Triangle Choke (The Dojo)

  Text copyright © 2013 by Lerner Publishing Group, Inc.

  All rights reserved. International copyright secured. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means—electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise—without the prior written permission of Lerner Publishing Group, Inc., except for the inclusion of brief quotations in an acknowledged review.

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  The images in this book are used with the permission of: © Daniel Dempster Photography/Alamy (fighter); © iStockphoto.com/Tim Messick (metal texture); © iStockphoto.com/Erkki Makkonen (metal wires); © iStockphoto.com/TommL (punching fist), © iStockphoto.com/dem10 (barbed wire).

  Main body text set in Janson Text LT Std 12/17.5.

  Typeface provided by Linotype AG.

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Jones, Patrick, 1961–

  Triangle choke / by Patrick Jones.

  pages cm. — (The dojo)

  ISBN 978–1–4677–0630–8 (lib. bdg. : alk. paper)

  ISBN 978–1–4677–1631–4 (eBook)

  [1. Mixed martial arts—Fiction. 2. Fathers and sons—Fiction.

  3. Alcoholism—Fiction. 4. Hispanic Americans—Fiction.] I. Title.

  PZ7.J7242Tr 2013

  [Fic]—dc23

  2012037204

  Manufactured in the United States of America

  1 – SB – 7/15/13

  eISBN: 978-1-4677-1631-4 (pdf)

  eISBN: 978-1-4677-3304-5 (ePub)

  eISBN: 978-1-4677-3303-8 (mobi)

  If you’re already a fan of mixed martial arts, in particular the Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC), then you’re probably familiar with moves like triangle choke, spinning heel kick, and Kimura. If not, check out the MMA terms and weight classes in the back of the book. You can also go online for videos of famous fights and training videos. Amateur fights are similar to the pros but require more protection for the fighters. While there are unified rules, each state allows for variation.

  WELCOME TO THE DOJO.

  STEP INSIDE.

  “It’s a human cockfight. I won’t allow you to participate, Hector,” Mom yells.

  I just smile. “Mom, it’s not like that. Have you even seen a mixed martial arts fight?” I know from years of watching MMA that you need good counters. He shoots, you sprawl. He mounts, you guard. Mom yells, I smile and ask polite questions.

  “I know what two people fighting in a cage is like. Do you think that makes you a man?”

  “No, it makes me a fighter.” I know how to box and wrestle, but being a mixed martial artist is my goal. Today’s the day I asked my parents to let me attend a new teen MMA program. I knew Mom would object. My hope is Dad will come to my rescue. He can’t let me down this time.

  “Hector, you’re only fifteen!” she shouts, even though I’m just across the kitchen table from her. She turns toward the living room, where Dad’s on the sofa with a Tecate in his left hand and the remote in his right. “Victor, didn’t I tell you that if you taught him to box, he’d develop a love of fighting? Answer me!” He responds by turning up the volume of the soccer game on Telemundo and mumbling something in Spanish.

  “You need to concentrate on school, on getting your grades up, on getting through your sophomore year,” Mom says. It’s another one of her speeches. She’s got about fifteen on her playlist, and she just hit Shuffle.

  “Why? So I can go to college in three years? Who is going to pay for that? You know I’m not smart enough to get a scholarship like Angelina or Eva.”

  “Well, we certainly won’t pay for you to learn how to fight in a cage.”

  “I’ll pay for it!” I shout. “I’ll get a job. I’ll clean toilets, whatever it takes for me to—”

  “That’s enough!” Dad shouts over the TV.

  Mom and I glare at each other like two fighters might stare at the ref after a close bout. Except that, in MMA, there are three judges with scorecards. Here there’s just one judge: Dad.

  He mutes the TV and swallows the remaining drops of his first (but certainly not his last) beer of the evening. He walks, head down, into the kitchen, almost like the Golden Gloves champ that he was at my age. When I started training with him, he said boxing would teach me how to defend myself and teach me about life. He also said he’d never let me down. Here’s his chance.

  “You’re not cleaning toilets,” Dad growls. “I’ll talk to Mr. Torrez about you working in the garage on weekends. It’s time you learn a real-world skill anyway.”

