April's Fool - Memories of My First Trip to CTF Summer Camp

Instead of a mock post like last year - I'm going to tell you all a story of my first trip to CTF summer camp.  It was a a time...fun and funny.  It may not translate to the written word, and I've never tried my hand at comedy.  I'm feeling particularly nostalgic because of an article I just wrote for Totally Tae Kwon Do Magazine is coming out tomorrow, so in the spirit of April Fool's day - please humor me.

(as an aside, I highly recommend listening to Stevie Ray Vaughan's "little wing" while reading this - I listened to it on loop while I wrote it, in a marathon session from 11:30 to 1am - I don't know...call it flavoring). 

It had to be 99, but it may have been 2000.  You have to understand that the years start to blend together, I know I was a black belt, and I had been one for a bit so it definitely wasn't 98.  I wanted to go to camp, but things at home were not as stable as they had once been.  I would have been 19, out of high school, working minimum wage jobs to support my hockey and TKD addictions.  I had the feeling back then that I was wearing out my welcome at home, but things were chaotic there for other reasons not important to this story.  Regardless, money was tight, and asking mom for more wasn't my favorite thing to do. 

Jim Farrington, the first instructor I ever had, and someone I looked up to immensely at the time was constantly asking me if I was going to camp after class.  He used to say that it was martial arts life changing.  After sadly declining the year before because my finances couldn't support it, Jim offered to pay my way.  Feeling it was bad form to turn him down, I graciously accepted, thanked him probably enough to make him nauseous and basically stopped sleeping at night out of sheer excitement until the day finally came to make the 4 hour drive out to Lock Haven to go to camp.

I'll never forget that night, it was a typical Pennsylvania summer night; hot and humid.  I opened the hatch of my Ford EXP (fellow readers, I had THE absolute worst cars as a late teen / early 20 year old).  I put my TKD bag, my clothes bag, and EVERY FREAKING MARTIAL ARTS WEAPON I OWNED, into my car.  If I recall correctly, it was 2 bokkens, 1 katana, 3 sets of nunchucks, and at least two bos a 3 sectional staff (WTF, why did I have a 3 sectional staff?) and a few fake knives.  I had never been to camp; I wanted to be prepared (this will be funny later).  Realize that all I heard about camp is that it was awesome - specifics were not required, if my idols said camp was awesome, I didn't need specifics.

I set out for my longest solo drive in my life at that time.  4 hours on the PA turnpike and I80.  I left in the early evening, didn't hit any traffic and fell in love with the long drive.  The sky was beautiful, the music was heavy, loud and the night air cool coming in my car's windows.  I was young, on the open road and about to set out for adventure.

I arrived in Lock Haven, parked my car, and grabbed just my bags.  I never took a single weapon out of my car, but at least I was ready for the spontaneous weapons class or to you know, supply a small rebellion with arms if necessary.

I eventually got my room assignment - I think I was solo that year because my roommate bailed last minute.  It was at this time that I learned my first important lesson about dorm life.  They don't give you bedding.  So I did what any other tough as nails black belt would do - I rolled out my uniform and slept on it.  I was too embarrassed to ask anyone if they had extra sheets because in my boyish glee to just be attending, I forgot to ask if there was anything I needed to bring (so much for being prepared, I had enough weapons to fight a small army, but no sheets or pillow to sleep on). 

It was upwards of 340 degrees in my dorm room.  We were on top of some god unholy hill on like the 4th floor of a building with no air conditioning.  I was baking for the first part of my night, and spent the first 3-4 hours staring at the ceiling and wondering how the hell I was going to get up in 3 more hours for the first workout.  At some point I fell asleep, and the temperature dropped, because the next thing I knew I was in my uniform, and I had taken all the regular clothes out of my bag and  had them stacked on me like a make shift blanket.

This may sound like pure hell to some of you--sleeping on a ratty college dorm mattress bare, with no blankets, no pillow--but man, it was CTF summer camp!  No matter what, it was going to be awesome!

The first workout was at like 6:30 am, it was "optional" in the sense that you didn't have to wake up and go to it, but Master Lenny Young was going to bang on everyone's door at 5:45 and if you didn't come, he was going to make fun of you in front of a group of people, so it was optional only if you wanted that kind of attention.  Nothing would stop me from getting out there though.

It was a sight.  80 of us, in a dewy field on what would turn out to be a beautiful Saturday in late July.  The sun was just coming over the mountains when the first technique was called out - and the sound of an 80 strong kiap echoed across the field we were in.  Chills my kind readers, absolute chills.  The workout was hard, but satisfying - I was in my glory.

After morning workout we had breakfast.  Always a fast eater, I retreated back to my dorm to take a shower.  After the shower, I came back to my room to find Jim's door open, across the hall and "do you feel like we do" from Peter Frampton blasting out of his portable radio.  Unlike me, Jim came prepared it seemed.

I got dressed, opened my door and just sat on my bed taking it all in.  I didn't go to college out of high school, and when I eventually did go, I didn't live on campus in a dorm, so this was my one and only experience with this sort of lifestyle.  Sitting on my bed, suddenly Farrington bursts into my room....in a full redman suit.  He would proceed to make stereotypical martial arts sounds and do mock techniques.  It was so ridiculous, from someone who was always, always so serious...I don't think I ever laughed as hard as I did at that moment in a TKD setting anyway.  I was a bit hardcore and took it all way too seriously back then, so you have to understand how rare that was to just cut loose.  We were both happy to be there.

The rest of that day I don't really remember.  I know I was whooped, and I was invited to a bar after by the older black belts, even though I don't believe I was old enough to drink yet.  (Again, I forget the year, and subsequent camp trips featured a TON of drinking - almost embarrassingly large amounts of drinking).  All I remember is doing impressions of my favorite black belts.  One black belt in particular who wasn't at camp had the most insane stances, and boy did I do a mean impression of him in the bar that night--everyone was laughing. I think it was the first time I felt like TKD was more than just my thing.  For the first time, people saw me not as some hardcore TKD fanatic, and I thought, maybe that would be ok.

Someone gave me a spare sheet that night, so sleeping was a lot better the second night.  Beer and 8 straight hours of TKD helped a bit too.

All I remember of the Sunday session was getting my ass absolutely beat by Ty Smith in extended outdoor sparring, feeling so sad to be leaving this truly amazing experience and finally understanding Farrington's reason for wanting me to come to camp at least once.  I would go on to go to the next 6 camps in a row, but that was the last camp Jim ever went to.  His time in TKD was coming to a close. 

But every time, and I do mean, every time I hear "Do you feel like we do" - I think of Jim in his redman suit.