They say you learn to fight so you don't have to. But, like anything, that premise doesn't pack a punch until it does.

I've always been a physical person. I like doing things, practicing dance, yoga, rock climbing, martial arts, surfing, exploring...until it all comes together and blends into one thing.

Been in a lot of fights. Not much for clever comebacks; it will be three days before I think of something witty to say and by then it's over, except in my head. So much easier to teach someone a lesson. Teach them some respect with a single surprising action. I don't know if any opponent ever learned respect, but I learned what kind of darkness I am capable of.

There are many reasons one seeks guidance and direction in the focus of extra energy. This time in the city offered the opportunity to train.

It was a rough day on the streets, and I am neither cop nor gangster.

The cracked pavement, potholes. Thirty dollar parking garages. GPS that doesn't work in downtown in any city. Wrecks. Streets that make every press on the gas pedal an act of faith. Just the kind of day that makes you want to retreat back in your hole and pout. But, in the name of discipline, I went to the second chun kuo class.

Took a quick swing into the tight parking lot to avoid being rear ended. A girl was sitting there with her back against the black painted wall. Her little blue dress, leather jacket, tattoo over the right eye, her bag of weed.

Something always happens.

I hadn't even pulled into the parking space yet when she was yelling at me. Don't get any closer!

I straightened into the spot and parked.

"Don't you get out of that car!" she said.

I was thinking about spirit. Not really thinking, but it had been floating around in an abstract sort of way. The right to have a life, to engage with people, to have space to move through life. The complex set of factors and experience that determines this movement.

I got out of the car with my keys and water bottle.

At this point, the girl, woman, completely flipped out. Started yelling all kinds of things. You're the one the came at me, b----! She screamed.

"Call the cops! They ain't gonna do nothin!"

I listened. I saw me as she was seeing me. I saw her whole life of fear and survival and hostility and meth-induced paranoia. It also struck me as funny that she was on attack outside of a kung fu school, and didn't realize it.

But the words kept coming, so I walked around the corner to go inside. No one else was there yet and the door was locked.

There was a splat as a container of fluid hit my car. I walked back around the corner. It was just a plastic water bottle lying on the ground, water trickling down the car. She was taking a picture of my license plate, still talking.

At this point it grows blurry, what was happening, why it was happening. At some point I said why don't we turn this around. You know entropy? The point reached in a spiral where anything can happen, go this way, that way...

She took this long chain from her pocket with keys on the end, and started swinging it around. She drew closer and closer.

I was getting kind of angry. Heart pounding. But at the same time it was all so curious and funny and right. By the time she got six inches from my face I wanted to fight.

I put my arms up, looked her in the eye, and said Ok, let's go. Throw the first punch.

She seemed confused. She started to back away. She backed to the far corner of the building, with an empty lot with a little house made out of plywood and stuff. She reached into her bag and pulled out a gun, still talking, looked at me hard.

She said I'm gonna shoot you.

I looked at it. How many times in life had this scenario played in my head?

She pointed it in the air and fired a warning shot. It was an air pistol.

A Christmas Story started playing in my head. You'll shoot your eye out...

The full implication of something you've been intimidated by, then later envisioned, becoming nothing but a toy was not lost.

Put it away, I said, and walked toward her. You don't need that. Now she looked really confused, looked down at the pistol. She turned around and started walking away, looking over her shoulder.

Class was cancelled due to heat, which was also ironic.

I was angry at the whole thing. Then I was angry at myself for getting angry. But by morning, it all seemed so much more clear, so silly. I felt wonderful. I felt grateful. That she and I were placed together in this special moment, and that she walked off and I walked off and all perceptions were jarred exactly as they were supposed to be.

So hard to describe. That's what it's about, the practice. Not about preparing for what you will do, but by living in the context of each unique moment. It was like I wasn't just me. I knew every move as it happened.