  Mom stares at Dad and then looks away. “Victor, what are you doing?”

  “You know how my parents squashed my dreams.” Dad says as he turns toward Mom. “I was a champion. I could’ve gone pro. But they wouldn’t allow it, so I won’t allow this.”

  “Then it’s on your head if Hector gets hurt! Can you live with that?”

  “He’s not going to get hurt,” Dad says. Eyes focused on me now.

  “And how do you know that?” Mom asks.

  Dad smiles at me, but Mom counters with a frown. “Because he’s going to hurt the other guy first, right, Hector?” I smile back at him, but before I can answer, his expression changes, fast. His soft smile turns into a hard stare, his brown eyes sending me a clear message: I came through for you, so don’t let me down.

  “Thanks, Dad,” I say, but he’s not looking at me anymore. He glances at Mom, who glares back at him. We live in a small, square house, but today, we’re in a triangle that seems like it’s about to break apart. Dad reaches for another beer, Mom stomps away, and I sprint to my room to spread the news that I’m taking the first step to becoming a mixed martial arts champion.

  Even before I post the news, I call Rosie.

  “Hector, you won’t let them mess up your pretty face,” she says.

  “Not going to happen,” I reassure her. She asks lots of questions and I’m excited, full of answers. Except for boxing, watching MMA, and hanging with Eddie and the other guys, Rosie’s the only other thing I’m serious about in my life. We had been friends for a long time, almost since first grade, but that changed a few months ago. I made my move, and she didn’t block it.

  “You’ll come to all my fights, right?”

  “Wherever you are, I am. I love you so much, Hector.” I blush as my temperature rises.

  “I love you too, Rosie,” I say, amazed how fun and easy those words are to say.

  “I’m in,” I text Eddie. He hates talking on the phone.

  “Me2,” he texts back. Eddie and I agreed that we’d both ask our parents—well, for him, his foster parents—to join the MMA dojo after the school wrestling season ended. Eddie had an okay season wrestling heavyweight on the JV team. I wasn’t much better. I’ve watched so much UFC that I kept trying MMA moves, most of which are illegal in high school wrestling.

  “Let’s make a pact,” I text. “We stick with this and we stick together.”

  “Like flies on dog crap.”

  Despite having a hard life, Eddie makes the best of it by always cracking jokes. He’s the brother I never had, and I know he feels the same. If we weren’t dudes, I’d call us BFFs. One day, Eddie and I will be the kings of MMA.

  “Jab, Hector, jab!” Jackson’s encouraging me as I bounce hard strikes off the blockers.

  “Watch this!” I shout as I throw an overhand left, uppercut right, and side kick.

  “I can’t. Your fists and feet are flying too fast.”

  I crack a rare, small smile and l
and another killer combination. After about five minutes, Mr. Hodge, our dojo master, calls for us to switch. The first punch Jackson throws almost knocks me off my feet.

  His hand speed is slower than mine, but his punches are powerful. One of his punches equals five of mine. Most of the time his punches don’t connect, but when they do, watch out. Last week, he concussed one of the new kids even though we wear gloves and helmets when we spar and drill. Jackson doesn’t have hands; he’s got bricks with fingers.

  After another five minutes, Mr. Hodge yells, “Wrestle!” We drop the blockers and wrestle. I stop about half his takedowns, which is a victory of sorts, but I only get him to the mat a few times. Every time he takes me down, I remember what Nong says. Defeat brews the tea of victory.

  “New partners!” Hodge yells, and everybody switches. I end up with Nong. Nong, Jackson, and I are the best guys in the dojo. We’re the oldest—along with two other seventeen-year-olds who joined recently—and we’re the most experienced. We’ve trained together for over two years.

  “Strike!” Hodge yells. We put our helmets back on and fan out over the dojo. Nong and I are a perfect match: he’s strong on kicks, and I’m strong on punches. He’s a little better at the other striking arts, except Muay Thai. We train three times a week in MMA, and a fourth night we train in individual martial arts. I need to learn more Brazilian jiu-jitsu submissions from Mr. Matsuda since knockouts are hard to get in amateur MMA with the protective gear we wear.

