Taj's Early Years

by Lotta Bangs

The wonderful food sold itself and we received only compliments on the crèche and its rapid learning and developmental effects on the children. The women with school age kids all agreed to move across the road where proper grade and high school classes and accredited adult courses were available.

  As Maggie had predicted, dozens of women had already left to join Galen where they had further opportunities for self-growth. And we had more vacant jobs for the new influx.

  Galen covered all the uniform, crèche and schooling expenses. The women earned sufficient to pay for everything else they needed. All I really had to provide was accommodation, and as I had been given so much of the building for free, it would have been crass to complain.

  I was quite surprised that I even made a small profit on the women, but the satisfaction of knowing that my idea had made such a huge difference in their lives was priceless.

  Armando and Rosa also were very pleased with the arrangement. Rosa was fascinated by the Galen crèches and had signed on for a training course with them. I was fairly certain that she was also feeling clucky and would be having a child of her own as soon as she could.

  It would give me an excuse to knit small lacy garments. I had almost finished the lap rug, so bought a supply of fine lace-weight Shetland wool and very fine circular needles for a baby shawl and other yarn for a layette.

  * * *

  Both buses were filled for the trip back.

  Returning was somewhat of an anticlimax as little had changed during my absence. Paul, Ron and I looked over the entire building.

  Maggie had put in flexible walking or running tracks inside the outer walls on four levels. These had large planters full of greenery, like those on the apartment balconies. They looked like an imitation of the Galen tree walks, but that only made them more popular. The occasional benches were soothing places to sit and read or just watch the weather while also offering lovers some privacy.

  Two new skateboarding or rollerblade circuits had also been constructed, looping into closed-off hallways in floors above and below for extra thrills. I taught the guys to rollerblade and we had a lot of fun up there. More lifts had been installed to handle the multitude and make up for the stairs being crowded with exercise enthusiasts who found them more interesting than the Stairmasters.

  Maggie kept an eye on anyone who left the stairs and went wandering where they had no business, sending staff to herd them back.

  There were now four immense heated swimming pools, more saunas and spa pools. Two new gyms had been added. There were a few new kinds of exercise machines I hadn’t seen before, as well as more of the usual sort. New dance classes had started or moved in from previous premises. Everything was more spacious, despite the increased clientele, while still being business as usual.

  Chapter 19

  Planning Ahead

  As they became available I had previously bought up properties either side of and behind both the Buenos Aires gym and the local US one which held my first two dojos. When I approached the Buenos Aires gym owner about enlarging the building, he’d been uninterested. He was thinking of selling it and opening a beach resort, so I had bought him out months ago.

  Tickets to my planned course had been selling faster than I had expected, so building a really huge martial arts area was imperative. Argentina also had a battered women problem I could help with. Maggie had already made all her plans and obtained permissions, ready to erect the new building just days before it was needed.

  * * *

  My staff was doing so well at handling classes, I let them continue, with other advanced students helping out.

  With Armando, my small group of Evans offspring—including two more of Paul’s sisters—and my top teachers, I concentrated my efforts on analyzing BJJ to get as much of its moves as possible into kata.

  In the process, as I had done when sorting Savate, I came up with many innovative new moves and discovered other, less dangerous but painfully effective restraints which could be applied to many martial arts and taught to lower levels.

  Privately, I taught Paul and Armando all the dangerous BJJ holds and restraints so they could use them on me. That was the only way that I could work out methods of evading them completely or getting out of them again once restrained, usually with advanced yoga techniques.

  * * *

  Armando seemed nonplussed by yoga at first, but soon became enthused by it. Paul was fascinated by what yoga, could accomplish, as Horrie had been when I taught him some. It has always surprised me how few martial artists know yoga, which expands one’s possibilities so enormously.

  Together we worked out more new restraints and ways of evading and getting out of them. Being tall guys their approach was different to mine, and that was educational.

  I brought both men up to master level on BJJ expertise, confident that each of us could defeat any current BJJ master without needing to resort to the permitted, but still barbaric, eye-gouging and biting. Paul and Armando both looked more professional wearing their black belts than I in my gray.

  Finally we were ready and booked a plane to fly our large party to Buenos Aires.

  * * *

  Maggie had just put up another huge tower there, with the largest floor area of any of my dojos. We had all the usual features, plus the facilities for battered women. Three crèche and cafeteria levels, with room for more as needed, shops, bank and restaurants There were two nearby Galen towers, including another across the road, which again was joined by a private walkway.

  Chapter 20

  Buenos Aires Dojo

  The Galen people were already in, manning their posts. After Maggie’s regional advertising, thirteen hundred battered ladies had moved in with their children and were working at various jobs. These women as yet had taken no martial arts classes, so still looked cowed, frightened and ready to run at any loud noise. But there was a defiance there too. They had been brave enough to flee their persecutors.

  We set up and ran Savate classes the whole first day, so every one of them, plus the eight hundred more who joined during the day, had at least the first ten kata down. Their more confident demeanor, pride and self-satisfaction was gratifying to see.

