“Em, I feel like I am so far from really knowing what you and Sensei mean.”
“Good. That might mean you’re on the way,” she said with a smile.
The black belt kumite wouldn’t star until after dinner. Wayne was hungry, so they went out to a Lebanese falafel place around the corner. The conversation was all about the boys’ triumphs, and full of praise and congratulations for them. Wendy was particularly effusive in her praise for Billy’s sparring, and still a little miffed at what she perceived as an injustice in the scoring of his last match. Wayne was curious about what sort of clothes Emily was planning to wear in her competition, since she didn’t appear to own a gi.
“Yeah, Em. What are you gonna wear,” Danny asked.
“I guess one of my running outfits,” she replied. “I haven’t really given it much thought. Why? Does it matter?
“Well, you know, the tournament has a rule that all participant have to wear some sort of uniform,” Sensei said, trying to conceal a sneaky smile. “The judges might make a fuss if they think you’re dressed too informally.”
“Oh,” she said. “That hadn’t even occurred to me.” She began to look a little flustered, something none of her friends had ever seen before.
“Well, the thought had occurred to us,” Wendy announced with unconcealed glee. “That’s why we all pitched in and got you this!”
With a grandiose flourish, Wayne produced a package wrapped in shiny foil. Emily was genuinely surprised. She didn’t really care about uniforms, but she cared deeply about her friends. She was practically moved to tears by their thoughtfulness.
“I tried it on to make sure it would fit you,” Wendy piped up, “since we’re about the same size. It feels fantastic, all soft and smooth. Open it.”
“Yeah, open it,” they all cheered.
Emily tore it open. It was a jet black kung fu style outfit with dark red clips on the jacket. It was made of some sort of performance synthetic, like rayon, only much tougher. And it did feel really cool, just as Wendy had said. “Oh my God! Thank you so much, guys. This is wonderful,” Emily gushed. She had to wipe away a little tear. “I can’t wait to try it on. Let’s go back to the hotel. Are we all done here?” Wayne stuffed what was left of Wendy’s gyro into his mouth and mumbled “all done.”
When they got back to the hotel, Emily rushed up to the room to change into her new outfit. It fit her perfectly. By the time the rest of the guys got up to the room, she was already leaping off the couch doing flying kicks over the coffee table, tumbling around on the floor and out into the hall, springing up into what looked like a spinning double side kick. She was like a kid on Christmas morning. Wendy and Wayne were astonished by her form on a leaping, spinning kick.
“Whoa! I’ve never seen you do that before,” Wayne burbled. Wendy was speechless.
“How do I look, guys.”
“You look fantastic, Em,” said Danny, and they all chimed in: “Fabulous,” “Amazing!”
“Smokin’,” shouted Billy.
“Absolutely marvelous,” Wayne pronounced with all the authority of a fashion designer.
“We better head downstairs,” suggested Sensei, herding them all toward the elevators.
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Chapter 21: A Foot in the Door
As it happened, there were no other women in the black belt division who had signed up for the kumite. The tournament organizers were in favor of simply giving Emily the first place trophy for the women’s division and proceeding to the men’s division. She protested and insisted on being allowed to compete in the men’s kumite. Sensei and her friends made a big fuss about it, much to the consternation of the officials. They finally relented after devising a special liability waiver for her to sign, which she did without hesitation.
There were about twenty or so other competitors, most of them from karate dojos, and about half of these came from the Norfolk naval station. These men were exceptionally fit, and looked very focused. They had an impressive intensity about them. The judges decided it might be simplest just to put Emily up in the first match against one of the tougher looking sailors. They undoubtedly hoped she would be eliminated in the first couple of rounds and be out of their hair. Her opponent was unimpressed by his first pairing, and may even have felt the judges had slighted him. Emily had a notion that he would attack her with special ferocity. They met at the middle of the ring where the referee reminded them of the rules: five points, no full-force contact to the head, no strikes to the back of the head, spine or kidneys, and any strike that draws blood results in a penalty point. They bowed and looked each other in the eye.
“I hope you’re ready, girly,” he said with a sneer. Emily smiled. He stepped back, shaking his head.
Emily’s friends couldn’t hear that last remark, but they could guess from his facial expression what its import had been. Danny was especially concerned. Even though he knew first hand how formidable her skills were, he couldn’t help but be alarmed by how much bigger and stronger her opponent was. His heart seemed to be thumping against his ribs and pounding in his ears. He wasn’t sure he could bear to watch, and yet he couldn’t bring himself to look away. Connie was also watching discreetly from the far side of the room as she scanned the room. She was concerned for Emily as well, but less from the threat posed by her current opponent than from another danger that might be lurking in the room quietly observing the match.
The referee began the fight with a vertical hand gesture. Emily seemed unprepared as she stood and watched her opponent launch a front kick, three quick straight punches and a round house kick. He meant to force her back with the first few strikes to place her in the proper range for the roundhouse kick. Danny was aghast at what he saw. He thought she was dazed, like a deer with its eyes caught in the headlights of an oncoming car. Emily wasn’t stepping away from the onslaught. Instead, she twisted away from the first kick, then leaned back under the three strikes. When he tried his final kick, her opponent was stunned to find that she was too close, right up against his chest. By the time he realized his error, she had already hit him three times in the head and shoulders. As he tried to stagger out of her reach, she planted a side kick firmly in the center of his chest.
