Epilogue
The Impossible: The Mr. Miyagi’d Amygdala
I’m a hustler. I’m a gangster and a rebel with the rank of a general/In the battle between God and the Devil/I lay claim to your spirit, your religion, your belief system/I’ll be your hitter, your pitcher, and your relief pitcher/This kid’s proficient in every position/The man of your dreams and your nightmares commanding your vision.[1] – Talib Kweli
Brothers front/They say the tribe can’t flow/But we’ve been known to do the impossible like Broadway Joe, so/Sleep if you want, like we’ll help you get your Z’s true/but here’s the real scoop.[2] – Phife Dawg
A woman entered my dojo and stated matter-of-factly, “I heard you have a gift with children.” It was midday and quiet in the dojo as lessons had yet to pick up, and I felt an uplift in my spirit as this is an indication of someone who wishes to sign her child up for karate. But as she proceeded, the uplift in my spirit retracted. It was the first time I’d ever considered not giving a child a chance, because based on her description, it not only seemed unlikely I could help him, but I feared for his own safety.
The ten-year-old boy’s name was Ihsh. He’d suffered numerous prenatal strokes, was diagnosed with autism and cerebral palsy, endured two open-heart surgeries, and was slated to undergo a third. His vision was compromised. He walked with the most severe cerebral palsy limp I’d ever seen, as his off-center gait rotated his right toes inward almost 90 degrees, threatening his knee’s well-being. His right heel was lifted perhaps four inches off the ground, as he bounced off the right front ball of his foot to gain the momentum for successful locomotion. Sometimes, he wore stilts. Finally, he had little to no use of his right arm and hand, the arm of which hung like a dead weight from his shoulder, waving in ovals at the mercy of his heavily rotating torso as he moved. His hand was kept in the form of a balled-up fist, with his thumb protruding from between his middle and ring fingers. He worked with occupational therapists and was a patient at Johns Hopkins, yet, as a last resort, his aunt requested the help of a karate instructor. I asked her if I could have some time to think and took a few days doing that.
I’d never refused a child from my dojo, not even one in a wheelchair or those who couldn’t afford it. I took pride in empowering children whose parents seemed repetitive in their intakes, “No one has been able to help him. He’s in therapy. He sees an occupational therapist. I don’t know what to do. Do you think you can help?” I told her to bring him in and as I observed Ihsh bouncing through my lobby hallway, I endured contradictory sensations. First, I thought to myself, “Oh no. No way. It’s out of my pay grade. He’s gonna get hurt. He’s going to compromise the class.” I asked myself, “How far is too far?” But I could not help but adore the child, who wore an embarrassed blushing grin reminiscent of Jack’s from Chapter 3. It signaled he still maintained a passion for life, even given all of his struggles. Most obviously his arm just dangled like a useless cut of meat. And his hand, like a ball of tangled wires. There is no way I can accept him. But I succumbed to the boy’s heart and I asked them to bring him into my office.
I wanted to measure his ability to move his arm. “Give me five,” I said to the boy. He lifted his left hand, and I interrupted, “No, the other hand, Ihsh.” Instead of offering his right hand, he lifted his right foot as a substitute. “Nope, the right hand Ihsh. Give me five with your hand.” He lifted his left foot. It became clear he would rather walk on hot coals than be asked to use his right arm and hand. How could he not? Can you imagine the hours logged crying over the inability to hold a game controller? Even at age ten, his father still wiped his bottom. And who gets their bottoms wiped? Infants and toddler, around whom he finds himself resembling the ones being spoon-fed, day after day, year after year, until finally, his father asks his sister-in-law to go talk to the karate guy. How desperate could they have been?
Finally, he gives in. He sulks. He turns his vision westward so as not to have to observe his own pathetic attempt at failing at using this pseudo-limb. He begins to rotate his core to generate momentum, the balled-up fist now waving in larger circles. He makes his best effort to loft his hand in the direction of mine. He fails. It doesn’t even make it halfway. I recover by lowering my hand so that he can meet it with his fist. In this instance, I was aware, I may have finally over-compromised myself and if I was going to succeed at this mission that neither him nor his father was aware I’d committed to, I had to know who we was.
…
Compounding the horror was that Ihsh was perceptive. Once, we were sitting side by side in the back of the dojo while the kids were in group class. We kept a “belt rack” on the wall, showcasing the order of the ranks. At the bottom of the rack is white. Above it is yellow, then orange, purple, blue-stripe, full blue, green-stripe, full green, brown, and on top is black. Kids in the dojo wore two colors of uniforms, white and black. Kids always inquire, “Why do they get the black uniforms?” But Ihsh was the first student ever to notice the order, analyze the kids’ belt colors and uniforms, turn to me and say, “They get the black uniforms at purple belt.”
If he was observant enough to notice that, then imagine how keen he must have been towards his social awkwardness. While he’d made progress using his arm, it was slow and unpromising, and we proved unable to enable cortical management of his fingers and hand.
Dr. Kelly Lambert of the University of Richmond emphasized the importance of hands in neural development and emotional well-being in a TEDx talk:
“The cerebellum hanging off the back of our brains, it contains about 80% of our brain’s neurons. Eighty percent! And what does a cerebellum do…it’s most noted for its role in controlling our motor coordination and…involved in coordinating and facilitating our movement…the area that controls the hand is disproportionally large. It seems like nature is telling us, ‘Movement is incredibly important.’ And movement of our hands is also very important.”[1] (italics added)
Lambert continued, suggesting a lack of hand engagement as a correlate of depression, “In fact, our ancestors’ dependence on their hands in interacting with the environment to provide the resources just to live for that day, might have been the original Prozac, the prehistoric Prozac.”[2] I admit to having secretly endeavored upon the more critical course prioritizing his hand, one unlikely to succeed. But when you believe the impossible becomes achievable.
[1] Talib Kweli, “Everything Man,” track 1 on Eardrum, Blacksmith Records, 2007.
[2] A Tribe Called Quest, “Scenario,” The Low End Theory, Jive Records, 1991.
[1] Kelly Lambert, “Improving our Neuroplasticity,” TEDxBermuda, Southampton, Devonshire, October 2019, 2 min, 29 sec., https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gOJL3gjc8ak.
[2] Lambert, “Improving our Neuroplasticity,” 6 min, 15 sec.