  * * *

  Over three thousand paying students and a few invited ones arrived the next day and settled in. They had paid $US5, 000 each and had been guaranteed breakthroughs in every kata taught.

  Maggie said that she had needed to refund money for three men who were too innately violent to pass our doorway security. Their refusal to accept body chemistry readjustment treatment in Galen cancelled our obligation to them. That proviso had been written in bold type in the agreement contract.

  Eighteen other men were borderline and each had been warned that any exhibit of temper or misbehavior would cause them to be ’frozen. A repeat instance would have them removed from the course. No refund would be given in this case.

  My teachers and I started the men too on Savate, with the latest group of twelve hundred battered women. As expected, it was soon evident that most of the men had already studied martial arts. What was not expected was that the women would each break through much more easily. That hadn’t happened at any other class.

  The macho Latin martial artists were not happy to have their posture faults adjusted by women who had never studied the arts before today. Though they did eventually achieve the breakthrough for each kata, it was always after nearly every woman had done so.

  Paul noticed and made a point of correcting only the men. With his 5’11” height, pale skin and hair, he stood out among the shorter swarthy Latinos like a white flame, attracting all the light in the room. I found my eyes drawn to him constantly. Paul felt my gaze, looked up and smiled at me often. I smiled back. He was a wonderful asset in every way as well as a truly terrific person. I was so lucky to have found him.

  Before we stopped for the next meal break I made a little speech:

  “I’m very proud of you ladies for trying so hard to change your lives and bein
g willing to accept direction. You are very fortunate that I and my teachers all have perfect form and immediately correct the smallest imprecise move, so you form no bad habits.

  “It is always more difficult for persons who already have some competence in a physical field to make the often minute changes which will push them over the wall. This is because they first need to unlearn previous bad habits that nobody had ever told them were incorrect.

  “I am not sure how to make it easier, except to pass on the advice my sensei, Master Prospero, gave me. I was originally taught savate after learning several karate styles and also had a little difficulty.

  “I ask that you approach the next session with your minds as empty as possible of all preconceptions. Don’t think: ‘This is going to be easy because I already know how to box and I’m good at all the karate kicks.’ Believe instead that you will be learning totally new moves that are only slightly related to those of other martial arts. That way your ingrained old knowledge won’t get in the way of your acquiring new expertise.

  “Master Prospero was also South American, so his advice should be relevant to you.”

  * * *

  I habitually ate with my two PAs and several of the sisters. We were all quietly keeping an eye on Ron who was near twenty-one and still not showing any sign of the Evans’ curse. Armando had joined us today. We were chatting fairly idly when one of the older students, a man in his sixties, approached and asked if he could speak with me. I waved him to a chair.

  “I am Julius. Master Prospero trained me. I have a slight problem believing that he could have trained you too. I have seen photos of the bronze bust that you apparently carved. Prospero would be much older than he appears in the bronze.”

  “Yes, he’s approaching eighty-one. If you knew Horrie well, you would at least have heard about his torture—the electric shock treatments, right?”

  Julius nodded.

  “Whoever handled that was incompetent and caused a lot of brain damage so they were unable to extract any information from him. Maybe they believed he was just being tough. They raided his home, bayoneted the still sleeping children and attempted to rape his wife.

  “One of them filmed the whole sortie. The Americans found the film, put it on videotape and gave copies to Horrie. I watched that tape with him thousands of times when he couldn’t sleep.

  “Horrie’s wife slept naked, which prevented the soldiers from getting a good grip on her. Barehanded, using only her head and limbs, she managed to kill two of them before an officer got behind and beheaded her with his saber. Nobody desecrated her body, either out of respect for her bravery, or more likely because they didn’t want to soil their clothes or selves with all the blood.

  “Horrie was very proud of her and thankful that all three died quickly without suffering.

  “When I was at the US embassy here over a year ago, I was interrogated by a major in charge of security. He kept asking about my involvement with insurgents and rebels and trying to link me to various acts of terrorism during the preceding year. I soon figured he had been working with the terror regime.

  “He seemed vaguely familiar, but I thought that was because he was a pedophile. I’d met and studied a few—they all have the same sliminess about them. I put his picture up on YouTube and several people identified him. But by then he had disappeared.

  “It was only when I met Armando and saw the certificates Horrie had given him, that I made the connection and realized that major was the one who had killed Horrie’s wife long before.

  “And I had let him live.”

  “So that’s why you were crying so hard!” exclaimed Armando.

  “Yes. I was mad at myself. I should have killed him for Horrie.”

  “I used artistic license to depict Horrie as he would have looked at around sixty without the brain damage, still strong and imposing. It helped that he’d had several photos with his family, but I also knew Horrie very well and there were still traces of the man he used to be if you cared to look for them.

  “I searched them out and was careful to put only those in my carving. I wanted the result to be something anyone who hadn’t known Horrie would still respect. If you’ve seen badly brain-damaged men, you would understand what I had to leave out.”

