Riding the bus from the bars to his apartment at The Summit, Ohio University alumnus John Waller found himself in an undeniably dangerous situation.
Overhearing a conversation on the bus between several guys and their respective girls, Waller, a junior at the time, rubbed one of the guys the wrong way by laughing at a joke he had made.
Drunk and belligerent, the man began to threaten Waller, who attempted to defuse the situation. As the two walked off the bus, the man took a swing at Waller, who caught his arm, let his momentum carry him though, and pinned the man to the ground.
“I said to him, ‘I just want you to know that I could have broken your arm. I could have broken your ribs and your nose, but I didn’t do any of that, so just go home,’ ” Waller said. “It’s a move we had practiced nearly 20 times in taekwondo.”
Taekwondo is a Korean martial arts style and is taught as a club sport at OU. During his four years at OU, Waller was heavily involved with the classes, of which his father was an instructor of at the time.
“(OU Taekwondo) is more traditionally based, as it is passed down from master to master,” said Brianna Sheridan, president of OU’s taekwondo club and a junior studying middle childhood education. “Most of the time we do light sparring. You can touch the person, but not much force goes behind it. Having control is more important than actually hurting someone.”
That means students train to put all the power and precision of a normal punch into their fighting, but stop just before hitting the target.
Mixed martial arts, often abbreviated as MMA, is likely the most popular combative art, with a generally larger class than either taekwondo or kendo. This is mostly due to the fact that mixed martial arts is more modern and less traditional, focusing more on the fighting aspect of the art.
“We are a mixed martial arts group in the strictest sense of the term in that we practice many different styles. We do Muay Thai, Khalil stick work, taekwondo, karate and bondo,” said Amy K. Miller, president of the OU MMA club. “Each of the officers are selected because they have an extensive knowledge of martial arts and are willing to teach what they know.”
Kendo, the third martial art taught at OU, is likely the most rigidly traditional style, using only bamboo swords as a means of self-defense. The club’s president Corey Kapolka, however, said the art is about much more than that.
“(The masters of kendo) teach you how to face your fears and your opponents’ weaknesses to use it against them, so we try and turn that around to apply to everyday life,” Kapolka, a graduate student studying environmental and plant biology, said. “Kendo is less about swinging a sword and more about finding yourself.”
Like kendo, all of these styles have a similar deeper philosophy to life that takes years of training to fully understand, but one theme is clear across all styles: Stay out of trouble.
“Something we teach is, ‘Just because you know it, doesn’t mean you have to use the training,’ ” Waller said. “The goal is certainly not to go out and look for trouble so you can try out what you learned in practice, but when you’re placed in that situation it’s not bad to know how to defend yourself.”
wh092010@ohiou.edu
