Go Utonians!

White belt sparring is a game that only martial artists would really understand. You get two pieces of a cut up white belt and stick them in your own belt. Then you try to get other people's two belts and be the last one left who still has white in their belt. Sounds like flag football right? Except for the fact that we use actual blocks and some strikes when we play.

I was talking to a few people in the studio before class when Treasure approached, then held out a handful of white belt scraps. This was the raising of the gauntlet.

"Its on!" I said.

"Give me two!" Coconut yelled. We all grabbed the scraps and stuck them in our belts, as was custom.

"Spread out around the room!" Brick King shouted. We all did so.

"Ready, GO!!" Treasure said. And so the battle began. People were running all over the place trying to steal other people's white belts. I jumped for Coconut who screamed and started running the other way. Then i heard a loud tribal-like scream. I looked and saw that it was coming from Jay-spoon who was coming for me. He charged me, but I was ready. I made a grab at his belts but missed. He tried to grab mine but also missed. I pushed his back making him bend over, then grabbed one of his belts.

"NOO!!" He yelled, as I laughed and ran away. The round continued and eventually all that was left was me, Treasure, and Brick King. These were usually the people who were left at the end, then we would all kill each other. Treasure ended up winning that round, so we decided to start a new round. We spread out around the room, then I realized that Treasure was looking at me.

He raised his eyebrows at me, then looked at Brick King, then nodded his head toward the rest of the group that was playing. Since I spoke Treasure, I knew that this meant somthing along the lines of, 'You me and Brick King should form an alliance and inialate everyone else, then we can all turn on each other at the end'. Yeah, its an interesting language. I nodded at him, then turned and nodded at Brick King (who had apparently also understood Treasure's message) who returned the nod.

"Go!!" yelled Hiss. The boodshed continued. It became pretty obvious that we were a team after a while since we would gain up on people and take all thier flags (thats what we called the white belts) but not try and steal each other's.

"Are we doing teams?" Aslan asked as he entered the studio and saw what was going on.

"They are!" Sam complained, as we all systematically took Jay-spoon down. When finally we had destroyed all our opponents we were about to turn on each other when Aslan suddenly shouted, "New Game!"

We were a little disappointed that we didn't get to take each other down, but that just meant our team had won anyway. "We are going to have a team round this time!" Aslan announced. "But no more than five!"

"Team meeting!" Brick King announced. Treasure, Brick King and I huddled up to decide who else we would let on our team.

"Hey guys! What's our team meeting about?" Coconut asked jumping into our huddle, then quickly being shoved out by Treasure.

"Hey teammates!" Jay-spoon said trying to break into the huddle then being pushed away by Brick King. Everyone wanted to be on our team, because we were the best! Sorry, its true.

"OKAY!!" Treasure finally said stepping back. He then started pointing at people. "FLUFFY, BANDIT, BRICK KING, HISS! NO MORE!!" So we had our team. Everyone else formed their own teams. The teams then spread out along the sides of the studio. "Okay guys," Treasure said without looking at us, "stay in this upper square. Stay in... Utah." Our studio is shaped like Utah, and we were going to stay in the northern part. "What's the rest of our plan?" he asked us.

"Divide and take all the other teams down!" Fluffy theorized. The rest of the team didn't look so sure.

"No," I said. "United we stand, divided we fall."

"Thats the state motto of Kentucky!" Treasure informed me.

"Irrelevent." I responded, "We need to use the buddy system and stick together. We have strength in numbers and in awesomeness!" The team nodded at this and smiled. "So if you see a team member who needs help, then go help them. Look out for eachother and we will conquer!"

"Yeah! We're the Utonians! Defend Utah!!" Fluffy said excitedly.

"Ready... START!" Aslan announced. For a while nobody moved, then Jay-spoon ran out into the middle of the floor, and everyone attacked.

