We’d been married for 12 years.
The early years of discovery (“How’d you get that scar?”) and spontaneous trysts behind questionable Hollywood landmarks had given way to dishwasher fights (“You can’t seriously think that goes there?!?”) and bimonthly scheduled date nights in our Valley bedroom.
Other people might call it complacency or boredom. I’d say we’d found our groove. The kind of groove your tires make driving to Big Bear in December without chains: an icy trench filled with frustration, exhaustion and everyday sludge.
So when I entered — and won! — a raffle for two weeks of free classes at a Van Nuys martial arts studio (crisp uniform and belt included), I jumped in with both weak-ankled feet. Sure, I’m a sucker for an-all cotton outfit, but there was a not-small part of me that was craving a new distraction, a new challenge, a new something, anything, to disengage my emotional wheels from that marital rut.
And so, three mornings a week after dropping our kid at school, I’d throw on my gi (uniform), then speed to my dojang (studio) with my nunchucks (cool spinning sticks popularized by Bruce Lee).
The dojang was modest. One mirrored studio with two tiny change rooms facing a Carl’s Jr., a gas station and a liquor store. The brochure called it authentic; I called it in need of a paint job and new mats. It was far from perfect, and I did have to overcome my aversion to seeing so many naked, hairy feet.
Although I was 20 years older than my instructors, I worked hard to impress, my mental gears grinding as I learned complex tae kwon do forms and hapkido armbars, chokeholds and not-quite-lethal-but-pretty-close-to-it grappling techniques.
It was beyond humbling. My roundhouse kicks were decent, but I couldn’t do a somersault without wanting to vomit. The speed of my spinning nunchucks wasn’t nearly as fearsome as the flapping of my upper arm flab. And the partner drills were nerve-racking, like the time I had to spar a 6-foot-6 15-year-old who didn’t know his own strength and hadn’t yet discovered deodorant.
It was thrilling to be drop-kicked into a new activity that challenged me physically, mentally and socially. You’d be surprised how quickly you make friends with someone who’s helping you stretch out your groin. Every class I’d return home breathless from exertion and excitement. After the freebie two-week period ended, I signed up for a yearlong membership.
A month into it, David, my husband, said he wanted to try the class too. I wasn’t thrilled about sharing my new hobby with the guy with whom I shared pretty much everything else. But I had no logical reason to object.
As we drove together to his first class, I couldn’t help feeling that this was a terrible mistake, allowing David to breach a sacred space I had just barely carved out for myself.
The moment we walked into the dojang, I peeled off to a spot on the opposite side of the room where I could warm up in my own private bubble while stealing glances at his progress.
I wasn’t surprised to see him struggle. In the 15 years I’d known David, he’d been as flexible as a two-by-four, so watching him strain to lift his leg above knee height only confirmed my assumption that this class would be his last.
When our instructor, Master Kim, paired us together for partner drills, I clenched my teeth. Sure, it made sense (David was closest to me in age and height — I’ve always cursed the fact that we wear the same size pants), but I could feel my own private something slipping away into the old familiar nothing that so much of our marriage had become.
We began working through basic hapkido hand techniques, defenses designed to control an attacker through redirection of force. To master these moves you must test them, right up to the edge of causing your partner intense pain. It’s a delicate balance that demands focus and connection. You can’t afford to space out. An inch too far could mean a broken hand.
David extended a hand toward me (imaginary attacks by slow, handshake-wielding maniacs are a martial arts class staple). For two months I’d been practicing this move with an array of students from across Los Angeles. But there I was, grasping my husband’s hand. This hand that was as familiar to me as my own — the hand that, two hours earlier, had passed me a roll of toilet paper through the crack of our bathroom door — now felt strangely new.
I stared into David’s eyes as I manipulated his hand into an angle that forced him slowly and efficiently to the ground at my feet. And although I realize this sounds like a bodice-ripper romance novel (“Forbidden Fists, Fevered Lips”), it wasn’t erotic domination I was feeling. It was the sense that we were returning to the uncharted waters of when we first met. The early days, before marriage or parenthood, when we couldn’t anticipate each other’s moves (“Should I invite him in?”). When every interaction held real risk (“Why did I leave that voicemail message?!”). When the potential for discomfort was high (“What if we get naked and he thinks my boobs are weird??”), and our future was unknown (“Will he want to get naked with me and my weird boobs again???”).
After that class, David signed up for an annual membership too. Even if we hadn’t gotten the family discount (thanks, Master Kim!), it would have been worth every penny. Because in that room, over the next several hundred classes, we related to each other in a new, sweat-infused light, exercising more strength, care and flexibility with each other than we had in over a decade.
I squealed when David learned how to cartwheel, and he gave me a fist pump when I successfully landed a punch on that oversize 15-year-old. And when I flipped him over my back for the first time and he landed like a sack of meat, David beamed and yelled in his best “Karate Kid” voice, “Finish meeee!!”
We practiced takedowns in the living room, critiqued each other’s forms while we made dinner, and yes, stretched each other’s groins before bed. Through the muscle pain, mental strain and those loose-fitting uniforms that are shapeless and weirdly flattering, our marriage got its groove back.
We’d just been awarded our brown belts — the last of the belts before black — when I had to drop out because of a knee injury that required surgery. David continued with the classes, then paused his membership a few months later. He said it just wasn’t as much fun without me. As I was recuperating, he was diagnosed with an autoimmune condition, which meant he had to tap out indefinitely.
It’s been a few years since we hung up our gis, and I have to admit, my form has gotten pretty rusty (would-be muggers, please ignore that last remark), but the lesson we learned on those dusty mats has stuck with us to this day: that without thoughtful, deliberate connection, the bones of our marriage are easily broken.
That said, I still chase David around the house throwing roundhouse kicks at his stomach, just to keep us both on our toes.
The author is a Canadian American writer-producer-comedian-dash-over-user who lives (and sometimes spars) with her husband and daughter in the Valley. Her website is jojostein.com.
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