Summer Camp Guide

KARATE CAMP: Story by David MacNeal | Photo by Ryan Haskins

Up till this point, my martial arts practice has consisted of popcorn, a couch and Karate Kid marathons. So when an adult woman asks me to kick her in the chest, my hesitancy is not unfounded. “Come on,” she begs in mouth guard-muffled taunts. “Try to hit me.”

Today, at the Vision Quest dojo in Lafayette, we’re all attempting to kick each other—evasion being the point of the exercise. So I take my “neutral bow stance” (i.e. feet spread parallel and pointed 45-degrees), and lift my knee in slow motion to give my sparring partner warning the front kick is coming.

This prompts the For real? expression on her face.

Fine then. Next thing, I realize I’m doing a “Daniel-san” pose, hands dangling in the air, and my foot connects half with her sternum, and catches her breast. “I’m sorry!” I apologize simultaneously. The last time I was in a fight was … well, never. She’s quick, however, to point out her chest guard, and also congratulate me. The dojo, I’ve learned, is a place of transformation and respect, or as Vision Quest instructor Alex Bernat, 19, puts it: “We’re not a belt factory.”

It’s self-defense rather than fighting, he says. Personal development instead of “rigorous, war-machine making.” And it’s what you’ll expect to see this summer when their new ninja course starts, turning 5 – 13 year olds into genin (entry-level ninjas) in what’s tentatively being called Shinobi Camp. When arranging this camp preview, I called asking to join in with kids aged 5 – 6, aka “Tigers,” but later agreed not to as parents may be upset at this hulk chasing around young grasshoppers à la Kramer in Seinfeld.

And while you will be a “recruit” in Shinobi Camp, trying to prove yourself with roundhouse kicks, panther paws and throwing ninja stars with octopus-like suction cups, the focus will be on character development. I ask Bernat if he knew one case in particular of a kid who excelled because of martial arts. “Yes,” he says, “I was terrified of karate.”

Five years ago, he came in a shy teenager afraid to make eye contact with anybody. In middle school, he’d been voted the quietest student in the class. But one day his sensei Nicholas Milliken simulated a bully scenario in which he approached students and threatened them. The purpose of the exercise was to shout: “Back off!” Once Bernat screamed it at the top of his lungs, he says a seed was planted. “I’d never even heard myself be powerful,” he says. It’s a notion I share with Bernat, as I’m likely to continue pursuing activities that challenge both physically and mentally. “I had the ability to choose who I was, and not be this floppy guy in the breeze.”

As the day’s lesson ends, and I finish sparring with my partner, Bernat comes to me and awards me the white belt as a sign of stepping into a larger world. I happily accept it with a bow and walk away body sore and outlook transformed.