Shortly after Jamie turned eighteen, she earned her third-degree black belt in Tae kwon do. She entered one of the regional tournaments and won it easily. She represented her region in the state tournament and won it as well, earning her the right to represent her state at the national tournament two months later – three weeks after her high school graduation and one week before the family annual gun tournament.
Jamie practiced almost daily for the Nationals. She had to balance her final school projects and exams with her training and her shooting, but she was determined to do well at all three. Her parents decided to let her try and didn’t say anything to her other than to let her know that they trusted her and were proud of her.
One Saturday at the martial arts studio, shortly before the tournament, Jamie approached her teacher and made a special request. “I’d like to change the way I spar today.”
“Oh,” her teacher said. “What do you want to change?”
“I want multiple opponents.”
“At the same time?”
“Yes, sir. I need to make sure that I’m ready for anything.”
“How many opponents do you want?”
“How many will fit on the mats?” she asked, referring to the padded mats on the floor designed to make falling down hurt less.
Her teacher looked at her for a moment. “Let me talk it over with the owner and the other senior black belts, and I’ll let you know what we decide.”
The teacher walked upstairs to talk to the owner. He found the owner sparring with Tom and Emily in the room reserved for special students. As the teacher watched, he recognized that they were using a technique that the owner called Em-An-Jitsu, named after Emily Anderson since she had created it. Em-An-Jitsu blended fencing, hand-to-hand combat, and other weapons disciplines into a single style of fighting that was difficult to learn and even more difficult to defend oneself against. Jamie had started learning it but was focusing on Tae kwon do to get ready for the tournament.
The owner saw that the teacher wanted to talk to him and stopped the sparring session. When the teacher told the owner what Jamie wanted, the owner looked amused and called Tom and Emily over to hear the conversation.
“Your daughter wants to spar with multiple opponents at the same time,” he said when Jamie’s parents walked over. “She thinks that it’ll help her get ready for the tournament.”
“Are you going to do it?” Tom asked.
“Do you object?”
“Not at all,” Tom replied, looking at Emily who was nodding. “If that’s what she thinks will help her training, then I’m all for it.”
Turning to the teacher, the owner said, “Okay, if she wants to do this, find some volunteers to go up against her. Start with some of the black belts at her level and work up the ranks. Keep it at fewer than six for now until we see if there’s enough room down there.”
The teacher nodded and went back downstairs. The owner motioned for Tom and Emily to stand over at the window so they could watch their daughter.
The teacher started with two black belts who were at the same rank as Jamie. His plan was to add an additional opponent every few minutes, and each new opponent would be a higher-ranking belt. He knew that Jamie was testing herself and wanted to stretch beyond what she had mastered before, so the teacher was determined to push her hard. He spoke to each of the opponents he had selected and told them what he wanted them to do. This was to be as close to live combat as a martial arts studio could get while ensuring the safety of the participants. The teacher told the rest of the students to clear the floor and instructed Jamie to move to the center of the mats.
Tom and Emily watched their daughter move into the center of the room. Even from that distance, saw a look of fierce determination in her face as she readied herself for what was coming. Her parents were surprised at her expression, even though they knew how competitive she was. They were even more surprised at the way she responded to her first two opponents.
She started with her head down and her arms hanging loosely at her sides. She seemed to be ignoring the two opponents approaching from either side, but when the one on her left moved in closer, she struck. She leaped into the air and caught the opponent on the left with a spinning kick to the head. She curled herself into a ball, rolled toward the second opponent, and unleashed a blinding series of punches at his midsection as she jumped back onto her feet. She turned and blocked an attack from the first opponent while kicking the second opponent with her heel to the stomach, sending him backwards onto the mats.
The third opponent joined the fray, and soon Jamie was surrounded on three sides. Somehow, though, that seemed a bigger disadvantage for the three opponents than for Jamie, who attacked her opponents relentlessly. The fourth opponent joined in, but none seemed able to get the advantage. Finally, the fifth opponent, who was a Tae kwon do master, joined in.
Jamie had sparred with the master before, but she had never done well against him. This time, though, Jamie seemed to be in a zone that she had never attained before. She did a flying split kick that sent the original two opponents falling onto the mats, and then she leaped forward and challenged the master face-to-face.
“I’ve never seen anything like this,” the owner said softly as they watched Jamie from the room above. “This is a level of combat that should take years to achieve!”
Tom put his arm around Emily as they watched their daughter dodge strike after strike while she continued to attack her opponents. She never once took a defensive posture, preferring to keep her opponents off guard and unable to coordinate their attacks against her. Conventional wisdom would suggest that an opponent who was outnumbered should fall back and counter any attack with a defensive maneuver, but Jamie had thrown convention to the wind and was forcing her opponents to take defensive postures to try to prevent her from winning the match.
Sparring is a well-defined and well-controlled activity. Hits, whether from the hands or the feet, constitute points, and a certain number of points are required to win the match. Since Jamie was sparring with multiple opponents, she had to score the requisite points against each opponent individually, while fighting them all at the same time, in order to win. The teacher had four assistant teachers helping him keep score, and Jamie’s speed made it next to impossible to count with accuracy the number of hits that she made and received.
After a while, the teachers determined that some of the opponents had enough points scored against them to make them withdraw from the match. Soon, only the master and Jamie remained. Both tried to slip past the other’s defenses, but neither could gain the advantage. Both were growing tired, but neither was prepared to yield. Finally, the teacher stopped the match and declared it a draw. Jamie bowed to the master and to the other opponents, who returned her bow and came forward to congratulate her on an excellent match.
The owner motioned to Tom and Emily, and they all walked downstairs to congratulate Jamie. When they reached her, she was sweating profusely and breathing hard, but there was a look of absolute triumph in her eyes. She had taken on multiple opponents, including a master, and hadn’t been defeated. No one at the studio had ever done anything like that before, and no one so young had ever reached a draw with a master.
The master turned towards Tom and Emily. “That was one of the most impressive things I’ve ever seen in my life,” he said. “She’s more than ready for the Nationals, and, frankly, I’m not sure that I want to go up against her again!”
Jamie finished her school assignments and exams, and graduated with highest honors. She missed being the valedictorian by less than one-half of one percent, but that was fine with her. The person named valedictorian was one of her best friends, and Jamie was happy for her.
The morning of her graduation, Tom and Emily gave Jamie a new car as her present. They had planned to get her a smaller one, but given all the gear she had to take to her various