I forced myself to move away from the protection of the podium and walked to the center of the stage. About a thousand cringe-making scenarios were flashing through my mind, a thousand different and excruciating ways in which I might embarrass myself forever. Maybe I would fall off the stage. Maybe I would sprain my ankle and have to hop around like a cartoon rabbit. Maybe my pants would just fall down. Maybe they’d fall down while I was hopping around…
I forced the thoughts away. I arranged myself into what’s called the front position: feet together, arms lifted in front of me, hands together just in front of my chin. My right hand was in a fist to represent the power of the yang, or masculine principle; the left hand was open and covered the fist to represent the restraint of the yin, or feminine principle. Power through self-discipline: that’s what karate is all about.
I stood like that for a long second. The auditorium had grown really quiet. There was no more shifting around, no more murmuring, no more cracks from Josh Lerner. They were interested, I could tell.
I took one more long breath, and then I went into my salutation.
Right away, a wonderful thing happened, an amazing thing. A salutation begins every kata. It starts with a bow and then a series of motions performed with the muscles very tense and the breath coming through the open mouth with a long, loud hiss. The breath is called Dragon-Breathes-Fire. It’s meant to focus your attention and push all your unnecessary thoughts out of you and bring all your energy to bear on the form. And the wonderful, amazing thing that happened is: it did exactly what it was supposed to do. The minute I tensed my abdominal muscles and pushed the dragon breath out of me, all the nervousness flowed out of me too. Suddenly, I had no extra thoughts to spare on anything at all-not even on Beth Summers. Suddenly, there was only the kata-the form-which I knew so well I could do it without thinking- without thinking but not without concentration. And that’s the way it was: suddenly, every thought was gone and all my mind was concentrated on performing the kata’s movements exactly right.
Which I did. I practically flew across the stage in long animal leaps, ending with mighty strikes in the air where my imaginary opponents were supposed to be. My fists corkscrewed out and back almost too fast for the eye to follow. My openhanded strikes slashed back and forth in lightning-speed combinations. I kicked and spun and kicked again, then leapt into the air with my body nearly horizontal to drive a devastating flying kick into an imaginary opponent’s head. I fell to the earth with a downward finishing strike-a punch spiraling straight to the floor as my body dropped down behind it to give it extra force. I let out a deafening roar- “keeyai!”-expelling every ounce of tension in my body, letting the tension explode into the punch as my knuckles scraped the surface of the polished wood.
Then I was upright again, spinning again, lashing out with a hook kick that brought my foot snapping around behind me and the rest of my body snapping around after it. Under the sound of my movements, I could hear the silence of the audience, I could feel their attention on me, feel them caught up in the violent grace of the form. Now I dove forward and went into a rolling somersault. Then I snapped to my feet with a combination of knife-hand strikes and a spinning back kick that brought me around 180 degrees. Someone in the audience-a guy, I’m not sure who-let out a whoop of appreciation, and the rest of the audience applauded. But even then-even as I began to realize that I was doing the best form I’d ever done-even as I began to understand that every eye in the auditorium was locked onto me in fascination-even then, I didn’t let it break through my unthinking concentration. I was deep inside myself, deep inside the form. I had no thoughts-just movement, just concentration. Striking, spinning, kicking as fast as I could but keeping every strike forceful, every position absolutely precise.
Now I was ready to perform the final move of the kata-and the most dangerous. I had come to rest on the far left side of the stage, as far from where Beth was sitting as I could get. I was in a crane position, absolutely still with one leg lifted, the knee up to my waist, the foot pointing down, the edge of one open hand hovering above the thigh, the other hand up to block my face. In one more second, I was going to explode out of the crane and drive across the stage behind a flurry of kicks and blows. At the last second, I would leap into the air above the place where the concrete cinder blocks stood, the two standing upright and the third lying across the top. As I came down, I would unleash a driving downward strike-right into the top of that third concrete block. If I did it just right, with all my focus and all my force-if I concentrated my mind on driving not into the concrete but straight through it-I would break the cinder block in two with my bare fist. That was the plan anyway. My fists were well conditioned and I’d broken blocks before- it’s not really as hard as it looks.
Still, as I stood there on one leg, poised to begin that final movement, a terrible thought broke through my concentration. I had an image of myself driving downward toward the concrete block-driving downward and then, just at the final second, losing my focus. Too late to pull back, I would continue the driving downward strike into the block-but without the full force of my mind and will behind it, it was not the concrete that would shatter, but every bone in my hand. That was it, I realized suddenly. That was how I was going to make a fool of myself in front of Beth. I was going to drive down into the block and break my hand in a million pieces so that my powerful, roaring keeyai would be transformed on the spot into a high-pitched howl of agony. I would go hopping across the stage, gripping my jellylike hand, screaming and screaming while everyone stared in horror and secret amusement. Maybe my pants would even fall off for good measure.
A wavering line of cold nausea went up through the center of me, like a tendril of smoke drifting toward the ceiling. The second the thought of failure occurred to me, I knew I should’ve changed course and abandoned the grand finale. Without confidence, you can’t put your fist through concrete-it just isn’t possible. And with a thought like mine in your head, how could you have any confidence at all?
I told myself to force the thought away. I did force the thought away, but I knew it was still there, just below the surface. And there was no way I was changing course, no way I was going to quit now. Not with everyone watching. Not with Beth watching.
I hung there poised one more second. I let the breath flood out of my body, hoping it would carry the thought of failure away with it. Then I launched the final sequence.
It all seemed to happen fast and slow at once. I could sense and see that I was moving with unstoppable speed, but my mind was so focused on every moment that it felt like slow motion somehow, like a slow-motion movie unfolding frame by graceful frame. Every kick and blow and step carried me farther and farther across the stage, closer and closer to the cinder blocks. Then I pushed off the floor and was airborne, sailing across the final few yards with my right fist drawing back and back, pressed tight to my side, ready to explode downward as I dropped back to Earth, dropped back to the cinder block.
I was screaming before I thought to scream, the roaring keeyai tearing out of the center of me, bursting from me like a tiger bursting out of a cage. I saw the gray of the concrete block rushing up toward me. My mind went down to meet it, went through it. And at the same moment my knee touched the floor, my fist drove out from my side, corkscrewing to where my focus was, on the other side of the cinder block, on the other side of all that concrete.
I don’t remember the meeting of flesh and stone. It was as if I had become so much a part of the moment that I could no longer see it. The next thing I knew, shards of concrete were flying up around my face, and the cinder block, smashed into two pieces, was dropping heavily to the floor on either side of my extended arm.