He lay on his back on the mat fuming. Emily knew he would think he hadn’t been aggressive enough. She disabused him of that error in the next two points, beating him to the punch in each case. In the fourth point, she blocked a series of strikes back across his body, completely locking his arms up until his upper body was immobilized. By the time he realized what had happened, they were nose to nose and she was staring into his eyes. He saw for the first time what he was really up against and recoiled. She released his arms just in time to deliver a double palm heel strike to his chest, sending him stumbling backwards. One last side kick laid him on his back. The final point was almost an anti-climax. Emily simply punched through a feint he had hoped would lead to an opening for a quick front kick. Match over. He stood across from her, looking utterly bewildered, and bowed grudgingly as the referee announced his defeat. She nodded her head slightly. He slouched over to the side of the ring and sulked in the row on the floor reserved for competitors. He knew he had been eliminated from any possibility of a first place finish.
Emily walked over and sat next to him. She knew he felt humiliated by this unexpected turn of events. He grumbled and muttered as she sat down. They watched the next couple of bouts together. Eventually he came out of his funk and turned towards her.
“How did you do that,” he asked incredulously, as if the meaning of the result was still somehow a mystery. Emily just smiled at him. Finally, he gave in to the truth that was trying to work its way into his consciousness and said: “It wasn’t even close, was it?”
“No,” Emily replied with a kindly expression on her face. “You were pretty damn good, maybe as good as any of these guys,” she said, tipping her head to the rest of the competitors in the row next to them.
“What am I not doing
right?” he asked with genuine and uncomprehending sincerity.
“Sen,” she said. “We can talk about it some time, if you like.” He was stunned by her generous, open spirit. She was willing to talk to him, to teach him. Just then, it dawned on him that she was beautiful.
Danny had been half hiding behind Wayne throughout the match, peeking around his shoulder, at one point digging his fingers into Wayne’s arm. No one in the whole room seemed to be expecting her to win, and when she did the crowd sat in puzzled silence. Danny punctuated the moment with a loud yell of exultation. Wayne and Billy roared next to him, and Wendy let out a little shriek. Sensei just smiled at his girl, and thought wistfully of her father.
Connie walked out into the parking lot behind the hotel to make her plans. There was a white van with tinted windows off to the left, about fifty yards from the back entrance. Suspicious Asian men came and went. The Chinese strike team was using it as a base of operations. She looked for lines of sight, fire lines, and generally scoped out the positions she might take later. They were unaware of her presence, she had been very careful. Satisfied, she went back into the hotel.
The first round of matches ended, and twelve people had lost once. The level of skill of this field was very high, and her first opponent was indeed about as good as most of the others. Emily studied them as they fought, and saw that most of them relied primarily on speed, strength and aggressiveness in their fighting. Two of them had something more, something that might even turn out to be sen. One was a young man, not much older than her, or much taller. He was wiry and had long black hair pulled back into a pony tail. He may have been of Asian descent, though it was not entirely clear. He was very quiet, and didn’t win his first match through mere aggression. He had countered his opponent’s attacks effectively and worked through a long sequence of blocks and parries until he found an opening to deliver his strike. He approached his bout like a chess match. It was clearly an intellectual process for him. This left him vulnerable to a couple of quick takedowns, as he appeared to be too hesitant on a couple of occasions.
A second man, who looked to be in his early forties, also seemed to have a rather more sophisticated style of fighting. He was not a very large man, perhaps not quite six feet tall, but very solidly built with a good deal of upper body muscle development. He looked very much as you would expect a Marine Corps drill sergeant to look. He fought in an extremely disciplined style, quite conservative, like the Krav Maga she had seen Ethan and Jesse practice. He studied his opponent, blocked effectively and waited for an opening. Every once in a while, he would attack first, but this seemed to Emily to be merely a calculation on his part to conceal the essentially conservative nature of his overall style. He scored most of his points when his opponent tried fancy spinning kicks. He lost two points to simple reverse punches.
The next few rounds played out much as she expected. Her opponents were very aggressive, but were unable to control the match. She won the first one with a series of takedowns, relying almost entirely on leg sweeps and throws. The second one, against a hyper-aggressive opponent, she won through sen sen no sen. She attacked first each time, either scoring immediately or directly after his first block. She finished him off with a flourish that brought the crowd to its feet, blocking his punch with a quick reverse crescent to the back of his arm that led seamlessly into a leaping roundhouse kick to the side of his head. He was sent spinning across the floor by the force of her kick. As the crowd roared, she crouched over him tentatively, hoping she hadn’t hit him too hard. When he finally opened his eyes, he looked into her face and just lay there for a moment smiling at her as she sighed in relief. That match was over in less than a minute.
Throughout the tournament she was intent on not giving the rest of the field a coherent sense of how she fought. She created the illusion that she was given to one sort of technique or another. Each competitor thought they had her figured out, and each one came to a different conclusion about what her strengths and weaknesses were.
