Sensei Clause and Stories

If you didn't read last Friday's post regarding Sensei Clause, go now.

With most martial artists you have three types of personalities. Type A: the total clownass that is there for the bettering of himself which is a good thing, Type B: the guy that is just a crazy shit talker regardless if he actually is a badass or not and Type C: the guy that is Kung-Fu. Sure there are other people in the mix that don't fit these stereotypes but bottom line is no one cares about them and chances are you don't even know their name, so fuck off.

We had all these personalities as does every dojo, the bad part is our Sensei happened to be Type B. The thing is that he didn't come off this way in the beginning. Had he been Type B from the get, I woulda walked my Type C ass outta there. Sensei Clause played it smart tho, he was Type C through and through until you breached the inner circle of the dojo. Then, the truth comes out. We'll explore this by taking baby steps as is the way of Angry Time.

Sensei Clause's biggest thrill was to get with the teen class and tell them stories of his youth and/or current accolades in martial arts mania. He would thrive on impressing the kids as it truly was a good motivator. We had some pretty sharp teen students so it was likely for better than for worse. From time to time I would take a listen in on story time and it was pretty damn sick to hear some of things he did in his younger days. However, the more and more I listened and then actually rehashed these tales with HMT the more suspect they became.

The first stories were the basic. Sensei Clause ran with a gang in a big city till one day he was saved by meeting his future sensei Frankie. Then he used his new found martial arts mastery to work in the benefit of the less fortunate. He told us about how he would train, crazy stuff Frankie would make him do and so on. Nothing to raise an eyebrow at but nonetheless impressive.

Then came the crap. We aren't talking taking on groups of gang members 10 on 1, which would frankly be more believable. Let me give a detailed account of probably the most classic and fantastic tale that Sensei Clause would share. It goes a little something like this:

Being part of a gang, the gang members would do stupid things. Stunts happened to be part of Clause's entertainment arsenal. His favorite stunt to perform used to be jumping over moving cars.. jumping over cars at roughly 50-60mph..

Sidebar: Yes, you heard me, vertically leaping over cars coming at you head on. Let me remind you of my first sentence regarding the physical description of this man last Friday, I quote, "A pudding of a man on the surface, standing at about 5'5" and weighing in at 185lbs he looked more like a bowler than a martial artist."

My favorite had to have been when I obviously had a look of not only puzzlement but more of "you fucking liar" written all over my face to which he shoveled me another helping of bullshit and said, "Jumping over them at like 25-30mph was so much harder bcuz you had to stay in the air longer, you know, since the car is not passing under you as quickly.

Sidebar #2: Clause has the nerve to tell these kids that he could essentially leap vertically roughly 4 feet. Now I could dunk in high school, I am roughly 5'10" - 5'11" and I didn't have near that high of a vertical leap let alone the brain damage to want to jump over moving cars. So this was the first flag raised. By now you should know that Angry Time wouldn't waste your time with such a ridiculous story and I will not disappoint. Nay friends, it doesn't end here. Now for the stunning conclusion:

One day, while Clause was making his rounds in his home town he stumbled upon a drug deal. Clause saw fit that with his newfound morals and Kung-Fu talents it would be the ideal time to intervene. Without taking the time to strap on his Bat-Utility belt, Clause wades into his first taste of vigilante justice. They throw down, fists fly and Clause is coming out on top. Before he knows it some of the drug dealers take to a nearby limo and decide that it would be funner seeing someone run over than beaten to death. I don't know if I would agree, but to each their own.

So out comes these bloodthirsty drug dealers, driving pedal to the metal at young Sensei Clause. May I remind you they are in a limo.. yeah. Carrying on.. little do they know they are gunning at a trained car jumper, with a twist. The problem is Clause has never jumped anything so large before, he was fit to be tied. To make matters worse, they were armed with guns. Knowing they had the upper hand, one of the drug dealers is so cocky he decides to pretend he is a chariot rider and stand up in the car, torso sticking out of the sun roof with pistola in hand and ready to take aim.

So here it comes, the grill of the car is bearing down on careening straight through Clause's pelvis while at the same time bullets travel in and out of his body.. when all hope is lost, the unthinkable happens. Clause, like Icarus, takes flight. As the front of the hood is cleared in super slow motion, he chambers his right leg and decides to slam it out, side-blade kick, right into the hands of this poor, poor sap sticking out of the sun roof. The kick is perfectly placed, his goose is cooked, the gun goes flying, the drug dealer is disarmed and Clause recovers with a perfect landing to the awe of the onlookers.

There you have it. Clause saves the day and the drug infested streets of the big city... are still drug infested streets. All in all nothing was accomplished, except for the fact that one man, one day, jump kicked a gun out of another man's hand that was standing out of the sun roof of a limo charging full speed ahead and stopped a drug deal.

The story pretty much fades into nothingness at this point which is also a tell-tale sign of bullshit. Chances are this isn't the high point of insanity when it comes to Sensei Clause either. The sad part in all this is the teens look up to him enough to believe whatever he says. If anything its worth a chuckle, but Clause is more sinister than he seems. Stay tuned for shocking revelations next week!