"Stay in Utah guys, stay in Utah." Treasure said, which would be the equivalent of saying 'stand your ground men, stand your ground!' in an actual battle. So, we stayed in Utah. Everyone else was too afraid to attack us. Then Fluffy realized that another team had that same idea. Without consulting the team, he ran for them. "Wait! Stay in Utah Fluffy!" Treasure yelled, but Fluffy continued to run. Treasure ran to help his teammate, and our 'stay in utah' plan was over, and the 'united we stand' plan was now in effect.

Brick King ran for Ryan, who is significantly bigger than him. I ran up behind him and tried to steal his flag while Brick King attacked from the front.

"Ah!" he exclaimed, running away from both of us.

I then went to attack another person, who was also much bigger than me. We were fighting for a few seconds, when it looked like I was going to get one of my flags stolen. Suddenly, Hiss appeared behind him and grabbed one of his flags. He realized this and ran away. "Thanks!" I said to Hiss as I ran back to Utah, where we seemed to be recongrugating. She just nodded at me. I looked over to see Fluffy sitting on the ground.

"I'm dead!" he said dramatically.

"Man down!" I said to my teammates. Uh oh, now the Utonians were mad. You don't mess with them!

We were all back in Utah and ready to launch another full scale attack on the enemy. Treasure started slowly creeping toward a group of smaller people. He grabbed at one of their belts, but they jumped back fast. For a minute Treasure looked like he was going to run away, so I ran up behind him. "I've got your back Treasure." I said. He half looked over his sholder, then with new confidence, attacked the other team. Having someone behind you was an advantage, because the person in front couldn't grab their flags, but they could grab the person in front's flags. Plus, it was like having four arms when your opponent only had two. The other team retreated after Treasure had taken two of Sam's flags. Treasure and I both ran back to Utah, where Brick King was. The other teams were fighting each other.

"Lets just let them kill each other, then we can finish them off." Treasure said out of breath. Brick King and I nodded, but apparently some of the other people had heard us, because they started charging. Big mistake, there were three of us together. Brick King ran to take one of them down and was quickly aided by Hiss. Treasure and I attacked another one of them, using a technique that was used to confuse the opponent. Treasure spun and dove under his arm grabbing for his belt, but missing. I tried to grab his belt, and also missed. Treasure was now behind him after diving under his arm and tried to grab again. This made our opponent (Austin I think...) turn around fast, giving me a chance to dive and spin under his arm grabbing his belt and taking it. Treasure didn't realized and was trying to grab a belt that wasn't there. "Treasure! I got it!" I said holding the white belt up.

"Oh, good job!" he said, running off to help Brick King.

Now we had defeated every other person, except for Aslan (who we didn't know was playing until halfway through) and we had all lost at least one of our flags.

"Charge him!" Brick King yelled, so we did. Aslan is much bigger than all of us, so this was difficult. I got my belt stolen at some point!

"Bandit! NOOO!" Fluffy yelled from the group of dead people.

"Avenge me!!" I said to my team as I went to join Fluffy.

"AVENGE BANDIT!" Treasure yelled as they continued to attack Aslan, who was also standing in a corner (cheap right?).

"Your team is unfair." Sam complained as I sat down.

"Yeah, you guys are all way too good!" Jay-spoon agreed. "We're breaking you up next time!"

Brick King was taken down next, leaving only Treasure and Hiss to attack Aslan.

"Go UTONIANS!!!" Fluffy yelled.

"Do it for Utah!!" I shouted.

"UTONIANS!!!" Brick King cheered.

Hiss took two of Aslan's flags, but he had three! (sound like an unfair match? Yeah, it was)

"Charge him guys! There's two of you!" I shouted.

They listened and charged him. Aslan grabbed Hiss's flag, but Treasure grabbed Kenny's flag.

"UTONIANS!!!!!!" Our team all cheered. Yes. We are the champions, my friends. ;)

Was That a Nuke?

So there we were, in red/black belt class on a typical Thursday night. I was invited to come because they were at my rank in the system review. At the moment we were standing in cat stance. "Get lower in your stances guys, this is shihan's pet peeve!" Kwanjagnim told us. We all tried to bend our knees a little more when all of a sudden we heard a huge 'CRASH'. The walls, the garage, and the racks all started shaking. We all instantly stood up and looked around. It sounded like a car had just crashed into the studio. Kwanjagnim looked anxiously towards the lobby. "Excuse me." She said walking towards the door. "Man Cub, keep going with cat stance!"

