“No one is allowed to touch you.” “Your body is yours, and no one can put a hand on you.”

It was the first day of school at one of my favorite youth programs, and I was excited to see the kids and how they’d grown over the summer.

And I walked into this?

I immediately snuck up behind some of my class leaders and put my hands right on their shoulders and said, “Those teachers are lying to you. Anyone can put their hands on you anytime they want; that’s why we train.”

They both turned and looked startled. We locked eyes, as the kids whisper screamed, “Sifu Matt!”

I stood up, and we bowed to each other. More kids started turning around, smiling, laughing; then the teachers looked pissed off, and they should, because their logic and their made-up rules weren’t keeping anyone safe.

“Shhh, y’all pay attention, see you in a little bit.”

The teachers came up to me after their lesson and asked why I did that, while also saying that it’s not appropriate to put your hands on the kids. I laughed and said, “I actually get to hit them and  throw them down in class, and it’s fun.”

I honestly thought they would get the joke.

So, I cashed in my one serious moment for the year and said, “Anyone can touch you, me, or anyone they want, any time they want; it is our job to teach these kids to keep good boundaries, awareness, good communication, and know who is safe and how to notice when something isn’t safe.”

“Well, we would like it if you could do your class without any contact.”

“They learn by doing. I teach them to fall, to play, and to do things safely that might hurt them if they are careless. We spot each other, and there is contact. It’s like expecting someone to stay dry in swim class. I can leave, though.”

“They really like your class.”

Then I so toxically interrupted, “These kids trust us, and I remember being their age and looking at my teachers as bigger than life. So when you say no one is allowed to touch them, they believe you, and that becomes their reality. I shattered that with one touch. Now they don’t know who to trust or what to believe. If you want to know how to create trauma, keep lying to these kids like that.”

I was then asked to stay, but not throw them down. Their favorite game is called “five falls.” Which is basically takedowns and falls. They love it, and to rob any child of learning how to fall and stay controlled should be considered abuse. I laughed and said, “Cool, I can leave then; y’all figure it out.”

The two teachers just gave up and walked away. Assuming I was still allowed to be there, we had a great class that day.

I stayed in that school district for 12 years, and many of those kids are still in my life today. I just got off the phone with one of them. We talk about life, the folly of growth, and figuring out how to succeed with some form of integrity.

That school was a training ground for me. I was always teetering on the fence of being canceled and publicly called out by that loving community. I liked it, though; it was like walking a path made of eggshells to some place that I just knew was where we were supposed to be. They treated me like a type 2 diabetic treats vegetables; I was a salad in marshmallow territory.

They granted me the right to teach my classes, to show up every week and they would just ignore me and never lay eyes on my class. Then I saw a child in tears sitting on the cafetorium stage. A very overweight ten-year-old, heartbroken because she couldn’t play with the other kids, crunching away her emotions with a bag of Hot Cheetos.

She felt slow, self-conscious, and it was simply because she was fat. I sat with her, and we talked about food. I remember our conversation so well.

“Hey, let me see those Hot Cheetos.”

She looked at me like all my family members do when they notice me seeing them open a soda or another pudding cup at the dinner table.

I said, “Your body knows how to digest food. Let’s read the ingredients of these Hot Cheetos.”

We read them together and laughed at some of the weird words. “Yum, disodium guanylate and three types of yellow.”

“Can you pick out the food in these ingredients?”

She said, “Yeah, there’s cornmeal, buttermilk, I see cheddar cheese.”

“Look how much in this is not food.”

“Yeah.”

“Your body is probably thinking, OMG, there’s something wrong. We must be in a famine or survival situation. That’s why we’re eating ‘not food. Think of how bad life would have to be for you to think, I’ll just put this thiamin mononitrate and red 40 in my stomach. Your body is going to store every calorie for you, so when you finally see a piece of food, you have the energy to catch it or climb and get it. Do you want to eat these 3 ingredients?”

She laughed as I pointed to the three different types of “yellow”

“Ahah. No.” She said

“What does yellow even taste like?” I asked

“I don’t know”

“Do you think you would like yellow 6 or yellow 5 better?”

“Ahah, probably neither one”

“If you were in a garden, your body would know exactly how to use all the food you give it, but it gets really confused when you don’t eat food.”

The next day, her mom came to school to pick her up, and she was pissed off. She headed straight to me and pulled me aside. “My daughter told me that she doesn’t want the lunch I give her anymore; that it’s not food. Don’t tell me how to raise my daughter.”

“I’m not telling you how to raise her; I will tell you that she’s a 200-pound 10-year-old that sits along the wall crying because she’s too big to play with the other kids.”

The mom just looked at me, and holy shit, if that whole family didn’t change.

I knew that little girl until she graduated high school. I met her as a little sad fat kid, and to see her as a fit cheerleader, bouncing around and having to be annoyed at all the boys, big props to her and her mom.

That school finally told me that they were going to stop my program. They found the logic to let me go. Martial arts is no longer aligned with their message of peace, community, and social justice. I was allowed to teach until our little semester performance, where all the after-school programs presented what they were working on. Then I would no longer have a program there.

I get it. Learning to punch and kick may seem like violence to people who haven’t experienced actual martial arts training. But we practiced right up until the day of the performance.

We watched kids play games, have a great time, dance, jump around, and show what fun is expected to look like. Then it was our turn.

We went on stage in a line, faced the front, and I announced why we do this work. I mainly stay off stage, the kids are not allowed to cheat off me like the other classes. Martial arts is not about watching and repeating. These kids had skills.

I narrated the show because there was no room for misinterpretation. This is not tag or dodgeball; there is subtlety, and this community has proven that they hate touching and love spectacle.

“We learn martial arts as a way to take care of our bodies and minds. Our first line of defense is our posture. Predators choose prey through posture and awareness.”

The kids did a simple Yoga set for posture. And I asked a couple kids to close their eyes, “What color shirt is your mom wearing?”  “Keep your eyes closed and point to her now?”  They nailed it; they knew I always ask them these questions and no longer fell for my surprises.

I then said, “We need to learn to fall, because we have all fallen, and will all fall again. When you know how to fall, you can stand up again.”

We did our five falls. Then I chose some kids to throw down, and it was very well received, especially because we focus on boundaries so they have to tell me, “Stop” after the 5^th fall. They never say stop though because they want, like, a million falls each. It’s tiring. Next!

I then grabbed the mic and said, “We all can use better focus and stillness. Anyone can play tag; anyone can flail around and get excited. We train for stillness and focus.”

The kids dropped into a horse stance and held a qigong “holding the tree” posture for one minute, then crane pose on one leg for 30 seconds each side.

Some parents cried during this. They had never seen their child be still or focused.

Our program stayed.