  “Watch this!” Nong shouts as he throws a spinning heel kick, his long black hair flying.

  Nong lands a few more kicks, but I counter with punches. When he tries to fight in close, I clinch his head by wrapping my hands around the back of his neck and locking my fingers. Then I bring my knee up and slam it into his chin. Like everything else, our knees are padded because in a real fight, I would’ve knocked him out. When the whistle blows, Nong kicks the air in anger.

  “Hector and Eric into the ring!” Mr. Hodge orders. We do as we’re told. “Two three-minute rounds.”

  When it’s time for a spar, two of us enter the ring while the other students—there are nine tonight—gather around Mr. Hodge. He alternates yelling instructions at us and telling the other students what we are doing right and wrong. Meghan, our best female fighter, stands next to him.

  Eric’s one of the new seventeen-year-olds and fights at light heavyweight, while I’m a weight class under at middleweight. I’m throwing punches too fast for him, so he tries to take the fight to the ground, but I block him. It’s not much of a fight because both of us are playing safe.

  “You can strike, Hector, but you can’t win on that alone, can you?” Mr. Hodge yells.

  With Mr. Hodge’s question ringing in my ear, I answer with a hard leg kick, and Eric’s left knee buckles. I snatch the leg and try to trip his right, but he fights it off and slams me to the mat. The wind’s knocked out of me, but I remain calm as he tries to mount. I’m fighting him off when Mr. Hodge whistles to end the round. When I reach my corner, Mr. Hodge is in my face.

  “You’ve got leg strength, and he’s sloppy on the mount,” Mr. Hodge says. “If you get control of him from the body in open guard and his head’s not moving, you know what to do, right?” I nod.

  Eric and I touch gloves, and round 2 starts the same as round 1. I almost let him take me down. On top of me, his mount is sloppy, and I easily assume the defensive position of open guard. Like Mr. Hodge saw it all in a crystal ball, Eric’s not moving his head, and I see daylight. I quickly wrap my right leg around the back of his head and pull him toward me. With my left leg, I press his outstretched right arm tight against his neck.

  “Perfect triangle choke!” Mr. Hodge yells just as Eric taps out. Nong and Jackson applaud, but they shouldn’t be happy. I’ve just added another hold to my arsenal against them.

  After the spar, Mr. Matsuda shows me more variations of the triangle choke from every position using Eric as his dummy. MMA is like geometry; it’s all about angles.

  “You want the fight standing, but if it goes to the ground, this is your hold,” he says.

  “What if—” is as far as I get before I’m distracted by the dojo door slamming loudly.

  “Hector, come here!” Dad shouts at me from across the wide open space of the gym.

  It’s Wednesday night. His night. He’s early, but probably because he doesn’t know what time it is. After he lost his job, he lost track of time. He lost Mom when the bottle won.

  I take my eyes off Mr. Matsuda and look at Dad. He uses the wall for balance.

  “Hector! I’m talking to you!” Dad yells as he stumbles a few steps into the gym, and I’m worried. Friends and family are not permitted inside without permission from Mr. Hodge.

  “I’ll be right back.” I say and then sprint over to Dad. I can smell him from a distance.

  “It’s time to go.”

  “I’m not getting in the car with you when you’re drunk.”

  “I’m not drunk!” Dad shouts. Then he starts cursing in Spanish. Even though I’m sweating, I feel frozen. I’m not sure what to do or say. Mr. Hodge walks slowly toward us. When he gets close, he gets a disgusted look on his face—the smell just hit him—but Dad keeps shouting. “I’m your father! You’ll obey me, Hector!”

  “Hector, a moment,” Mr. Hodge says. I step away and Mr. Hodge talks with Dad. At first, there’s a distance between them, but Mr. Hodge closes it. He’s a lot taller than Dad. Soon his right arm is on Dad’s shoulder. Dad reaches into his pocket and hands Mr. Hodge his keys.

  Hodge shakes his head and walks back toward me. “Here,” he says as he drops the keys to Dad’s truck in my hand. “Hector, I don’t want to see him in here like that again.”