"Yes ma'am." he said running to the front of the class to lead us.

Kwanagnim came in a few seconds later. We all looked at her expectantly. "Don't look at me. I don't know what it was." She said walking upstairs and looking inside the office. "Nothing in here... that is really weird." We were all highly confused. What could've made such a loud noise but have not been visible to us.

After class ended Dancer got a text from a guy at her work down the street. "My friend at work heard it too!" she said.

"Wait! So it wasn't something right by us?" I asked.

"No! It was heard all over PG!" Dancer responded.

"I wonder if it was a car wreck." Tio said.

"I think it was a nuke." I said.

When I got home I told my family about what had happened. Later that night on the news there was a story about a house exploding in PG. It shook the whole town and blew out the windows of surrounding buildings. It was several streets away from the studio, but it still sounded like we had been hit by a car! I drove past the house, or the foundation full of rubble, the next day. There was a huge tree next to it with pieces of debris in the top. Wow! How cool is it to experience something like that before the story comes out!

Here is the story.

Retreat!!

Ah, SWAT team summer retreat, where we spend our days performing spectacular acrobatics and destroying innocent fruit with powerful kicks. The day had finally come when we were going to make the journey to Kwanjagnim’s cabin. We all knew what was waiting for us, it had been planned weeks in advance. It was a murder mystery! At the beginning of the week we had all been given new aliases for a CSI game that we were going to play. My name was Giosette Grissom, I was an Italian who was completely full of myself. I rode up in Bagheera’s car with Tio, Feasting Man, and Jay-spoon in the back. Tio’s character was supposed to be Mexican, so he had brought a sombrero, which Feasting Man was now sporting. “Everybody keeps giving me weird looks!” said Feasting Man, looking out the window.

“I wonder why…!” Tio responded sarcastically. “We were eating cookie dough all the way up, then finally had to take it away from ‘the feasting man’. This was his latest nickname, since towards the beginning of the week we all made CSI shirts and put a Japanese kanji on the sleeve. Most people put things like; courage, fire, water, strength, (mine said dominance), and stuff like that. However, Feasting Man put ‘feasting man’ on his sleeve, and the name stuck.

We made it up to Kwanjagnim’s cabin and all gathered together around an empty fire pit. Bagheera was invited into the cabin to help set up for the mystery. “The rest of you stay out!” Kwanjagnim told us. We all stood idly around the fire pit. “Now what?” asked Fluffy. Luckily, there is hardly ever a dull moment for our team. We somehow got onto the subject of stupid laws.

“It’s illegal to walk down main street in Salt Lake City carrying a Ukelele.” Treasure told us.

“I’m so going to try that!” I said. “Did you know that it’s illegal to walk across the state border with a duck on your head?”

“What, do the have border patrol or something? Snipers waiting for somebody trying to cross the border with a duck on their head?” Zombie asked, then pantomimed shooting a duck off someone’s head.

“That should be our next team building activity!” Fluffy said. “The last person to be shot crossing the border with the duck on their head wins!”

“Yes!!” Coconut said jumping like it was the best idea ever.

“I heard some law that in some state it’s illegal to shower naked.” Jay-spoon informed us.

“How do you enforce that?” I asked.

“That’s what I want to know! ‘I saw you..’” Jay-spoon said acting it out, causing us all to burst out in laughter.

“It’s illegal to go whaling in Utah!” said Howler Monkey. “ There aren’t even any whales in Utah!!”

The dumb laws went on and on, and in the end we had decided that we were going to break every one of them and see if we got caught. The last one who isn’t arrested wins.

I started walking off and the whole team followed me. “Why are you guys coming with me?” I asked. They all looked at each other.

“I don’t know!” said Fluffy.

“Because we’re lemmings.” Said Tio. “You’re apparently the head lemming.”

