Kostya

We are all sent to school to learn. The thing is, there are two curricula, the official one, taught in classrooms with the aid of blackboards and textbooks, and the myriad of skills you pick up in the corridors and football fields. Some of these skills serve us well for the rest of our adult lives, such as the ability to lie, a talent we all honed during our adolescence and continue to utilise for the rest of our adult lives. There are some skills we learn however, that quickly become redundant once we step outside the cloistered corridors of our beloved learning institutions.

Place enough adolescent boys in a confined environment for more than four minutes, and one will find that almost without fail, their hormones will get the better of them, and testifying (edit: Mild Freudian slip there, my bad) to their primate background, the desire to prove their strength and toughness will override all else. Apparently the best way to do this is to hit each other, but not seriously injure each other.

Over many years, this primal urge was refined, honed and structured into a highly technical and stylised martial art: School Fu. The Masters of School Fu were the Senior Boarders, who passed down the secrets to their young apprentices, who in turn put their knowledge into practice on the newly arrived Grade 8 boys, and in this way, all boys learnt the secret art of School Fu.

School Fu, as far as I know was only seriously practiced in all boys schools, where the high concentrations of testosterone and low concentration of maturity made it an essential element of self defence.

Of course, this probably conjures up images of bullying for everyone reading this, I can see everyone imagining a gigantic boy with no neck karate chopping a bespectacled computer club member in the larynx. School Fu was practiced by all boys, the nerds did it to the Rugby stars, the potheads attacked the fundamentalist Christians, and vice versa. The nature of School Fu, negated the size and strength of any opponent, for School Fu rests upon the twin pillars of surprise and speed.

Surprise: Almost all School Fu moves are executed on unwitting opponents, from behind.

Speed: Immediately after any attack, one must make a rapid retreat.

School Fu is a form of combat which focuses primarily upon pressure points, tripping moves and inflicting pain without leaving marks. It seems like a joke, but I assure you that the highly technical nature of School Fu is akin to any martial art. Consider the seemingly basic operation of the ‘Chicken Wing’.

The Chicken Wing

The Chicken Wing involves striking an opponent mid way up the forearm, causing them to involuntarily retract their arm into a pose resembling funnily enough a chicken wing.

1. Who is the opponent?

One must ask oneself, how fast can this guy run? Will I be able to escape into the safety of the Library in time, perhaps if I go through the fire exit I will be able to lose him. How tough is this person? Will they take a long time to recover their wits, or will they immediately give me a Dead Arm as a counter attack? Is he expecting this attack? Do I really want to have to spend the rest of the day in constant vigilance to defend against reprisals?

2. Fist shape.

The Chicken Wing is generally thrown in a downward swinging motion, the way a Yo-yo is thrown, maximising the whiplash effect on impact. When throwing a Chicken Wing in this way, one uses a normal fist shape. However, if one was attempting to Chicken Wing a raised defensive forearm, or attacking from a crouched position, it is better to use the Crow Peck formation of the fist. The Crow Peck fist is simply a normal fist, except with the second joint (not the knuckle) of the middle finger protruding from the front of your fist, generally supported by locking the index finger underneath it. The Crow Peck fist is used in jabbing motion, so that the impact of the fist is transferred into a very small surface area, allowing for more accurate blows to nerve centres, joints and bones.

3. Placement of blow

Generally, the Chicken Wing is delivered to the gap between the sinewy muscles on the top of the forearm. Rest assured, this is quite painful. It is however possible for the more skilled student of School Fu to strike in the crook of the elbow, an even more debilitating, but difficult target.

4. Strength of Blow

Closely related to the placement of a Chicken Wing, is how hard one delivers it. If it is essential to be successful in your Chicken Wing, then it is best to sacrifice force for accuracy, for the harder and faster a novice attempts to do so, the more chance there is of the blow landing inaccurately and being ineffective. If the aim is simply to get attention, a light blow which causes a sensation somewhat akin to a mild bump on the funny bone is best. If under attack with no retreat, it is best to strike, hard, strike fast, and hope that you find your mark, for a successful Chicken Wing of that magnitude is sure to give one time to escape.

If you were to walk the corridors of my old school today, you could watch boys engaged in this delicate operation of Chicken Winging their peers. What seems to be a random act of boisterous comradery is in fact a highly premeditated and sophisticated operation.

Of course, simple hand to hand combat was only one form of School Fu. There was also a variety of weapons available to the School Fu warrior. Weapons were more popular in classrooms, as they tended to be more silent, and allowed one to attack and defend against opponents at opposite ends of the classroom. Probably the most popular of all weapons was the lethal 'Paper Wasp'.

