“Try to keep up.” Ryan Cole smiled as he said it. Across from him stood a young woman he had spent the last twenty minutes treating as if she had accidentally wandered...
Gyms have hierarchies. Some are written on belts. Some on competition medals. Some on how long a person has trained. And some are never written anywhere at all. They exist in who...
There was a particular kind of silence that fell over Apex Striking and Grappling when Tyler Mason realized the woman beneath him was no longer playing the role he had assigned her....
The first black belt lasted forty-one seconds. The second lasted twenty-eight. The third made it to fifty-six. Those numbers would be replayed online for years. They would be slowed down, circled in...
“Keep up if you can.” Evan Mercer smiled when he said it. Not viciously. Not like a movie villain. Almost playfully. That was why half the room laughed. Thirty-six-year-old Maya Carter did...
“New people get a welcome lesson.” Cole Barrett said it with a smile. That was the first thing Renee Carter disliked about Iron Forge Martial Arts. Not the sentence itself. The smile....
“Pick somebody who doesn’t look like a fighter.” The comment came from the back of the room. A few people laughed. Thirty-one-year-old Mason Cole stood in the center of Northbridge Combat Academy...
The bell rang. Maya Bennett tapped. Once. Twice. Three times. Ryan Holt did not release. For one strange second, nobody inside Harbor Point Jiu-Jitsu moved. Maya felt the pressure remain after the...
“Just for fun.” Derek Vaughn smiled as he said it. That smile was what made Tasha Reed look up. Not the words. The words sounded harmless. People said just for fun in...
The tap came once. Then twice. Then a third time, harder. Nobody at Northpoint Jiu-Jitsu misunderstood what it meant. Not the white belts along the wall. Not the teenagers waiting for...