“Yeah! We’re lemmings!!” Feasting Man agreed.

“Okay then! Come on lemmings!” I said. We then all proceeded to walk around the forest aimlessly.

“What are we doing!?” Treasure finally asked after a while.

“We’re following the head lemming! It’s not your place to question!” Tio responded.

I laughed, “Okay lemmings, lets go back to the fire pit.” So we all headed back to the fire pit and had nothing to do.

It was finally dinner and time to get ready for the mystery! I put on a black leather jacket, a green shirt, black slacks, and black boots. I was ready to go. While dinner was being prepared we all received our first clues. The first clue was to basically get to know the other characters. I was speaking in an amazing Italian accent the whole time and bragging about my work. Kwanjagnim kept talking nervously and fixing my jacket, Tio’s hat, and other things. She also kept touching random things. Her character must’ve been OCD. Bagheera’s name was Taylor Holmes, which was ironic, because I know a Taylor Holmes. She was British. Jay-spoon came up to me and asked, “How do you do a Tasmanian accent?”

“I have no idea.” I responded in my Italian accent. So his Tasmanian accent sounded like a mix between a british and a southern accent.

My next clue told me that I hated a man called Crick Watson because he stole information from me. So I went around telling people that I hated Crick Watson. I then found out that Kwanjanim didn’t like Crick, Bagheera didn’t like Crick, Jay-spoon didn’t like him, Treasure, Tio, Feasting Man, Zombie… Everyone hated him! “WHO IS CRICK WATSON!?!?” Zombie finally yelled.

All eyes moved toward Fluffy as he slowly raised his hand.

“It’s Crick Watson!” Howler Monkey yelled pointing at him, “Lets get him!!!” Everyone then started running toward Fluffy yelling things like, “Die Crick Watson!” “CRICK WATSON!!!” “DOWN WITH CRICK!!”

Fluffy screamed and started running into the forest while the mob followed still shouting at him. "No lynching!" Chungsanim warned us.

We chased him deep into the forest finally catching him. “What do we do with him?” Coconut asked.

“Please don’t kill me! Please!! I have a pretest tomorrow!!” Fluffy begged.

Eventually we had to return him to the cabin to get our next clues. My clue didn’t have a whole lot of information, so I started wandering around. Suddenly, Brick King asked, “Hey! Where’s Crick Watson?” We all looked around. He was nowhere to be found. Suddenly, Fluffy emerged from the cabin with a white face and a torn up shirt with writing on it. Chungsanim went up the stairs and started reading the shirt. “I have been murdered…” he was cut short by cheers of, “YAY!!” “Justice!” “Who did it? I need to send them a thank you note!”

“…I have been murdered…” it then proceeded to say something about how he had been killed, and please find my killer... blah blah blah.

“Maybe we shouldn’t find his killer. I kind of want them to get away with it.” I said. People agreed with me.

“No, we have to find the killer, it’s part of the game.” Treasure said almost reluctantly.

So we proceeded to solve the crime. We had to track finger prints, fill out notebooks, look for clues, then finally make a guess. I guessed that it was Chungsanim. Bagheera and Jay-spoon agreed with me. Then we all got another paper saying if we were guilty or not.

It turned out that my guess was right! Then Chungsanim grabbed a gun and said that he was going to shoot all of us, laughed maniacally, and ran towards the woods. He then stopped short and said, “Well, we were going to have an airsoft war at this point, but its too dark.” He looked at the sky. It really had gotten dark. The game took a lot longer than we thought.

“Plus,” Kwanjagnim added, “Treasure and Fluffy are pretesting tomorrow and need to go to bed.” This was greeted with a chorus of sympathy “oooh....”

“You guys can sleep in the loft.” Kwanjagnim told them. “Boys are sleeping outside in tents, girls are sleeping in the cabin. You guys can stay up as long as you want, but lights out at 11. Except for Fluffy and Treasure, you guys are going to sleep now!”

Unfortunetly for me, I had to leave early because of a wedding, but I love the SWAT retreat!