What do you do when your perfectly thrown kick strikes your opponent perfectly on the correct vulnerable or vital point, yet doesn't stop or even faze him? This is a question that I hope you are asking yourself long before the actual situation ever arises. Why? Because it can, and probably will, happen to you at some point during your life. Whether it is in the dojo, in a tournament, or on the street, you need to know what to do if everything you did was right, but still turns out wrong.

Fortunately, when it happened to me, it was during a sparring session with a higher ranking classmate and not on the street where it could have been worse. Although reflecting back upon it, I don't know how it could have been much worse. I received a beating and a half that night. A beating and a lesson that I still remember to this day.

I had only recently tested for and received my blue belt with a single brown stripe in karate, and was feeling pretty full of myself for not only advancing a belt rank, but also getting a stripe with it. A pretty big deal then, considering that it was quite an achievement to get promoted in our school at that time. It was probably about two weeks after testing that we had our monthly sparring night. Although we sparred every week during our normal classes, once a month we would have a certain night where we would spar with everyone in the class for a couple of hours.

Now the level of sparring that you were at during any particular time was relevant to whom you were sparring with and their respective belt rank. For example; males would always hold back the power and aggressiveness when sparring with females and much younger students, if you were sparring with someone of the same basic rank you fought hard, if sparring against a higher ranked student you were supposed to fight harder but with respect to your senior classmate. Respect and control were to be shown at all times when sparring or working with a fellow classmate.

Now on this particular night everyone was in good spirits after a successful testing and youthful cockiness was in abundance. Yours truly included. We started off sparring and had gone for about 30 minutes switching partners every few minutes or so. As we switched partners again, I discovered that I was now being paired against a high ranking brown belt in our school who had been affectionately nicknamed, 'Gentle John.'

Now if you know anything about nicknames, they do not always present a true indicator of the person wearing the nickname. Often times it is just the opposite. This was one such case. To better understand the position that I was now finding myself in, you need to have a little bit of background on 'Gentle John.'

'Gentle John' was approximately 6' tall and weighed in at well over 200+ lbs. He was a rancher/farmer and was used to the hard physical labor that is demanded of those that choose this particular line of work. On top of that, he was an 'old school' karate man, meaning that he was like a bull. No matter what you did to him, he just kept coming and coming. To make matters worse and unbeknownst to me at the time, he had also been electrocuted when he was younger and had no surface feeling throughout most of his body, including as it turned out, his head.
Now I was a pretty good kicker even as a blue belt and I just loved kicking people in the head. However, had I known what was about to happen to me, I probably would not have done what I am about to tell you that I did. My instructor yelled out to begin sparring and I immediately backed up and away from John, smart move on my part as he still almost ran me over as I was backpedaling away from him. This went on for about a minute when I saw an opportunity for me land a kick to John's exposed head. Had I been smarter at the time, I wouldn't have done it. Obviously I wasn't, so I went ahead and kicked John in the head.

Now it was a beautifully thrown In-to-Out Axe Kick that landed squarely on the top of John's head and managed to stagger him just a bit, or so I thought. Right after landing my kick, I started moving in and threw a few punches to John's body. John started to move towards me and I wisely got out of the way. Only John didn't come after me. He just stood there and smiled. Okay, I know what you're thinking. Why didn't I just turn around and run the hell out of there. To this day I can only give you the same answer that I did to my other classmates that night. No, it wasn't that I had a lot of guts or that I was sporting a huge pair. I simply was too stupid to see the impending doom that I had just cheerfully brought upon myself. I was now well on the way to learning the errors of my ways.

As John smiled at me, he lowered his hands down towards his side. So naturally I attempted to execute the very same kick that I had just hit him with. Big mistake! The next thing I knew, I had my right leg hanging up in the air caught on John's arm while I was furiously hopping backwards on one leg trying to keep from falling on the ground. The next thing I knew, I had been slammed against the wall and was now pinned against it. My right leg was suspended on John's left arm while my left foot was up in the air and not making contact with the ground. I was basically wedged against the wall suspended in air with no place to go.

At this point John looked me directly in the eye and said the following words that I have never forgotten, 'You shouldn't have hit me in the head.' He then proceeded to pound me from my belt to the base of my throat and every square inch in between with his right fist. I am sure that this only lasted for a minute, but it felt like an eternity. I had bruises on me for well over a week. Finally, I heard the instructor yell time. At which point John unceremoniously dropped me on the ground.

Did I learn anything from this experience? Damn right I did! First and foremost, don't ever kick 'Gentle John' in the head again. Second, you better know what to do if your technique lands perfectly and yet your opponent feels nothing and keeps on coming. Third, always show respect for your elders in both age and rank. They got there for a reason. And finally, don't just be a head hunter. Just because you can kick to the head, doesn't mean that you have to. There are a lot more targets for you to kick at than just the head.