Situation Critical

Hitting Soft Targets

- Jason Korol

EVERYONE KNOWS that Jeet Kune Do (and Wing Chun too) favours attacking the so-called soft targets—that is, the eyes, throat, groin, knees, and shins of the enemy. Simple, right? Well, not so fast. Simple never means easy and if we haven’t trained for something consistently, we’ll likely find, under real pressure, that we can’t do it.

For example, when I was a kid I started watching baseball on TV. Like a lot of kids, energised by what I saw, I started playing pretend games around the house and out in the yard. And, you know, I was a natural. I had a beautiful and vicious swing—right away. It was amazing. Seriously. I went to my mother and told her to sign me up for Little League because this was obviously my destiny. Well, she did and I couldn’t wait to play and show the world my innate abilities. I couldn’t wait to start hitting homers. It was going to be amazing and, needless to say, I also wouldn’t have to worry about school anymore either because I’d be fast on my way to making millions of dollars.

Unfortunately, the reality was somewhat different.

I struck out my first at bat.

And my second at bat.

In fact, I don’t think I ever got a hit. My coach, who seemed to have watched Walter Matthau one too many times, never knew my real name. He just called me Stevie—as in Stevie Wonder.

Oh, well. It was back to reality—and homework.