Skinks, Drywall, and my first win

Part of Four Days in London: A memoir about trying to find a way to the Olympics, and finding something else instead. These events took place between January 2001 and May 2002.

I had been repeatedly informed that despite issues in school, that I was considered a generally bright kid for my age. Despite all of this, combined with the struggles of the previous semester, I came home one day to ask my parents if I was mentally disabled. I don’t remember the exact timing of this event, but I do know it happened around the time I went to Boston Children’s hospital.

I have no memory of having gone to Boston Children’s prior to that day. I will note that I was impressed with how comfortable it felt. Hospitals can be a scary place for children, even adolescents, and this place felt comfortable. I was to undergo a battery of tests that would take the entire day.To some extent this wasn’t my first rodeo. I had undergone a series of tests years ago when I was struggling to learn how to read. Walking into that hospital it was evident that this was going to be different. This event had an air of being much more important.

I remember carrying around two items. The first being my gameboy color with my beloved copy of Pokemon Silver. The second being a handbook on different lizards and snakes. At that time I was obsessed with blue tongued skinks and leopard geckos. My mother had recently bought me a leopard gecko for my birthday. Even had that not been the case, I had been enamored with reptiles (which had grown out of love of dinosaurs) since I was very young.

I spent the day speaking with different specialists. These interactions included a humorous exchange where a child psychologist asked me what animal I would be if I was one. I responded I’d be a Utah Raptor (Utahraptor ostrommaysorum) and then spent the rest of the conversation pivoting to the topic of the blue tongued skink so efficiently it would impress members of congress. Throughout many of these tests I would try to change whatever topic we were on to discussing skinks.

Years later I got a chance to read the results of the testing. To this day I’m not sure whether or not the opening phrase “Christopher is a peculiar and unique child” should be taken as a compliment. That said it was interesting to read those reports as an adult. I showed advanced capabilities for my age group in several categories but was notably well behind in gross and fine motor skills. I effectively had the hand-eye coordination of a squeaky wooden door.

The end result as it was explained to me was that I was on the autism spectrum. I did not have a classical case of aspergers syndrome*, as apparently I was somehow too socially aware (which may come as a shocker to friends), but I would effectively be treated for it. My mother when she sat me down to explain this to me, gave me a copy of the book “Eating an Artichoke”. Admittedly I only ever skimmed it but the cover was forever engrained in my memory for its odd title. The original draft of this chapter was titled “how to eat an artichoke”.

Part of the therapy I would be receiving was occupational therapy. Every Friday I would spend part of my morning with the occupational therapist for the rest of middle school. In a weird way this actually helped my attendance since I enjoyed the exercises. I had other accommodations such as extended time and access to the special education department.

Around this time I started to get progressively more interested in judo. There were several books lying around the house on judo that belonged to my father. I started asking my father regularly about stories from his days of training. My dad had trained under Jimmy Pedro Sr. and with the Olympian Tommy Martin when he was in high school and well into his twenties. Many of his closest friends were people he had met on the judo mat, just as would be the case for me. He had started by taking a summer school class, and progressed to eventually representing the United States at a series of team tournaments in Germany.

Oddly enough I had no real previous interest in sports. Outside of running foot races with friends or playing games in gym class it just wasn’t area of interest for me. I had tried wrestling very briefly, but it didn’t stick. My parents had made the effort to get my brother and I into snowboarding and skiing. Skiing lasted less than a week when I tore my MCL. Snowboarding was an ongoing project however at that point I really wasn’t that interested. I was otherwise clearly falling into the category of nerd. My little brother by this point was already catching up to me in physical ability despite a nearly three year difference in age.

The summer after the tests at the hospital my parents informed my brother and I we would be starting judo. This was one of the first times since I had become genuinely excited about something that wasn’t a computer game (though in my defense Asheron’s Call and Freespace 2 were great games). Truthfully, I had been in an ongoing funk for almost a year. With the benefit of hindsight I recognize it was connected to the death of my grandmother. My first practice would be on July 30th 2001. The practice was at 5:30 PM in the afternoon.

When I first met Jimmy Pedro (Jimmy Pedro Seniors son) I was really excited. I had never met anyone who had gone to the Olympics before. The whole event felt a little overstimulating to me but I carried on due to sheer excitement. I put on my new judo uniform and after bowing in to formally begin practice we started to jog. I was so excited that I started off too quickly. I didn’t have enough coordination to turn away and I ran straight into a wall. I left a hole in the dry wall and was immediately upset. Years later Jimmy would recount this story while handing me an award for perseverance in judo.

Despite this initial hiccup I was hooked on judo almost immediately. My best friend joined judo with his brother at the same time. Along with my little brother we had a nice group of training partners starting around the same time. Part of what made judo really fun for me back then was seeing my friends. They unfortunately couldn’t stay in judo.

I was tall for my age and soon I started doing back to back practices with the adults and the kids. I was one of the smallest people in the adult class. My only regular training partner for the first couple years who was near my size was a teenager named Shirley. Shirley had her brown belt when I started judo and she promptly kicked my ass until she left for college.

I started competing relatively quickly at local tournaments. I didn’t win a single match for almost the entire first year I competed. Even though I would get my ass kicked, I found I was instinctually competitive. I wanted to win even though I couldn’t make my body do what I wanted it to do. It became an obsession. Now that I think of it there are times I honestly wonder if what kept me from judo wasn’t just an interest in the sport, but a strong inner drive to win.

Finally at a tournament in upstate New York my fortune would change. I had been training for almost a year and had just passed my orange belt test. The week before the tournament Jimmy taught me a move called the sit out choke. It was a beginner choke you learned before transitioning into the clock choke series (okuri eri jime). My division in New York had three people in it. Both of my opponents were purple belts, with one named John and the other was named Nick Delpopolo.

My first match was against John who began to thrash me. I still was somewhat wobbly on my feet and he was much more experienced. I didn’t really have an answer for him. After going without winning a match a nearly a year a minor miracle happened. John dropped to his knees for a shoulder throw and it didn’t work. He was on all four as my right hand drifted to his left collar, passing underneath his chin. I jumped forward, throwing my legs out in front me. He began to tap out before I hit the ground.

The next round I fought Nick. I threw him once with tomoenage, which I had learned by reading a book Jimmy had written and imagining doing the throw over and over again in my head. Unfortunately I didn’t score, and Nick threw me to win the match shortly after. I would lose my rematch to John, but after almost a year, even if it had been fluke, I had finally won a match. I beamed with pride the entire car ride home.