8 DAYS LATER

day 8 - Sunday morning
Why? Why this shortness of breath? Why this damn beast always grasping my neck? Why this pressing feeling like the whole building is about to collapse over me? 

day 1 - Sunday
Ok, I took it well. The few moments of the day I’m not sleeping I keep my eyes pierced to the ground and my head pressed between my hands. Today’s Nightmares-Demons featured match is currently in a 237-237 tie. I am the ghost of a ghost of a guy who never was a health contest winner. My ECG looks like Kim Yuna's breast. I just got text from Kenshiro. <<You don't even know you're already dead>>. I totally know, you asshole.

day 2 - Monday morning
Just like day 1. A zombie at the PC. On Facebook I bump into the announcement of a tournament. Yikes, it’s this very sunday. Hmm, the registration deadline was 2 days ago. What a silly idea though, it’s been almost a year since I quitted training for competitions. Ok, it's Carnival time, but in 6 days I couldn’t even disguise like an athlete. I visit the tournament website and try to register only for the sake of it. It still works. I look at my left. I look at my right. I register me and another person, I pay the fee and then upload the receipt. You can't bounce me now.

day 2 - Monday afternoon
I enter the gym concealing better than usual the corpse I am inside my dobok. I carry out my warm up, then I take off the shoes and insoles I always have to wear. In competitions they’re not allowed and I must get used again to doing without them. It takes me 10 seconds to realize how fucking stupid of me to start this whole thing. I can’t even take an ordinary long forward step without losing my balance. I’m a baby who never walked before. I can’t figure out what are all these soft little things touching the ground separately. When you wear shoes you’re a duck, you forget having foot fingers. Ok, I’m an idiot. I can’t stand on my feet and in 6 days I’m supposed to kick on a single leg in front of a crowd. I’m an idiot, but if I am to minimize the blunder waiting for me next Sunday I had better think of something. I tweak all of my usual visual references and create some new ones. I adjust what I think and do during my executions. This usually takes months, if you’re 20 years old. I’m 34 and I have 1 hour and a half. By the end of the session I’m still an idiot. But an idiot who’s learnt to walk.

day 3 – Tuesday
Fists and kicks feel strangely good. I push a little harder and it’s a mess. In my mind I review all of the reasons why the wreck I am ended up hating both training and competing. I punch and kick at full throttle for 2 hours. I think I’m distracting myself, I put the bad thoughts aside and in only 2 days I figured out some new tricks my athletes will greatly benefit in the future. No matter how it will end, it was a good idea. When I get home I'm thirsty for a larger than life beer. But later my feet might need some painkillers, and it’s no time to turn my stomach into a Molotov cocktail.

day 4 - Wednesday
Gimme a break. I need to cut my hair.

day 5 - Thursday
My legs are still heavy after Thursday’s session. Frankly though, my poomsae are not too bad. Nor my feet ache when I get home. I’m in for a 79 cents beer. After all, I’m content with the small things I have in life. Like lying about my needs. I wonder whether tomorrow morning I'll be feeling pain anywhere.

day 6 - Friday
Ouch!

day 7 - Saturday
Last training morning. My left knee is screaming, my back hurts in 3 different points and the rest of the day is all like day 1. Before night, my face will get wet from the inside. I promise to myself tomorrow will be different. Meanwhile, the tournament organization sent me neither admittance confirmation nor competition pools. When I’m already in bed, I come to know of a better and nearer tournament taking place this very tomorrow. The guy responsible for not letting me know will hear from me next Monday. Fuck off; everything hurts, my heart is torn apart, tomorrow morning I’ll be travelling 200 Km to epic fail at a competition I don’t even know if I am registered to, and as head coach of my region I wasn’t even told of another tournament in the nearby one. 7 days ago I was a corpse. Now I’m a pissed off corpse.

day 8 - Sunday afternoon
Final round. I’ll go first. My mind is thorn between the will to enjoy every technique and the temptation to cut myself off from this time and space where mistakes cannot be undone. The first stance will be crucial, because if I start strong then everything will be easier. The judges mumble some murky orders mixing up Korean and their native dialect. When I start, the middle judge is still saying something. Are you declaiming a poem or what? Whatever, I’m already kicking. Hard. When my routine is over, I’m wondering if people are clapping their hands for me. They are. Five minutes later a judge says I win. I’m not happy. I’m not proud. I feel nothing. Later I’ll break the spell by going back on yesterday’s promise. The beast is gone.

day 9 - Monday
Yesterday was not my athletic comeback. I’m done with this shit. There’s no point in living a passion haunted by a thousand demons. One day I want to play football with my son. Don’t wanna say sorry child, Dad couldn’t tell when it was time to stop kicking ghosts. My students are stronger than I ever was, they deserve a healthy coach. From now on, I will compete with their arms and legs. Today’s my birthday, and the person last week sent me all the way to Hell and back won’t be at my side. In her stead, there will be someone who cares for me. More than defeat, yesterday I risked my reputation and my left knee in the process. I was robbed of the man, so I couldn’t but spend the fighter. I was dead. I'm alive.

