Jake is the tallest sixth grader at our elementary school, and his feet have started to stink like a teenager's, and I know this because he dropkicks me in the chest one afternoon during our first week of judo lessons, but dropkicks aren't legal moves in judo, and it's only when I remember to roll backwards and tuck my chin that I fall in love.

(Not with Jake, though. That guy's a dick. Years later, I'll bet he's still a dick.)

In our afterschool program, where our parents pick us up in dwindling numbers sometime between 3 and 6pm, 'M' is one of four underpaid babysitters here to corral and keep us from not dying on weekdays. But we are numerous & belligerent. A few of us are prone to jumping off the monkeybars and aiming for nothing but the ground. M will be fired if one of us dies.

Probably.

So she puts her black belt in judo to work for her. Sends out permission slips. Gets our uniform sizes from our parents. Buys our beginners' white obi in bulk. She loops her brown hair into a ponytail, teaches us how to tie our belts correctly, and none of us do. In her freckled glory, she yells at us to line up dozens of white foam gym mats together on the cafeteria floor, directs us on the proper method of draping a canvas sheet over the practice area. We are thirsty for knowledge (and also water), and we obey.

M first teaches us how to fall. How to land on our misshapen asses without breaking tailbones, displacing our bodies on impact so the weight is distributed evenly. Months later, I learn how to hoist my fellow third graders into the air, shift their centers of gravity over my hips, drive them down into the foam padding below. I learn how to put older children into headlocks and armpits. Above all else, I learn to love getting knocked on my ass.

I don't know what, but something important happens when M grabs the lapels of my gi one day and flips me onto canvas as part of a teaching demonstration. All my bruises feel heart-shaped.

My sensei has undergraduate loans to repay, so she leaves our afterschool program after a few years. Takes the judo lessons with her. I would follow this woman to hell, but she only travels as far as the local Youth Center, where she then gives professional lessons alongside her own three masters. Black belts each of them, the quartet teaches their students how to sweep legs, yank sleeves, trap arms. My parents steal naps on the concrete stands of the gym's makeshift dojo, and the wood floors gleam in the sodium lights, and I leave small offerings of pain & joy from bloody toes and fingers sometimes, and I am happy to do so.