In second grade I punched a kid. But look, here’s the story: throughout a majority of my childhood I took martial arts classes. And because I took them, I felt super strong. However, I wouldn’t go around punching kids and roundhouse-kicking stuff. I knew that the power eight-year old me held was to not be messed with. But I would still tell kids in my class that I took martial arts, and since Karate Kid came out a few years earlier, they thought it was pretty cool. I wasn’t as good as Jayden Smith, but I could do kicks and forms pretty well. 

    One day, one of my fellow classmates asked me about my martial arts skills. The conversation went something like this:

    “So you take karate, right?” he asked.

    (It was actually taekwondo, but I would get tired of correcting people.)

    “Yeah,” I responded.

    “Can you punch?”

    “Yeah.”

    “Hard?”

    “Yeah.”

    “Can you punch ME?” He sounded pretty excited.

    “Sure,” I responded nonchalantly.

    In the middle of my school courtyard, around 3 pm, waiting for our parents to pick us up, we stood there, with the rest of my second grade class (along with us surrounded by the rest of the school, with parents passing by and our teacher with her back to us) And without hesitation, I got into my stance, and the boy stood still, puffing his chest out, getting ready for the impact. 

I punched him. Straight. In. The. Stomach. He made an “uf-” sound, stumbled back, and clenched his stomach. I blew the wind out of him. Standing there, still in my punching stance, I felt pretty proud. It wasn’t a bad punch. I had really applied what I’d learned! Seconds after this, another classmate quickly spun himself around and excitedly proclaimed, “ME NEXT! ME NEXT!” He proceeded to position himself in front of me, sucking in his stomach, preparing for the impact of the punch. Eight year old me got into position again, ready to land another good punch, maybe better than the last one. As I was about to go for it, my teacher turned around and shrieked, “LORENA!” 

I stood pale faced, staring up at her. My next victim just walked away, like he had never been there. The first kid I punched was to the side, on the floor, crying and still holding his stomach. Both him and I were taken inside to the gym and scolded. Of course I handled this very well and started crying. In between sobs I would say, “But he asked for it! H-h-he asked me to PUNCH him!” My mom had arrived shortly after the debacle and the whole situation was explained to her. She and my teacher, along with the aftercare teacher, explained to me that punching people is bad, even if they ask for it. They told me to apologize, however, through my drenched face, I still felt like I didn’t have to apologize since he did ask for it. But I had to be the bigger person. I dragged myself over and apologized.

The funny thing is that he transferred after second grade, but he turned out to be my aunt’s neighbor. Since then, I am proud to say, I haven't punched him or another kid in the stomach. But I haven’t heard the end of it at every family reunion.