  “You must have loved him greatly.”

  “Yes, I do. He’s still alive.”

  “Do you know how to contact him?”

  “I know where he is, but neither of us can reach him there. He does subscribe to Savate magazine. If you put an ad in the personals of that he might see it and may answer the same way. Call him Prospero. I am currently having articles about my dojos and innovative teaching methods published in that magazine so he will know that I’m doing alright.”

  “I’d like to see that bust one day.”

  “I carved it from a block of plaster which was coated in pewter-colored galenite to preserve it after the mold was made. I carry it around with me so I can feel that he’s still with me. If you come to my room later, you can see it. I think the pewter actually looks better than the bronze.”

  “I’d like to see that too, please Taj.”

  “Sure, you can come too, Armando. It’s no big deal.

  “Armando was also a pupil of Horrie’s, as a boy,” I explained, “but only for a short while, as his family moved away.

  “Julius you’d be old enough to be a master of BJJ now, especially after Horrie’s training.

  “Yes, I’m a master.”

  “Good. Horrie trained me to master level. Taught me everything he knows. I’ve made many innovations since then, which I’d like to have officially accepted into the BJJ lexicon. To prove my worth, I challenge you to a match, and I bet I win easily. I promise to respect your years and not hurt you much.”

  Julius laughed loudly.

  Armando became angry, tight-lipped. He just about spat: “You’re laughing at Horrie’s training.

  “Taj challenged the last three French Savate champions who toured here, two of them in the heaviest divisions. Not one of them was able to lay a finger on her.

  “She was kind to them too and didn’t hurt them, but she still stung them. The first one, Emil, nicknamed her La Tabanita.

  “I’ve seen only two of the new moves she invented to cope with much bigger opponents, but they are miraculous. Others she has invented and taught at her savate classes will revolutionize savate teaching.

  “As BJJ floor grappling was designed to negate the advantages of longer reach and heavier weight, that makes it uniquely advantageous as a sport for Taj, who is as strong as any man. She has just spent a week analyzing and reconfiguring BJJ moves. In that short time Taj has raised both Paul and myself to master standard.

  “When you fight her, take Taj very seriously.”

  Julius looked humbled. “I apologize for laughing, Taj. I should have realized a protégée of Horrie’s would know what she was doing. But he broke all the rules in teaching you so much.”

  “The excessive BJJ time limits were only introduced to prevent hot-headed young men from maiming others. And to keep true expertise in the hands of the founding family and other loyal old men.

  “Horrie knew I was not irresponsible, despite my youth. He trusted me not to teach the really dangerous moves to anyone who might use them unwisely. In fact Paul and Armando are the first persons to whom I have taught those moves. I did that only so they could use them on me and I could work out blocks against them and escapes once caught.”

  “That’s not possible. There’s no way to get out of one of those locks without help.”

  “Paul, lock me, please.”

  Paul stood and did, pretzeling me into an immobile little bundle on the floor.

  Okay, Julius, please check me over to make sure he’s done it correctly.

  Julius did. “Yes, you’re definitely locked up tight. That must be very painful. Do you want me to release you?”

  “No thanks.” I gave an unnecessary tiny shrug and wiggle and stood up
free.

  Julius stared open-mouthed.

  “I now have a counter for every lock used in BJJ. Paul and I have worked out another fourteen restraints and designed escapes for those too. None of ours is dangerous, though most are painful.”

  Our little exhibit had gathered quite an audience. I ignored them and returned to my food. But I could see that I had created the sensation I had hoped for.

  Julius recovered and bowed to me. As I was seated, I merely inclined my head.

  “Thank you for the lesson, sensei. I won’t underestimate you again. I accept your challenge with pleasure. It will be interesting to see what other moves you have come up with.” He bowed again.

  I nodded back. “As I’ve never taught BJJ to a high level here, I expect you will provide the referees as I have no one qualified. Being only a gray belt, I cannot legally promote anyone to a higher level. Please let me know when all the arrangements have been made.”

  I stood and bowed. Julius bowed and returned to his whispering cronies.

  We continued with our meal ignoring the excited conversations around us. I felt so happy I sent love to both my love fountain man and to Horrie. The first returned me a goodly amount; Horrie’s mind reflected a little back. He still lived.

  * * *

  The second and third Savate sessions went better, with more men breaking through earlier, so there was nothing to restrain their delight with their achievements. Our class had nearly doubled by the third period as participants in two earlier beginning sessions joined us.

  Now that each of my dojos except the second one, had more than one cafeteria and several restaurants, we designated one public cafeteria as a more formal eating place with a dress up requirement for dinner. Our being open full time had already drawn many people looking for something to eat at odd hours.

  As Galen food is the healthiest and best-tasting on the planet, I hoped to attract customers who would normally go to an expensive restaurant. Also it was nice to doll up occasionally after wearing workout clothes all day.

  Julius dropped by our table again and asked whether he could bring others of Horrie’s pupils and friends to see the bust. I agreed that would be fine.