Teaching the Cousins Karate

There is no more perfect visual

If you are unfamiliar with the true nerd psyche what you must understand is every nerd believes himself  to be a secret tough guy. Each one is a self prescribed unappreciated cool guy, who is the smartest person he has ever met, a guy who looks amazing in a classic tough guy article of clothing a fedora or duster. His peers disagree with his diagnosis and therefore he is a nerd. 

There is a loophole, it is that kids younger than the nerd are ill equipped to determine what is cool for a kid 2-3 years older than themselves. This leads them to misjudge what a typical cool kid would be interested in or how they should be act for their age. They may not know too much about karate and cannot know if I knew Karate or not. 

I exploited this loophole to my advantage and most of my friends before I was twelve were much younger than me or much older. Older because the trick works both ways, you see? The trick worked well on my younger cousins that would stop in from time to time. I would gather up my fans and regale them with lies about how cool and tough I was. Did I abuse my power? No. I was generous with my completely fake knowledge of all things cool and tough. In the eighties that meant Karate. Every nerd knew that karate would make you invincible. We had all seen a documentary that was quite popular at the time about a nerdy kid who moves to a new town with his mom and gets picked on by rich kids from a rich, mean dojo and is saved by a kindly old karate master. The old man cons the kid into doing endless hours of free work in exchange for teaching him fake Karate. Using his crazy fake Karate the kid defeats the good looking rich kid. If you are interested this documentary is called 'The Karate Kid'. 

When my cousins were over, I would get on the trampoline and impart my vast knowledge of Karate to them through instruction and hands on demonstration. I would teach them the basics like how a kid 4 years older than them could easily defeat their weak techniques. For years after I taught them my unique brand of fake self defense, they would keep me up to date on how they had been practicing and perfecting my techniques. This became increasingly shameful as I grew out of my Karate master phase and they would tell me they had been practicing some inane bit of advice like 'never spin kick without having your arm out to block'. A piece of Karate wisdom I believe I made up in the heat of adoration.