The Law of Nunchuks

”He who picks up the nunchuks, will soon sing as a soprano.”

Preparing for a move, I recently tossed out my nunchuk, a childhood artifact from when I was one stripe away from a brown belt. Trashing my instrument of self-inflicted bumps and bruises, I recollected katas (the “everybody was kung-fu fighting” dancing sans music), counting cadence to each punch in Japanese and how I could do a roundhouse kick above my head that would now probably snap-crackle-pop a few tendons. I remembered the sparing tournament where I got robbed because the judges didn't see that my “lightning” punches reached their target (those damn Cobras!). I reminisced on how I resembled an ugly version of Ralph Macchio enough that more than a few people had called me “Daniel-san.”

I knew from the beginning when I picked up the nunchuks, I was the only person who would end up thrashed. It would have been beyond cool to be able to wield them like Bruce Lee, beyond bad ass to break cement blocks with bare hands and do thumb push-ups. But to wax metaphoric, it is the human condition to be drawn to that which will more often than not kick your own ass, your hopes of glory notwithstanding.