After four rounds only four competitors were undefeated, Emily, the guy with the pony tail, the drill sergeant, and another rather larger man with long legs and arms. In the next round, she was paired with him. He was very fond of his left round house kick, and liked to keep his leg in the air, balancing on one foot, threatening his opponent with a sudden long range blow. It was obvious to Emily that he was nervous about close quarter combat and used this technique to keep opponents at a distance. She took the first point by leaning out of the way of the first kick and then stepping to her right behind his raised leg, forcing him to bring his foot down. Just as he was about to touch the floor and put his weight on his left foot, she kicked it out from under him, sending him twisting to the floor helpless. She hit him with three quick, light strikes to the jaw, armpit and chest as he fell. He lost the second point in a similar fashion, this time trying to follow his initial round house kick with a wheel kick with his other leg. He hoped to catch her as she came up out of the lean she used to dodge the first kick. But before he could bring the wheel kick around, she kicked the back of his left knee. He went down again and she took the point with another series of quick strikes to his head and shoulders. In the subsequent points, he tried to initiate the action with front kicks followed by hand strikes. But Emily either kicked his foot before he could begin his kick or hooked it on the way down and pulled him off balance. Again, he became immediately vulnerable to close quarter strikes to his head and chest.
Up to this point, she had yet to lose a single point. No one even came close to making any contact with her. The fellow who lost to her in the first round was in much better spirits. He was now openly cheering her on. Danny and Wayne went over and stood by him to offer moral support to Emily’s newest fan.
The judges decided that in the final round Emily should face both remaining competitors, even though the drill sergeant had lost to the guy with the pony tail. Of course, it was more or less a matter of indifference to her. Perhaps she even preferred it this way, not wishing to give anyone the occasion to think she had somehow evaded a potential opponent. The first match was against the drill sergeant. He was determined to make up for his one loss by defeating her, and thought she had gotten off easy in her previous matches. He decided he needed to intimidate her early in the match and was willing to bend the rules, as he saw it, to do it. As they met in the middle to bow, and before the referee had signaled the beginning of the fight, he suddenly swung his fist into her head. She reacted in time to avoid the full force of his punch—it was a glancing blow that struck the edge of her jaw. But it still hurt. The crowd roared its displeasure, and the referee signaled the side judge to award her a penalty point. Emily looked at the referee and shook her head.
“No, give him the point,” she said loudly enough for everyone to hear. Then she turned to her opponent and in quieter tones said “Shall I hit you as hard as you tried to hit me?”
“Give it your best shot, sweetheart,” he said with obvious contempt.
Emily looked at the referee and he nodded. She took that as tacit approval for what she was about to do. Connie, watching from the door, caught a glimpse of Emily’s expression and winced slightly. She would know what it meant to be on the receiving end of that look. She may also have thought she understood the mentality of her opponent. She had received much of her training from men like him, men who took an obvious pleasure in dominating trainees, especially women. She awaited the event with a smirk on her face. A hand gesture restarted the match.
The drill sergeant thought he had gained a mental edge over Emily and tried to capitalize on it by attacking with a series of fast and powerful strikes to her midsection and head. Emily blocked them all, first pushing them across his body and then allowing him to swing wide. She stepped into the opening he left and landed a blistering array of strikes to his head and chest, finishing him with a full force reverse punch to his solar plexus. He staggered back, struggling to breathe for a moment. He stood at the edge of the
ring, bent at the waist with his hands on his knees. The referee asked him if was able to continue. He brushed the question aside angrily and tried to stare her down. She looked him in the eye and smiled. He shuddered visibly, as if a chill had just run up his spine.
Another hand gesture restarted the fight. He led with a left jab and tried to follow with a left kick to her knee that he hoped would leave her open for a head strike. But Emily slapped his jab back across his chest, swept his left foot out from under him and punched him hard on the left ear as he spun down to the floor in front of her. He tried to roll over onto his back as soon as he hit the floor, hoping somehow to counter attack from the floor. But before he knew what had happened, Emily landed on him jabbing her elbow directly into his solar plexus. He grimaced in pain and was again unable to breathe for a long moment. The referee asked him if he could continue and he brushed him aside again. He stepped to the center of the ring to face her.
He was convinced he needed to be even more aggressive in his attack and began this time with a ferocious series of strikes of every kind in rapid succession. He was clearly trying to hit her as hard as he could. Emily blocked them all one after another without giving any ground. To his great consternation, he found himself backing up even as he was attacking, much as Jesse had on that beach in New Zealand. And, like Jesse, he tried to force her back with a quick forward step and punch. But Emily anticipated his step and swept his foot before he could set it down. She grabbed his wrist as he fell backwards and twisted it hard, forcing him to flip over as he fell. He ended up on his back with Emily’s elbow once again planted in the center of his chest. He was completely disoriented, and lay on his back with a look of perplexity etched deeply across his face. His anger and frustration were palpable. It seemed to cloud his mind, keeping him from understanding just how profoundly he was out of his depth with this girl. He stood up, ignoring the referee and stood opposite Emily. She smiled at him and asked if he was okay.
Girl Fights Back (Go No Sen) (Emily Kane Adventures) Page 19