HAPPY NEW AGE

“Anyway, I keep picturing all these little kids playing some game in this big field of rye and all. Thousands of little kids, and nobody's around - nobody big, I mean - except me. And I'm standing on the edge of some crazy cliff. What I have to do, I have to catch everybody if they start to go over the cliff - I mean if they're running and they don't look where they're going I have to come out from somewhere and catch them. That's all I do all day. I'd just be the catcher in the rye and all. I know it's crazy, but that's the only thing I'd really like to be.”
- J.D. Salinger, The Catcher in the Rye


Maybe nobody didn't either notice or care. But since this late summer a choice was made –or rather forced– it took me a while to find the gut to remove the word 'player' from my profile information below. Actually, it all felt unsettling from the very beginning. Ending my classes without even feeling tired or sweaty, with a few kicks given only for demonstration, having a shower only for the sake of it. "Am I ready for this?". I didn't know the answer.

Then on my first tournament as coach only, something did happen. And something didn't. The latter first. When they called my division, I couldn't give a shit. I had feared that moment. When they are calling your age, your belt, your grade. And you can't respond. I just shrugged. I felt nothing, really. Later, it would be time for something new. Gold. Gold everywhere. Cadets. Juniors. Seniors. "Hell, my students are strong. And I have a hand in it." Suddenly, I was no ex-average player full of regrets anymore. I was King Midas reborn. Only with less money and a bigger nose.

Things start to pop into my mind:
1. What I know– sorry, what I have come to know from a lifetime of obsessive self-study and yet awful performances, is correct.
2. It only couldn't work with someone who was broken inside out and the best coach he ever had was an empty chair and an unguarded bag.
3. Put what is correct into a body and mind that don't ache every second they live, and you got a serious gold contender.
4. By the end of the day, I had won everything I could keeping my feet clean in the process. Wow.
5. Medals are shiny. But my beautiful athletes' smiles are shinier. Accidentally, winners tend to smile a lot.
6. Medals are shiny. So are cups. But cups are bigger. And winning coaches go home with cups.

Yet again, I knew I should not believe a happy day at a local tournament could mean everything was ok with being 33 and spending a good half of that happy day telling everyone asking that no, today I'm not competing. Neither today, nor tomorrow.

So the Nationals came. The real deal. I've always had a love & hate relationship with this tournament. Like the Christmas day you count days to, but it's never giving that special present you die for. Not that I never squeezed a piece of metal out of the championship. But I never liked the colour of it.

My senior girls compete in the first day. They're awesome. But they both come from some pesky injury, so they're not 100%. By the end of round 1, they lead in 1st and 2nd place. I'm roaring inside. But another beast is waiting for them in the semifinal. They tame Keumgang and put their hats on 2 of the 4 seats available in the final train. They both do their best. I am so proud. There are smiles on their pretty faces and metal around their necks. When you win a medal at a National you could hardly train for, you only have to pat your own back and rejoice. But still, I don't like the colour.

Second day– My little soldier's turn. Should I tell the story that brought the two of us together here, it'd take me so long and bring back such misery I coudn't endure. Today, I only know two things. One, she's almost unstoppable. Two, she can only be stopped if she runs out of joy. In 2010 she was already a killer, but I was not good enough to protect her from the pressure robbing her of the joy of kicking. This time I'm not blowing it. I must make her laugh. They can phone me right now telling me both my parents are dead and I still will make her laugh. She knows the rest. She knows it all. I don't have to waste my time and words going over blocks and stances and stuff. I only have to smile and make her laugh. And God, this is the only sport I've always been a pro. I look around, and for the first time ever at the Nationals, I feel I'm the best at doing what I have to do.

I open my heavy fire of jokes. She responds with her rapid fire of laughters. She says stop it. I won't. When they're calling her turn, she asks me: "Why am I not afraid?". This time I know the answer. But I keep the secret. And by the very end, we fucking love the colour.

(Pre-editing photo courtesy of François Alonge)