Haunting Me.

There is one thing that continues to haunt me every single day. One particular event. One thing that I wish I could change, but I know I can’t, so I will not try. I regret not losing my temper.

Now, I feel like I’ve twisted the story. Let me tell you the version that has been replaying in my mind, haunting me consistently.

It happened at my grading. One of the things we had to do was free sparring. I was in a crappy mood that day, having lost by 0.1 marks just the weekend before. I was sort of giving up. I had three rounds of sparring. The first round was not too bad since she had no experience in sparring either. The second round was bad because she had too much experience in sparring, at least compared to me. The third round is the one I cannot get out of my mind. I was partnered with a guy, younger guy of course. Quite big size for his age. The thing is, he cannot kick above belt level. We are about the same height (yes, I’m short). And he kept kicking my leg muscles only. Not even once did he kick above the belt. It was painful, especially since a dog bit me earlier that day and I sprained my other leg’s ankle.

The few seconds that keep replaying in my mind is towards the ending of that match. He kept kicking me below the belt. I gave up. I lost my patience. I just threw both hands up and let him continue kicking me, waiting for the referee to stop the match.

What happened in reality was that I gave up. The match stopped.

End of story.

What happened in the version that keeps replaying is that the match stopped. Then, resumed. Immediately after the referee let us off, I chased after him and landed a chopping kick on his face with my right leg, and then another with my left leg. Then, the referee stopped the match and broke us apart. Mind you, that all must have happened within less than 5 seconds. The referee immediately tore me off. By the way, the referee was my friend, my senior. My other friends were sitting by the side of the ring. The referee pulled me off, and gave me a stern look to stop. I did. I stopped. But my eyes still had the look of a killer.

“Stop, Qinmei,” my friend yelled from the sidelines. “Stop.” He repeated, in a lower tone this time. I did. I wasn’t panting or gasping for air. Yet, I felt my whole body heat up and I felt the rush of blood flow through my entire body. So this is what fight or flight response means.
By now, everyone had rushed over to see whether he was okay or not. I’m sure he’s fine. I’ve gotten kicked in the face many times before, in competition, and that’s by girls who are stronger than I am. I couldn’t have even left a mark on him.

The guy who told me to stop. He was standing right next to me now. He wasn’t angry. He almost never is. He was talking to me as if I was a child who did something wrong. Why did I hit him in the face so many times, so hard? This was just a grading. It’s not meant to kill. I was supposed to control. We don’t want accidents. We just want to see whether you can apply what you learn. That’s all.

I raised my voice a little with him. What do you expect me to do? Just stand there and get kicked like I always do? It was freaking painful okay. He did not even once kick me above the belt. He kicked my muscles. And hitting muscles is damn pain. You should know right? I’m sure you’ve had it before.

My seniors both looked at me with a strict face. Of course, I reciprocated. They didn’t want me to kill? At the same time, they wanted me to attack? What was I to do?

I have a short temper. It was pain. I simply defended myself.

And that is where the vision ends. I still feel the anger every time the scene plays. It has become a source of motivation for me, to fight for myself. To defend myself. To lose my temper. To do what I have to do.