From the Ashes Rises the Pheonix
way.
Sensei motioned me outside. He called Eve outside too. He said to her “You are going to be in charge of Tina.” He looked at me and said” everyone here gets a nick name.” Since your last name is Panzera, we are going to call you Panza (like the German tank). He tousled my hair and smiled. “It’s going to be ok Panza, you will see.”
I started my training that night. I trained with what I call my dojo brothers. Let’s see if I could remember some names. There was Cholo, CC, Aiki Mikey, Mr. Lofton, and Mr. W. Mr. Potvin, Gary, Teddy bear, Mr. Gordon. There are several others, but their names escape me. It was a new found family for me. We were all really a bunch of misfits that didn’t fit into regular society, so we made our own. We were (I wasn’t yet) an elite group of martial artist gaining some new territory on an art that wasn’t supposed to be taught in the US.
I trained every night I could. I would walk on ice at home, just so he would let me go. One day (he who must not be named) came home in a real bad mood. I just stayed quiet and continued getting dinner ready and the girls in the bath and getting ready for bed. I always had to make sure everything was just right before I left so that he would let me go. He started teasing me about the dojo saying that I was never going to get anywhere , that I wasn’t worth anything and that I better not forget who is in charge, He told me that it didn’t matter what I learned , he was always going to be stronger than me. He started to punch me and try to make me counter. I wouldn’t, I wasn’t ready and didn’t build up that fight in me that you really need to have to defend yourself.
When you are in an abusive relationship, you are so drilled and brainwashed that you are no good. You’ll never amount to anything. He grabbed me around my neck. It was one of his favorite things to do to me come to think of it. He choked me. He held on tight and I could see his neck muscles bulging and his face was red, and his eyes were black. He lifted me up against the wall. My feet were dangling. He slapped me real hard in the face. I felt the sting of the slap and it burned. I could feel my face grow hot where he had hit me. I remember him releasing my neck only to let me drop to the floor and grab me by the top of the head. He was in a rampage. He pulled me up off the floor by the top of my head and began banging it against the wall. At this point I was so numb to what he was doing; I don’t think I felt anything. All I could think about was that I was going to miss my class. Finally his rampage stopped. He left me and walked into the bathroom. I got up and looked at the clock. I had an hour before class started. I wasn’t going to cry. Show my weakness to this man who I thought I loved.
I didn’t think he would let me go. He came into the room like nothing happened. “You going to your class?” I nodded, afraid to say anything. My lip was all bloody and swollen. My head hurt, so when I tried to put my hair in a ponytail I couldn’t’ brush it good because of the welts on my head. I grabbed my uniform and left.
By time I got there, everyone was on the matt already warming up. I had missed break falls, and koto suburi (small wrist exercise), and the stretching, (which I loved) I walked in and I must of looked a wreck because I can remember all eyes on me when I entered. We all lined up and paired off because it was time to work techniques. We happened to be working on choke holds that night. I was paired up with Mr, Potvin. It was supposed to look like this. (Uke) grabs around neck with both hands. Tori (me) does a technique to get (Uke) off. Normally I liked these techniques because it ended up that I got to flip a person on his back and pretend I was going to slit his throat. Mr Potvin got ready to choke me so I could do the technique. I winced away from him because it still hurt very badly. It was sore, red, burned, and there were welts on my head and a bruise was starting to form under my eye. Mr. Potvin looked at me. He took his index finger and placed it under my chin. He lifted my head and turned it side to side.
“Panzer, why is your neck look like this” He looked at me with concern etched on his aged face.
“I fell into the door” I told him, not too convincingly. “Panzer, he said, looking at me in the face. “Get off the mat” He pointed to the bench and that is where I went. I was thinking “I don’t want them to know about this, just when I told him it was getting better”.
“Panzer”, it was sensei, “You have three choices. 1. I call the cops, 2. You call the cops, 3 I talk to —-“(I don’t want cops involved)