Mercy||Miguel Diaz

6

"Where in the world are we, Miguel?" I questioned, with my face scrunched from the awful smell. "Welcome to our dojo!" He smiled, as he motioned his arm like he was in a game show. "A junk yard?!" "Yeah, I found some karate equipment in the back, and since we don't have a real dojo, this will have to do." He tucked in his lips as he scanned the view. I tucked in my lips as well, just nodding my head speechless. "I promise, it won't be as bad as you think." "It's fine, it'll be worth it." "That's the attitude!" He smiled. I eyed him, "Don't push it!" He threw his hands up innocently, "Okay! How about we start?"

After warmups, he had me punching the century Bob that he found just laying around. Though I am training at a junk yard, I do have to have to give him credit for at least washing down all of the equipment we were going to use. But I still can't seem to understand how he was able to even do that; however, I'm not going to question anything. I'm just going to be grateful that I'm learning karate.

"Harder." Miguel stated. "I'm punching as hard as I can!" I whined. "No you're not. I know you have power in there, now come on and show it." "Miguel, I'm trying!" I retorted. "Come on, Brielle! Dig deep! Pretend that mannequin is anyone and anything that's ever hurt you! Take all that pain and anger and release it!" I took in a deep breath, channeling it all in, then I punched. I knew that punch was strong, I felt it. I looked back to Miguel, who was smiling. He then crossed to me, "Good, good. Now, when punching you don't want to stop once you make contact. You need to follow through." "What do you mean?" I questioned. "When following through," He then got into his stance and punched the mannequin, "You need to pretend that you're actually trying to hit the other five people behind the intentional person."

"So like when people punch through wood? They don't just stop at one, they continue punching to get through all of them?" "Exactly like that." He softly smiled. I smiled back at him, then our eyes were locked. It was happening again, everything around us was getting dark and it was just the two of us. No, stop it, Lola! I then quickly snapped out of it, "Well,"
I cleared my throat, "I'm going to get back to punching now." "Uh right, yeah. You do that." He chuckled. "Yeah." I awkwardly laugh. I then turned back to the mannequin and continued punching and practiced following through with every punch.

After about an hour or so, we called it. Mainly because we almost got caught a couple of times by the workers and we didn't want to get exiled from the place. "Tomorrow we'll focus more on punching, then once I feel you've gotten the hang of it; we'll practice kicking." Miguel explained. "Sounds good to me." I shrugged. We were then in the car ready to leave when it hit me, "Let me teach you how to drive." He looked at me completely off guard, "What?!" "You heard me," I giggled, "You're teaching me karate, the least I can do is teach you how to drive." "I've never even been behind the wheel!" He clearly looked nervous. "Okay, we'll start with baby steps then." I smiled. "How would we do that?" He asked. I thought about it for a second, then it dawned on me, "You'll see." I smirked and he had a worried expression.

After a drive to Burbank, we finally arrived to my desired destination. "K1 Speed-Indoor Go Karts?" Miguel read the sign aloud. "Yup." I smiled. "Your idea of baby steps is go karting?" "Well it does beat a junk yard." I teased. "Point proven." He laughed. I then found parking right in the front, how convenient. I parked, then we made our way into the building.

"So," Miguel started as we waited in line, "How is this going to help?" "Well, you're going to have to learn how to drive without crashing, right?" "Yeah." He agreed. "Your objective here is to drive without hitting a single person or the barrier." "What?! How is that even possible? People drive insane during go karting!" "People also drive insane when on the freeway, so you've got to learn how to find a window and squeeze through." I explained. "Isn't that more of a lesson for speed racing?" "Are you questioning the teacher?" I arched my eyebrow. "No, no! I was just curious is all." "Just trust the process, okay?" I smiled. "Okay." He smiled back.