No Way In...

Koa had thought it through. He looked down from the tall building, knowing the woman he thought was the love of his life would not be with him. She'd left, promising to return, then, in an email, explained she'd changed her mind. No amount of convincing by Koa's father or anyone else that a liar was not even worth a second thought helped Koa.

Koa thought about it one more time - and jumped. At first there was the thrill as though he were flying, then as the ground got closer and closer, as though it was rushing up to meet him, fear. Fear of pain. Fear of the unknown. Fear.

Koa hit the ground. As time passed, he realized he was conscious. He kept his eyes closed and began moving his body parts, fearful of pain. Koa started by wiggling his fingers. He slowly worked his way up to moving his arms. Still no pain. Eyes still closed. Koa wiggled his toes and worked his way up to his hips. Still no pain. Still eyes closed. Finally, ever so slowly, he turned his head back and forth.

Everything seemed to be okay. Finally Koa opened his eyes. He sat up carefully and slowly. 'Where am I?', thought the martial arts master. He seemed to be in a different part of the city then what he remembered. Koa looked around, but didn't recognize anything. 'Oh well', thought Koa. 'I did just take a big spill. Guess I'm better at falling than I thought. I'd better find a bus outa here.', Koa thought as he rose carefully to his feet. 'Yep, guess I'm okay.'

Koa started walking down the street. Dingy looking even in the daytime.

"Wha you doin dis part a town!?”

Koa turned, there was a man behind him. 'I didn't even feel that guy behind me. That fall must have messed me up worse than I thought.', thought Koa.

"Just lookin fo a bus outa here bradah.", said Koa.

"I ain't yo bradah!"

And the man threw a straight right at Koa's nose.

Koa saw the punch coming. He felt the usual flow of adrenaline that he expected and had trained with so he could use it in a self-defense situation. He was getting ready to slip his head to the left, slap the the attacker's right hand with his left across his body and use his right front knuckles to his attacker's throat since Koa noticed his attacker's chin was up.

But just as Koa was about to execute this in one movement, Koa's right foot stepped back into a front stance , he did a classical inside to outside closed fisted block with his left hand as his right hand went to his right side into the chamber. "KIAAA!", shouted Koa.

'Oh my !@#$', thought Koa. 'Why is my body doing this. I've seen forms practiced like this, but no one in their right mind would ever fight like this! I'm wide open and I can't shift out of this stupid long stance to avoid another attack!'

In a millisecond Koa's combat creative mind came up with a solution. Since only a millisecond had gone by Koa's left hand was still inside his attacker's defenses against his attacker's right arm. 'I'll use my fingertips of my left hand since that's the closest weapon I have and strike my attacker's throat.'

Koa began to execute the front spearhand strike to the throat, but once again his body didn't move the way it was trained or the way he wanted it to. Instead of the spearhand strike with his left hand, Koa chambered right hand executed a traditional reverse punch. Well he was already overly extended from the long stance, his hips didn't twist with the punch to generate more power from the back leg and he could barely reach the attacker as it was. So basically what happened was the attacker grunted slightly stepped in and grabbed Koa by the throat.

Koa didn't know what the heck was going on. All of his counter-attacks were classical ineffectual karate techniques. His father would have laughed him out of class for actually fighting like this.

Koa's attacker's centerline was wide open, but instead of executing the simple knee strike to the groin as Koa had planned and following the knee strike to the groin with a two fingered eye strike or roundhouse elbow strike to his attacker's temple depending on how Koa's attacker reacted to the knee strike to the groin, he stepped back again and brought his arms down onto his attacker's forearms. Because Koa had stepped back, pulling his attacker off balance, the move had the effect of releasing his attacker's hands from Koa's throat, but now the attacker was free to try to hit Koa again because Koa didn't control his attacker's arms and broke free instead.

Koa had had enough. He took the opportunity to get out of there. He ran toward a group of men at the same time looking for a police officer to report the attack.

Suddenly Koa remembered his recent experience with the unprovoked attack and stopped running toward the group of men. Sure enough they shouted, pointed at Koa and began chasing him.

He had no idea why his body was doing what it was doing after over ten years of martial arts training, but he knew he didn't stand a chance against multiple attackers fighting the way he was. As far as he knew, the way his body was working, he may jump in the middle of all his attackers instead of using one attacker as a shield and using angles to cut down on the number of attackers he'd have to fight at one time.

So Koa utilized another honorable means of self-defense - he ran. Lucky thing he was in good shape.

He ran toward an old official looking building with pillars in front of it. For some reason he happened to notice some kind of star symbol embedded in the concrete of the roof of the building.

'That's funny,the gang stopped chasing me.'

As he walked into the building he saw a receptionist typing on a computer keyboard.

'Must be some kind of celebration going on. The receptionist is wearing a very realistic goat's head mask.'

Koa walked up to her, breathing hard from his ordeal.

The receptionist looked up at Koa. "May I help you?"

'Amazing mask work', thought Koa. 'The lips on the mask even move when she talks.'

"Can you please tell me how to catch a bus outa here?", asked Koa almost breathless.

"Oh, I'm sorry sir. There are no buses out of hell."

Koa sat up in bed sweating as though he'd run a mile. He jumped out of bed and found his father meditating in the backyard.

"Father! You were absolutely right! She's not worth it!" She's a liar and a coward so it would never had worked out anyway!"

Koa's father smiled, "I'm glad you finally figured it out boy. Tell me, what changed your mind?"

"Let's just say I went for a walk and did some thinking. There's no way in..., well she's just not worth it."

Copyright J. Richard Kirkham all rights reserved

The Martial Art Adventures of Koa The Modern Warrior

Martial arts short stories centered around Koa which means warrior in Hawaiian and The Stranger. Also feature various Gods and Goddesses Feel free to browse or submit your own

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