Last night I stood on the platform and waited for my train to take me home. I noticed a guy hanging around the very end of the station, pacing around nervously and otherwise acting strange. A train pulled up to the platform (not mine) and people began to enter and sit down. I noticed then that this man was now on the train and furtively moving down the aisle, even pushing one guy aside as he walked. I watched as he stopped at where a man sat reading, reached across into the reader’s space to grab something, and then quickly exited the train before the doors closed — passing right by where I stood.

I saw what was in his hand: a yellow MUNI transfer. Did this fellow really just enter a boarding train, seek out a passenger with an exposed transfer, snatch it, and leave before the guy even realized what had happened? The theif walked quickly away, totally unnoticed by anyone but me.

It was at this moment that I contemplated how I could have done something, how I could have acted to stop this guy. He was small and skinny; it would have been nothing for me to grab his arm as he passed me and turn to step down on the back of his calf to drop him. But these thoughts all came too late, and I realize it was probably for the best that I did nothing. The edge of the platform was too close. I could have been totally wrong about what had happened (doubtful). I could have hurt him, and then myself been at fault. Over a $1 transfer. It simply wasn’t worth it.

But it was good to think to myself that I have some courage, that there now exists in me the ability to act.

So we went to class last night and trained for three hours. One exercise was to stand in the center of a circle of people, close my eyes, and then my colleagues would take turns pushing me. My response was to be able to drop safely to the floor and roll, with eyes closed, as well as to tune my hearing so that I could tell where they were coming from. It was fun.

This new guy in class started hitting on me before Dale’s session. He came up to me during break when Brian was elsewhere and started asking me about myself, where I’m from, what I do for a living. He did it again during the middle break, and he reeked of cigarette smoke. I grew a bit tired of this when at the end of class he approached me and asked me how I was getting home.

“My boyfriend and I are gonna take a taxi,” I replied, indicating Brian who was helping clean the mats.

“Ohhh! Great!” he said, over-enthusiastically and in a somewhat high-pitched voice. Nipped that in the bud!

I don’t blame a person for flirting, it’s normal. He wasn’t doing anything wrong. But obviously it had to be stopped. Duh. Also I kinda think that class is not really the place for that type of thing; I am there to train, not to find dates.

Anyway, class. We worked on wrist-twists, which have Japanese names that I don’t remember. It was very challenging for such a simple-seeming maneuver. I still don’t quite have that hang of the lines of imbalance. I don’t keep them in mind when I am learning a takedown, and I don’t move enough. “Keep Going!” they say. I need to not stop when I lose my place.