Hitting My Son

David Karpel on training his son in self-defense and character development.

He stepped right into it. My left jab –> his nose. Our box of space froze in time.

Oh, my boy.

Tears moistened his eyes, his sky blue eyes, and his face darkened red. With shame or pain I couldn’t yet tell. He’s fifteen, so either or both were possible. My other students continued to train in pairs around us, drilling inside defense: parrying, slipping and rolling in response to jabs and crosses. Short exhalations, shouted encouragements, and an occasional giggle or full-on belly laugh continued as always. My son took a step back, right hand up. Hold up, stop.

“That hurt,” he said – or croaked. Wincing, massaging the sensitive area at the bridge, he coughed back a cry. Scanned the room and checked that no one noticed.

I nodded. My mind and heart struggled for supremacy. I also took a step back, stood there about a half a minute arms akimbo, giving the experience deference and distance.

I wore boxing gloves while we’d been playing this elevator dance: moved in a tight space while he parried, blocked, evaded, slipped, or rolled as I threw at him what everyone else drilled – straight jabs and crosses – and more: overhands, haymakers, and hooks light in power but at increasing speeds. He’d been doing a great job covering, moving, adjusting, learning about distance. I’d hit him on the forehead, but he’d shaken that off without missing a beat. A few punches later, got through again, and again we continued. And then that straight jab got through with too little distance between us and I tagged his nose.

The next thing I said had to come from his Krav Maga instructor as much as it had to come from his dad. “Hands back up, kiddo. On the street, there’s no time-out for pain.”

Eyes moist, cheeks red, that determined furrow between his gingy eyebrows, he put his hands back up and we went back to it for another minute.

When time was up, we high-fived, hugged good and tight, and I kissed his sweaty forehead.

“It still hurts, Dad.”

“And it will tomorrow, too,” I told him.

The next day his nose bled a few minutes in the morning and another few minutes in the afternoon. Same thing the next day.

The morning after that, the doctor surmised it was a broken blood vessel, not to worry. I wasn’t really worried.

I gave my son a bloody nose. I was proud of us. That night and the days that followed, the moment played itself in my head over and over. I came to cherish it.

Martial arts and self-defense combatives training can be life affirming, physically demanding, and psychologically challenging – all of that and more. My wife and I did not raise our children with corporeal punishment, so hitting my son is something that only occurs at the gym. That particular moment, tagging my son on the nose in the midst of training, hitting him without malice or anger or a sense of retribution or punishment, hitting him in an act, really, of instruction, and ultimately love, allowed me to experience another, deeper benefit of the training, that thing we all want for our children and sometimes forget is a lifelong struggle even for ourselves: hardcore character development.

His and mine.

His because he shook it off, put his hands back up, and will do so quicker next time. And eventually he won’t even stop to comment or complain. How instructive for so many of the challenges he will face as he, G-d willing, continues to grow, mature, and experience the wild happenstances of life.

And mine because I didn’t break, I didn’t soften at a moment when my heart screamed to soften, to stop, to give him a minute or two to recover, to hug him immediately with empathy, telling him stories twice told of my own experiences eating leather, or vinyl, or knuckled flesh with my face.

My son and I have shared integral learning in Judaism, especially in law, tradition, and some Chassidus, as well as in secular literature, science, and world history. But what we’ve shared together through Krav Maga training has also been indispensable in the incremental development of some of the fundamental attributes of how we walk in the world: perspective, disposition, confidence, and humility.

It is only recently that my son has gotten as tall as I am, the shorter side of 5’7”, and it won’t be long before he’s taller and stronger.

I pray there never be a change in the way we fight or the way we hug – that we step right into it.

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