Buddha Brings The Pain

We periodically get new students and it's worth celebrating in my mind.  Their arrival always reminds me of the time I stepped through the doors and started this particular adventure.  Our class has had fairly low numbers as of late, but we picked up another young guy awhile back.  

The youth class is good up to certain point, but Teacher will pull from that group once the kids are either too big or so sophisticated that they might quit from boredom.  In this case while the kids class is on hiatus for the summer Teacher invited an interested youth to join the adult class.  Buddha has the most placid features I have ever seen.  His expression rarely changes and his eyelids seem to be always at half mast.  He looks exactly like pictures of the buddha at his most serene.  

Since I'm usually silly I can get him to crack a smile once in awhile.  He's very nice, but doesn't talk much.  

So last week Teacher decides to work on pressure points.  This is incredibly interesting and, like other esoteric techniques, takes a lot of practice to get right on various people.  Unfortunately, we don't practice these very often. 

In this class we focused heavily on points around the face, head and neck.  While I practiced with other adults Teacher stayed in the corner with Buddha and concentrated on doing a few techniques really well.

Since Buddha is about 10 or 12 he has a few friends that watch the class the sidelines and occasionally giggle about the inherent silliness of it all. Near the end of class Teacher pulls me over to the door and has me pick up Buddha by the lapels of his gi.  I've got him off the floor and he applies a mastoid realignment that almost had me urinate by accident.  Needless to say he was dropped post haste to the delight of his friends.  I wiped away a manly tear and turned to Teacher who beamed at the new, quick learning student.