‘The Paper Wasp’

The etemology of The Paper Wasp is interesting. Some say it is derived from the actual insect of the same name with a bad temper and a worse sting. Other say it is simply because it is made of paper. Paper Wasps are simple and quick to make, and if made well are a potent addition to any School Fu arsenal.

Instructions:

1. Take a strip of paper roughly the size of a bookmark.
2. Fold the paper across the width so that a strip of approximately 1cm is at the top.
3. Continue to fold this over and over itself until the entire piece of paper used up
4. You should now have a thick wad, the length of which was formerly the width of the bookmark
5. Fold this piece of paper in half across the width.
6. You paper should be like a thick A, this is a Paper Wasp.

Once the Paper Wasp was made, after some practice in a very short time, it is then loaded into a rubber band. To do this simply place the rubber band between your thumb and forefinger to create a sling shot of sorts. Then hook the Paper Wasp over the rubber band so that the point of the A is facing outward, and the rubber band is hooked in behind the point. Then firmly grasp the two ends of youre A, draw the Paper Wasp back, aim and fire.

A well made Paper Wasp, fired from 5 or 6 metres with a decent rubber band leaves welts and occasionally surface bruising. In Summer, when everyone wears shorts, the back of the knee is easiest and most effective place to hit somebody. In Winter, everybody is wearing long pants, jumpers (sweaters in America) or blazers (a thick suit jacket in the school colours, practically Kevlar to Paper Wasps), so one needs to be more accurate, aiming for the backs of hands, through the thin cotton of a shirt into the belly or chest and if you fancy yourself a sharp shooter, the exposed nape of the neck. Of course you could also make armour piercing Paper Wasps, which means you simply fold a giant paper clip or bent wire into your Paper Wasp, though these were considered dangerous weapons by teachers, and therefore risky.

I recall, for research only creating the most aerodynamic and powerful Paper Wasp ever seen. Basically it was a fence link, a U shaped piece of aluminium wire perhaps three or four millimetres in diameter, fired from four rubber bands ties together and suspended between either both hands and drawn back with my teeth, or between my feet sitting down. As demonstration I pierces a rubbish bin, shot clean through a large apple and hit a board across the road from my house with enough speed to chip it. Of course, it was potentially lethal, so I abandoned the research after I almost accidentally broke Catchy’s finger.

Other weapons include, slightly modified rulers, potractors, set squares, food, pebbles, seed pods, thin supple sticks from trees, keys, rubber bands, towels, pens and pencils, rubbers (erasers in the US), shoeslaces, shoes, paper clips and books.

I was never a true master of School Fu, failing to truly progress beyond defensive moves and singular counter attacks. Although I did develop a high tolerance to pain, since I was a smartarse and was constantly being bombarded with blows, I think the point of my right shoulder became immune to pain for a few years there. Those with natural talent would disable a person three times their size with a rapid combo, and be chatting to a teacher in total safety in 30 seconds.

Of course, in the real world, School Fu is practically useless. You can’t use it to defeat muggers, oppressive government agents or feature it in movies with bad dubbing. You can use it to annoy your friends, force your little brother to surrender the remote and the feeble attacks of your female friends are laughably ineffective against a nervous system dulled by years of abuse. Apart from that though, it is a dead art. To an outsider it must seem even more insane than it does to me in retrospect, but I guess to even come close to understanding it, you had to attend a school where for the first three years the traditional greeting was an unceremonious punch in the shoulder. ‘Oi Simmy’ THUMP, ‘Kostyaaaaaaa’ THUMP ‘what have you got first period bro?’

Nevertheless I carry to this day the secrets of School Fu student of a dead art. Such as the fact that at a certain point in a person’s stride, a well timed tap to the back of the knee will bring them crashing to the ground. Simple attacks such as ‘Dead Arm’, ‘Sternum Rub’ and the classic ‘Kappa’, as well as those more elabourate and sinister sounding moves I mastered in my later years such as the difficult ‘Weak Knees’ and ‘Kneecap’. I know what kind of Paper Wasp to make to maximise distance or impact. I know that extremely sensitive pressure points can be found around the base of the neck, behind the jaw, between ribs, in the wrist and on the shoulders. For a while I was able to consistently hit the funny bone with a Crow Peck, but alas my skills have become rusty, and now I’m lucky if I hit it at all.

Every limb in my body is a slightly irritating weapon!