oking and poking fun at each other, the guys moved on. The weather was calm, and the sky was covered with scattered
stars. Enjoying the evening cool after the intensive training, we didn’t noticed that our group was a little stretched out. Kostya and Tatyana had gone far ahead. Volodya, Eugene, and Stas dragged somewhere behind. And Victor, Andrew, Slava, Yura, and I were walking in the middle with Sensei chattering about trifles.
Just around the corner, we came face-to-face with a group of miners, about eight of them, all considerably drunk. They seemed to have seriously angered Kostya in passing, as when we approached them, his face was red with rage. Kostya kept snapping at them, obviously annoyed with the drunks. Andrew added fuel to the fire in an attempt to defend his friend. The most impatient of the miners rushed towards the two to fight. Andrew and Kostya dashed at him. But Sensei arrived just in time and stopped them, addressing the miners, “Calm down, men! Why should you curse here, in the presense of women? Noblemen do not swear.”
“What are you talking about?” A furious miner croaked, having seized Sensei. “Move along or else I’ll break all your bones!”
At this point we could not stand it any more and moved in a crowd to the instigator. Even I flew into a rage towards these drunkards and was ready at that moment to tear them to pieces. The senior guys ran up to us, but unexpectedly Sensei stopped all our attempts and gave a sign to Victor for everyone to leave. We grumbled with indignation. But Victor, Stas, Eugene, and Volodya took us away like diligent shepherds leading a flock of sheep without letting us stop.
I kept turning around, waiting for the Teacher to show off one of his supertricks against eight enemies. But Sensei only stood there smiling and explained something with gestures as if he were making excuses. When I glanced back the next time, I saw that the smiling miners were fraternizing with him, saying goodbye to him as good friends. “Well, really!” I thought. “What is the point of practicing Kung-fu for so many years?” Judging by the puzzled responses of my friends, I was not the only one who thought that.
When Sensei came up to us, Andrew said with indignation, “Why did you make excuses to them? They were the ones who bothered us and stirred up trouble. We should have beaten them to teach them not to do it again. If you hadn’t stopped me, I would…”
“Surely,” Sensei interrupted him, “if I hadn’t stopped you, they would have been seriously injured, not only in their soft tissues but also in their organs, and they might have even gotten a concussion of the brain. Do you realize that these are men who have families at home, who are probably the only bread-winners of these families? Do you realize that they are miners? Have you ever been in a mine?”
“No,” Andrew replied.
“I have been there… These guys, whom you wanted to break to pieces, they go down to a mine like to hell, to a depth of up to one kilometer and more. Just imagine the pressure on their bodies. Not to mention,” Sensei started to list on his fingers, “heat, lack of oxygen, very harmful methane… And despite all of this, they realize that they risk their lives every second. Because any moment they can be crushed, injured, or even killed. Injuries happen regularly in the mine. And people take it hard. Their mind is always on the brink, so to say, at the breaking point. This state of mind is comparable with the state of mind of soldiers on the front line during the war. That’s why Stalin used to say, ‘The mine is the second front.’ Do you know why they drink? In order to relieve somehow this stress, this internal feeling of permanent fear. That is why highly qualified specialists in psychology and medicine should work with miners for them to overcome this psychological block. But of course they don’t get this help. That’s why many of them drink.”
“Yes,” Kostya sighed, “Thus it apereth what great unhappynes / And blyndnes cometh to many a creature / By wyne or ale taken without measure.”
“Exactly… Besides, every miner who has been working for a long time in the mine has a clear understanding that he has no future. You have some chances; for example, you may finish high school, have a career. And they have no chance; only to croak in the mine or to die of diseases they contracted there. They understand it quite clearly. But they have their own pride and megalomania, the same as yours.”
“No,” Andrew negated. “I do not posess any megalomania at all.”
“Really?! But you just wanted to beat them up only because they bothered you. This is evidence of your megalomania, that you, such a king, have been offended. They have the same pride. But unlike you, they don’t have any future. And you wanted them to lose everything? Just imagine what would have happened with them, with all their stress, unrealized ideas, dreams, and lost chances, if they had come to in the emergency room after your beating. It would have brought them additional suffering, much stronger even than physical pain. What for?”
We hung our heads, feeling ashamed. Although Sensei directed this explanation mainly to the men, all of this was quite applicable to me as well. His words had completely shaken me. I felt some internal discomfort caused by my recent aggressive thoughts, and I felt very ashamed of myself. Suddenly I perceived the whole depth of Sensei’s thoughts and realized how well he understands and feels each person.
“What for?!” the Teacher repeated. “Because you felt uncomfortable? You could have calmed them down and walked away, right? Nothing happened to you. It’s quite clear that you are able to smash all of them just with your legs.”
“Of course, I would…” Andrew started to flare up again.
“You see, it’s your megalomania again. But I teach you to train your body, not to beat up people on the streets. The main sense of the martial arts is completely different, and all these tricks may never be used by you in your life. I hope that they will be never used. Your task is to learn to understand the reason and the effects, the depth and the sense of the situation, and to solve it peacefully.”
“What did you say to them?” Kostya asked.
“It’s very simple. I explained to them that they had children like you and that another group of drunken men like them might bother their children and beat them. I described this case from the human point of view. Notice that their megalomania has not suffered. And what is more important, they left satisfied, with the intention to defend others like you. Every situation like this may be solved much more easily, with peace.”
After a small pause he added, “Every fool can snap and punch… But do not give in to your animal instincts. It’s much more important to be human in any situation, to understand why and by which reason this aggression is caused. And how to solve the dispute in the right way in order to find a friend and not an enemy.”
As we came to the tram stop, Sensei concluded, “Remember that any blow caused by your rage will come back to you at the end.”
We stood in silence and looked ashamedly at Sensei. After making a new appointment, we went home.
