Free The Black Stiletto by Raymond Benson Page A

actual sparring with opponents. I had to practice at home, conditioning my hands and feet on blocks of wood and stone to toughen them up. It hurt like the dickens in the beginning, but I developed very hard calluses on the edges of my hands. Not very ladylike, but I didn’t care. I wore one of those white robes, too, with white pants. They were similar to pajamas, I guess, and in fact the word for them, karategi , means “karate pajamas.” In reality they are kind of a kimono and pants. Students advanced in rank denoted by the color of the belt worn with the karategi . I started with white, of course, which was the lowest rank. In six months I had gone through yellow and was working on green. It would take another year to get a blue. It was very hard work, but Soichiro told me privately that I was a better student than many of the males in his classes. I felt proud and pleased.
    I remember one class very distinctly. It occurred in January 1956. I was eighteen years old.
    For some odd reason, I was the only one who showed up for class. I found out later that Soichiro wanted to give me a private lesson, but at the time he pretended shock that no other student “bothered to show up for his honorable class.” Anyway, Soichiro wanted me to learn some advanced self-defense moves, specifically because I was female. He told me, “In this world, men take advantage of women.” Ha! I could’ve told him some stories about that. At any rate, he picked up a billy club and told me to think of him as an attacker on the street. How would I defend myself? I went through everything I’d been taught so far, but he always managed to break through my defenses and almost hit me, but he’d stop just before the club actually struck. It was very frustrating. Finally, Soichiro stopped the attack and told me to relax and breathe. He was very insistent on relaxing and breathing. I heard those two words a million times in his classes. Anyway, he asked me, “You know where one of most vulnerable spots is on man?”
    Dumb me, I went, “Huh?”
    “Kick him in private area.”
    “ Excuse me ?”
    Soichiro stood in front of me with his legs wide apart. “Look how I stand. Easy to kick between legs. Just aim and kick. You disable opponent.”
    “But, that’s against the rules, ain’t it?” I asked, embarrassed and not a little shocked.
    “No. On street you defend yourself best way you know how. In real situation, no rules. Now try.”
    “What?”
    “Try kick me.”
    “Sensei, I can’t do that. I don’t want to hurt you.”
    “Do not fear. I will block. Come.”
    I prepared myself and he raised the club. He came at me. I eyed the apex where his legs met and lashed out with my long leg. Soichiro raised his right knee so quickly that I barely saw it. He slammed it into my calf, knocking my leg off target. It really hurt, but I got the idea.
    “No one on street know that block,” he said. “You not miss attacker on street.”
    Nodding, I rubbed my leg.
    “Lesson over. See you next week.” And he bowed.
    By the fall of 1956, I was a blue belt. That was pretty high. I just needed to get through brown and advanced-brown, and then I’d get my black belt. That was the highest you could get—except there were also ten levels of black belt, ha ha.
    One night after a lesson with Soichiro, I set out on the walk home to the gym from the West Village. I usually walked the distance between Second Avenue and Christopher Street, which was where Studio Tokyo was located. It was a nice hike. Anyway, it was dark but not very late, not even ten o’clock. I headed towardWashington Square Park, my usual route. Just before I reached it, three hoodlums appeared out of nowhere and confronted me on the street. They wore black leather jackets and looked like characters from that Marlon Brando movie, The Wild One . Probably in their early twenties. White guys.
    “Hey, baby, where you goin’?” one jeered.
    I tried to ignore and push past them, but they