1. Your husband never wants to see any movie anymore unless it stars
Jackie Chan, Jet Li, or Bruce Lee, or was directed by Akiro Kurosawa, or
made in Hong Kong. Martial-arts themed movies were probably a big reason
your husband decided to start training in the first place, and you might
even have enjoyed Jet Li’s “Fist of Legend” the first or second time he
made you watch it. But you’ve now seen the [EMAIL PROTECTED] flick 302 times
and
counting, and you hate that you can now remember all the dialogue, word
for word.
2. Even if you liked chop-socky flicks before, they’re ruined for you
now because every time a fight scene occurs, you’re subject to constant
comments like, “That would never work in real life,” or “What a
beautiful version of shiho-nage!” or “I’m faster than that guy, you
know” or “Let’s rewind that. I want to see it again.”
3. Odd-looking gadgets and gear now fill the house. Padded sparring
gear. Twenty-five different kinds of punching bags. Rattan arm rings.
And loads upon loads of exotic, menacing-looking weapons that make any
visitor to your home suspect that a serial killer is in residence. Your
significant other has channeled his innate male instinct for buying
random gadgets into the martial arts. Other men buy plasma TVs and hi-fi
equipment. Yours has a selection of butterfly knives, balisongs, and
crescent swords, which seem to exist solely so they can either collect
dust or destroy the furniture.
4. Your friends and relatives suspect you’ve turned into a raving harpy
who takes a frying pan to her husband’s face on a regular basis. It
never fails: a few days before a big event – Thanksgiving dinner, your
office’s holiday party, a family wedding – your husband will come home
from a class with a very visible and nasty-looking injury – a black eye
or a broken nose or a fat lip. It’s nothing serious, and he almost never
gets even a scratch in class. But now, right before pictures will likely
be taken, even your father will wonder if his poor son-in-law is a
victim of spousal abuse.
5. Of course, that’s assuming your husband actually shows up to said
event. You’ve lost track a long time ago of how many times he’s been
late because he couldn’t tear himself away from a post-class training
jam. You learn that if there’s someplace he absolutely HAS to be, he
can’t be allowed to train for at least 12 hours beforehand.
6. Six words: “Honey, let me show you something!” You come to dread your
husband’s return from class, because he has almost always just learned a
really cool technique and wants to show it to you, for your benefit, as
if he was a dog dragging a dead rabbit home for your approval. Of
course, what he really wants to do is review the material and delight in
its sheer coolness factor. And since he just learned it, he can’t really
control it yet. He’ll promise that he won’t ACTUALLY do it or that it
WON”T hurt. But you know better.
7. Remember when you always wanted to know, “what are you thinking
about?” Now you don’t dare to ask because it’s probably some
martial-arts topic, and you’ll be treated to three-hour lecture,
complete with demonstrations, on whatever related idea he’s playing
around with. Be careful what you wish for, indeed.
8. It embarrasses you to be seen in public with your husband because
he’s always practicing hand techniques in his head. Of course, to you
and everyone else staring at you with a mixture of pity and revulsion,
his “techniques” just make him look like an escaped mental patient on
heavy doses of Thorazine.
9. Invisibility. At first your husband just went to class two nights a
week. Then he throws in a weekend class too. Then starts practicing
every day. Soon he’s even leaving town to attend weekend seminars and
training camps. Before you know it, you’re no longer sure if your
husband was just a figment of your imagination. (For some spouses, I
suppose this actually might be classified as a good thing.)
10. The infection can spread. Just when you’ve gotten used to items 1-9,
your resident idiot decides that you or the kids should start training.
“It can be a family thing,” he says. But you know that he’s just trying
to make it more acceptable for him to get even more obsessed with his
training and turn you all into freaks just him.
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