they got tired of Miss Alder asking them all the time. Miss Alder is not a bad person by any stretch. She is nice enough. But she is the kind of person you don’t really want to be hanging around you all the time. I mean, I can understand why the school board would think this.

We noticed something very early on, about how the course seemed to be arranged. The only self-defense being taught is to the girls—they are learning how to defend themselves against us. They learn takedowns and armbars and groin kicks. We are told to affect drunken staggers and attempt clumsy gropes. It is difficult to defend yourself against a well-placed kick or an unpredicted fireman’s carry when you’re only instructed to duplicate the predatory lurch of the depraved inebriate (her words).

This morning, Becky and I were matched up for the morning’s demonstration. We regarded each other in the middle of the mat. Our classmates stood around us, hushed. Miss Alder shouted at me to reach for my pocket. Very slowly, I reached for my side (I was wearing gym shorts with no pockets, but the last time I brought this to Miss Adler’s attention, I was scolded and it just wasn’t worth it, basically). In a flash, Becky drove the inside of her wrist into my mouth. A tooth skipped across the mat and landed at Allison’s feet. The boys involuntarily winced. The girls had no reaction—they don’t seem to enjoy the class much more than we do. I was knocked to the ground and I reacted instinctively: I grabbed her leg and swept. She landed hard on her back. I immediately felt sorry—not because I would get in trouble (though I would) but because it was a rotten thing to do. Becky grabbed her head and rolled around—she was more dazed than anything, and there was no serious damage—she just shook it off. I apologized profusely after class.

Us boys are not allowed in the gym when Miss Alder teaches the girls new moves. We are told to sit in the hallway and “stew.” We are not sure what we are supposed to do when we are stewing. We mostly do our homework.

We’ve gotten pretty good at deflecting a number of legitimate self-defense moves. Greg last week blocked six or seven consecutive moves in a demonstration against Abby. We were all rooting for him—the girls too. Greg himself looked desperate and tired. He shoved away a punch to the chin; he dodged a kick to the knee; he grabbed her face mid-headbutt and spun her around. He did a couple of these things twice. It was a virtuoso performance; we were all impressed. Had it been a real attack, he probably would have punched her after the first or second deflection and ran off, but he didn’t want to do that, of course. He was just hoping Abby would tire herself out, or something. She didn’t though, she just kept coming at him. I could see his face from where I was standing and I think he just got tired of it. He just gave up. He stood still and took a knee to the stomach and doubled over, then Abby grabbed him by his hair and threw him to the ground. Us disappointed kids “aw”ed. Miss Alder cheered and pumped her fist.

The girls don’t like the arrangement any more than we do. When they have to face us down for practice or a demonstration, they always look very sad. They look very sad and then they jab their fingers between your ribs or poke you in the eyes and kick you in the kneecap so hard your leg bends the wrong way a little bit. But that doesn’t mean we doubt their sincerity. They have no more choice in the matter than we do.

There are 16 boys in the glass and 14 girls. This makes boy-girl pairings for demonstrations and practice impossible. Miss Alder allows Nick to learn the moves with the girls and practice on the rest of us boys, because he has smooth, milky skin.

It’s not that I object to the politics that would lead a person to believe that the number one priority of a self-defense class was teaching girls how to protect themselves from us. It makes sense, for any number of reasons. I don’t want you to get the wrong idea about me. And the class has been valuable in a way, even for us boys. It’s taught us to tamp down that aggressive impulse, which isn’t uniquely male, but is probably more dangerous in males. And it’s taught us how to take a punch. There’s the lesson that needs to be taught! How to take a punch and know to stay down, because you deserve to be punched, and it is a good thing to be punched every once in a while, and if we were all punched more often, we might not be so quick to do all those cruel, thoughtless things we do, daily.