“So I was working with this cute little girl who looks just like Tweety Bird. She kept wanting to do the one step [self-defense technique] with the takedown. She had this crazy smile on her face and kept saying, ‘Takedown! Takedown!’ I like this kid!” I said to one of my fellow black belts. He paused for a moment and then looked pointedly at me.
“Why, because she’s like you?”
Absolutely.
There’s a running joke at our little dojang that all the females are mean and crazy. We move fast, fight hard, and go for blood….all in the spirit of good sportsmanship of course. One teenage girl has earned a reputation for kicking everyone in the face during sparring. It’s like a right of passage to get smacked in the head by her. Another woman regularly kicks the crap out me, and to add insult to injury, she punches me right in the chest. (It just HAS to be there instead of my stomach for some reason. And this is during “no contact” sparring, mind you.)
Meanwhile, tiny Tweety Bird, with her glasses and giant blue-green eyes, kicks really freaking hard for a little kid and ki-yahps with loud maniacal glee, especially when she’s tossing around her older sister. My instructor has trained me to be aggressive during fighting and move in quickly on my opponents during self-defense practice. I get a sick pleasure from breaking boards with my hands. Sometimes he seems surprised that he’s created all these monsters.
The underlying theme in our Taekwondo Mean Girls Club is CONFIDENCE. We might not all be the best, but we won’t go down without a fight.
Nothing makes me prouder than to see a girl kick ass, but it’s not for reasons you might think. Sure, I want to see them stay out of trouble, build healthy minds and bodies, and earn their black belts. More so, they have the power to avoid the pain I’ve experienced by being a lifelong doormat. Since childhood I’ve been bullied, teased, humiliated, and harassed. Other than crying or getting angry I never fought back. (Except that time I slapped a boyfriend in the face for calling me fat. God, that was satisfying.)
I let myself be abused in various ways over and over again, and that is my deepest regret. I was a lonely, sensitive child and a jaded, skittish young woman who retreated further and further into herself as the only means of self-preservation. I didn’t think I could defend myself. I didn’t know how, and my mind didn’t work fast enough to save me. Even to this day in all my black belt glory I find myself in situations where I later regret not saying or doing something to stand up for myself. I still have a moment or two of being in shock when someone crosses my comfort zone and chips away at my dignity. Do people really think it’s OK to act like that? I’m reluctant to get close to anyone again, be it friend, romantic partner, or otherwise for fear of being hurt again. My outer shell grows thicker by the day.
I have pain and damage to undo despite the huge strides I’ve made in taekwondo. I’d like to think most of the young girls I work with in the dojang aren’t burdened with that, at least not yet. It hurts my heart to think of them feeling scared, angry, in pain, or helpless. I can’t protect them all the time, and neither can their parents. They are going to make mistakes. They are going to get their hearts broken. They are going to do and say things they regret. What I hope they can avoid is the pain and shame of not standing up for themselves when they felt threatened or mistreated.
So yes, I like mean, aggressive, and most of all CONFIDENT girls. They are proud of who they are and won’t compromise to please someone else. They have self-respect and know when to speak up and speak out. They can value themselves highly despite what a friend, a boy, a teacher, a boss, or total stranger might think of them. They can avoid the mistakes I made and the missteps I took. They can have bright, bold futures filled with love and happiness. I can’t change my past behavior, but going forward I can be as tough and fearless as these girls I admire so much.
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