  “Neither do I,” I reply, shaking my head in a combination of shame and sadness. I stare at Dad and wonder what happened to the man I knew and the man that I wanted to be.

  “You feel that?” Mr. Hodge asks us. “Go ahead, touch it.”

  The cold silver steel chain link feels different than I expected. Nong, Jackson, and Meghan touch the high-quality cage as well. Mr. Hodge brought us to an amateur MMA show called Friday Night Fights. He used his connections to get us inside the eight-sided cage before the fights start in an hour. For now, the arena is empty. But in sixty minutes, some three hundred MMA fans will be cheering.

  “Now, you see this?” Mr. Hodge points at his face, his left finger over his left eyebrow. “This is what a real cage can do to your skin. Twenty years later and I still got the scar.”

  “Cool,” Nong whispers. Mr. Hodge’s shaved head is a road map of scars.

  “When people think of a cage, they think the bars are like a prison cell,” Mr. Hodge continues. “But it’s really just like the fence you might have in your backyard.”

  “Tell them how you got that scar,” Meghan says like she’s prompting a story.

  “It was my first pro fight, right here in St. Louis. My friends and family were there,” Mr. Hodge says, and then goes on. I’m interested in the story, but I can’t help thinking instead about my first fight in this very cage. It’s ten weeks away, soon after I turn eighteen. I’m wondering if Mom or Dad will attend. I’m wondering if Eddie and Rosie will be there too.

  “I would’ve choked him out when he dropped his head,” Nong interrupts Mr. Hodge, a bad habit he hasn’t corrected in two years. Nong’s not known for his discipline or his modesty.

  “I tried, but I was too tired and maybe too nervous,” Mr. Hodge explains. “That’s why we do so much cardio and calisthenics. It is not just about being a better fighter but about being what?”

  “The superior athlete,” Meghan answers.

  “We’re against the cage. He’s eating elbows and I feel confident. He drops his head. I start to lift a knee, but I pause. Instead of throwing the knee, I try a standing guillotine choke.”

  “Hard move, master, hard move,” Nong says. Mr. Hodge shakes his head in agreement.

  “Just like I’ve s
aid a thousand times, you can’t take time to decide. MMA isn’t chess; it’s combat. It must become instinct built on hours of drills. So when I hesitated, he rocked me with an uppercut and I bounced up against the cage. He pushed my face against the cage, and it ripped the skin. I pushed back and created distance. What happens when there’s distance?”

  “Somebody goes to sleep.” Nong says and then snores loudly.

  “I tapped out before he put me to sleep,” Mr. Hodge says. “That’s important. You need to surrender when it is time or risk a serious injury. I don’t want any of you getting injured, understand?”

  “If you don’t want us hurt, then why are you bringing us the pain every day?” Jackson asks. “I mean, ain’t nobody hurt me more than you, Hector, and Nong.”

  “No pain, no gain,” Mr. Hodge says. “You’re all better fighters because of it, right?”

  Nong slams his right fist into the palm of his left, then brings down his right elbow hard into his palm. It echoes like a gunshot in the empty arena. Next, he bounces his palm off his knees and then throws his right foot out in a perfect spinning heel kick. After his performance, Nong laughs so hard that it’s impossible not to join in, until Mr. Hodge shuts us down.

  Mr. Hodge points at his head. “Your brain is the best weapon. We’re training your brain to tell your body to do the right move at the right time. It’s about instinct. That’s why we drill so much. You help each other improve. None of you could improve just on your own, right?”

  Jackson, Nong, and Meghan answer, but I’m focused on the cage. I touch it again. I think about my fight. I think about my life, how I have no other friends left, a girlfriend, or an intact family. This cage is hard, cold, and unforgiving. Just like I’ve become.

  “Hector, I want you to really concentrate on this next fight,” Mr. Hodge shouts over the noise of the now full arena. While his connections got us into the cage, they didn’t help with good seats. We’re in the cheap seats. That fits, though. The one thing the four of us have in common—other than training at Mr. Hodge’s Missouri MMA dojo—is we’re not rich.