Jujitsu, from my understanding of it, is roughly the Japanese translation for "Hey! Let's beat the crap out of the new kid!" It's a form of martial arts that originated back in Feudal Japan when two samurai warriors would wrestle and throw each other around, until one of the samurai warriors realized, "Wait a sec... I've been carrying a sword the entire time!" and lopped the other guy's head off.
Eventually, of course, the Japanese realized how senseless all this violence was, and how difficult it was finding people who were willing to dispose of decapitated, bloody bodies. (Not to mention how they tend to smell in the summer months.) And for a while, great clans of samurai warriors would settle their disputes by trying to match the top answers given by 100 people surveyed, and kissing Richard Dawson. This brief period of time was known as Family Feudal Japan. (This was quickly followed by a time when four warrior clans fought over control of the country, which was known as the Four Feud Groups Japan. But I digress...)
I had originally taken up Jujitsu once I realized weightlifting had gotten really boring. Weightlifting is a fascinating and endlessly challenging form of exercise, whose subtleties in form and technique can be summed up with the following:
Anyway, I switched to Jujitsu and have since learned things like demonstrating style, poise, and grace, while simultaneously breaking somebody's arm.
My first encounter with martial arts, as with most people my age was going to see The Karate Kid. This movie pretty much convinced every junior high school kid in America that they could kick anybody's ass by doing that one-footed crane kick thing. You could walk down my hallway at school and see dozens of kids standing on one leg, getting ready to kick each other.
Of course, the problem with junior high school is that most of us were going through that awkward growth spurt stage (except me, who didn't hit my growth spurt until senior year of high school, but that's beside the point) and could barely open our lockers without falling down, much less stand on one foot. So my junior high school really consisted of kids standing on one foot, then falling over. Maybe I just didn't go to a very bright school.
Then came the TV show Sidekicks. I don't remember much about this show, except it always began with the star of the show (some 12-year-old Karate expert) leaving school and encountering some awful injustice that could only be fixed by beating people up, like a bunch of guys knocking over a little kid and stealing his lunch money, or a bunch of guys knocking over a little old lady and stealing her prune juice money, or a troupe of performing street mimes.
In real life, of course, nothing is ever that clean cut...
Me: Hey! Are you beating up that kid and taking his lunch money?Basically the only clear-cut case when you're allowed to beat up people is if it involves executives from the tobacco company, who would probably sue me.
Group of thugs: No. We're beating him up because he cheated us on a drug deal.
Me: Oh... I guess that's okay, then.
But I do enjoy martial arts. And I think the self defense part of it would come in really handy one day, if somebody ever tried to hurt me...
Mugger: Okay, buddy, hand over your wallet...
Me: Oh yeah? Take THIS!
Mugger: Umm... what are you doing?
Me: Oh... I'm trying to throw you. Listen, could you stand a little closer?
Mugger: You know, I am carrying a gun.
Me: Oh yeah... put that down. You might hurt somebody. Say, do you have a long sleeve shirt you could put on? I need something to grab on to.
Mugger: Well, I've got one at home.
Me: Okay, tell you what. Why don't you go home and change shirts, and we'll meet back here in 20 minutes.
Mugger: Uh, I guess so.
Me: Cool. (Pause) Say, you're not very bright.
Mugger: Yeah. I fell down a lot in junior high school.
As in most martial arts, when you get promoted, they give you a new belt. My belt is orange, which means I must accept much more responsibility and discipline than before. More specifically, it means that I can't wash the belt in the same load as my white outfit. Walking around in a creamcicle-colored uniform is not very threatening.