Part One – There
(Eastern Hemisphere)
CHAPTER TWENTY SIX – PHYSFAC. FIRST YEAR. SPORT THEORETICIAN
Actually, it’s hard to call me an athlete. As I remember, all my conscious, yet irresponsible years of life I would love to participate in some kind of sport, but… just discussed different games. So perhaps the appropriate term for me would be “a sport theoretician”.
In my childhood, my father had not have enough time to teach me how to swim, ride a big bike and play chess. I always lacked only a little bit.
I had already begun to swim without a life ring during sea vacation, as we left for home, and I have not seen the sea again soon.
I learned to ride a bicycle myself and even once tried to steer the “Eaglet” of a neighbor’s boy, but it ended with a wheel injury and weaning from someone else’s bike.
Dad never had the patience for chess, roller skates broke my arm and disappeared out of sight as a sinful object, and the ball, quietly bought by me to improve my modest football skills, was discovered and exchanged for a sports uniform.
What I could not be saved from was the hiking on mountain routes in the camp.
One way or another, I didn’t go in for any sports, I always had a weight, a little more than necessary, according to the tables and norms, but I read a lot and solved all sorts of difficult problems well. Boys never laughed at me, perhaps because they always found a fatter object for ridicule. I didn’t have to fight, and lifting dumbbells and kettlebells was boring.
So I safely lived up to high school, when other boys are already giving up their sport, and I have not even started it yet.
And then unexpectedly I’ve got an enemy next door. It’s funny to say, some cocky guy named Ed, from a neighboring house. I don’t even know how it happened that he hooked me. But, most importantly, I didn’t have the habit of punching the offender in the mouth, because firstly I didn’t have any offenders, and secondly his nit-picking was somehow not malicious and not exciting enough. Perhaps he just wanted to test his own courage, but he did not dare to strike first, and even more so I. In a word, it was not a typical hooligan, who robbed the kids and the weak, but just a bully boy from a neighboring yard. And we had a lot of mutual acquaintances…
In short, I decided to prepare for a slowly brewing fight. But it matured so slowly that I managed to finish school and enter the university. And there, in addition to the usual classes of general health-improving physical education, there were sections. And I decided to train my strength. When I asked my fellow student, strongman and athlete Victor, what is the most suitable sport to fight enemies, he convinced me in one minute that wrestling is the best. And I signed in for it. Not classical wrestling, but “sambo” – a self-defense without weapons.
They allowed you in sections without a single question. No previous merit was required. If you want to do it, come and do it. And I came.
The sport club consisted of two halls, a locker room and a shower room. The section was attended by a couple of dozen guys, of completely different levels, from champions to such bumpkins as me.
Each workout, and there were three of them a week, began with running in circles, exercises, somersaults and generally warming up. Then everyone studied the wrestling techniques, practiced them on sparring partners, sometimes trained on dummies, learned how to deliver single and serial blows, and finally, they wrestled.
The coach worked only with champions, they trained strong guys who had not yet earned qualifications, and those, in turn, worked with weaklings like me. During the wrestling, the situation slightly changed; sometimes you had to fight with stronger guys, but corresponding to your weight.
The best thing was that no strong guys, even the champions, did not scoff at the weak. Everyone here knew that weakness was a temporary state, and they supported the persistent in every possible way.
From the first day, I had confidence in myself, and I began to train with enthusiasm. My muscles developed a little more, I lost weight and stopped losing in every single fight. Perhaps I would have achieved even greater success, but then the cold set in, the hot water in the showers turned cold, and then disappeared altogether, and I felt disgusted, wet with sweat, pulling on my clothes and dragging home. As a result, I started skipping classes and abandoned them altogether by the winter exams.
And when it got warmer and everyone came out onto the streets, I again ran into Ed, my bully neighbor.
“I haven’t seen you for a long time,” he said, and narrowed his eyes, “It’s very tempting to kick your ass.”
“Good idea,” I said, “I didn’t break anyone’s bones all winter.”
“Oh, oh! I’m shaking all over!” said Ed.
My opponent, of course, was not afraid of me, but, however, he was afraid to start a fight, knowing my new hobby from mutual acquaintances. Or maybe he didn’t have a formal reason to start it either, and he was looking for how to get me to make the first move – to strike, insult, etc.
And then a thin neighbor youth, Mishka, intervened in the conversation,
“Why do you guys always squabble and never compete? Do you want to box? Relatives just presented me with a second pair of gloves.”
We nodded without saying a word. Everyone was eager to hit the opponent, but it never came to war and a fight, and now we had the opportunity of an honest sports competition.
And so, we pulled on boxing gloves, and referee Mishka waved a kitchen towel. I immediately understood what our champions meant when they taught us not to let the enemy use his techniques in hand-to-hand combat, especially the techniques of another sport. And for sure, boxing was not what I studied in the fall, although I could already somehow hit after training on mannequins.
So, I stroke, but he stroke too. I must say that the muzzles of both of us were red and slightly swollen at the end of the duel. But not a single black-and-blue mark decorated them. I think that we were both pleased with the outcome of the fight, but at the same time, each colorfully painted out how the next time he would decorate the opponent, or send him into a knockout.
Before saying bye at the entrance of Mishka’s house, Ed threatened me,
“Well, you are finished man! I’ll paint your face, wait!”
“Bang!” A lightning strike to the face threw Ed to the ground. His eye immediately swelled up, blood streamed from his nose. It had nothing to do with me. A passerby man in a black coat, black cap and black glasses bent over Ed.
“That’s a lesson for you, snot!” If you touch Nick with your finger, you are a corpse, and your cut off eggs – in your mouth. Understood? Well, then get the fuck out of here!”
When Ed’s trail got cold, the man in black turned his unshaven face towards me, and I hardly recognized my former neighbor Chivaly.
“So you still didn’t learn how to fight?” he asked me, “Just don’t be afraid to make pain to the enemy. Better yet, severe pain. How are things in general? Have you screwed Ia?
We had chatted about this and that. He said that his sight gradually returned. From the treatment with hormones, he grew up and became very strong. Grandmother died, father is ill. I said that I entered the university, the Department of Physics, and I am engaged in “sambo”, a self-defense without a weapon.
“Good,” he said, “Although sambo is not your thing. You are whack the problems much better. Like I do people.”
I never met him again, and if I did, I didn’t recognize him. Ed avoided me for six months, and after graduating from high school he left for Russia and entered a military school. And I remained a theoretician of sport, which I love to this day.
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