Tae Kwon Do practice isn’t the worst. Dojang Master Klein looks upon me with the usual disdain. After two missed weeks and zero practice, I’m honestly a smidge rusty, which is weird.
“Shoulders down, Sanders,” he says, passing me during forms. “You’re too tight.”
My flow all through the starting forms is off. Not like I forgot the moves—I’ve been doing them for years, but it’s like the part of my brain that knows them and the parts of my body that do them are disconnected. Dial tone static buzzing in my ears.
The punching and kicking part is better. Each punch starts in my toes and powers through me. Every kick knocks me off-balance in a way I know how to come back from. It’s comforting. It is what it’s always been: both an escape from the things plaguing me and a reminder of what’s inside.
We sit down in rows for final stretches. Master Klein kneels on my back to extend the stretch. “Good focus today, Sanders. Way to power through.”
Power is what I don’t have. But it was nice to pretend for a minute.