Alcides Escobar Is Karate-Chopping His Own Self

The author — because he studied the relevant martial art as a five-year-old in the basement of a Concord-area* travel agency — knows that the karateka never uses his training to initiate combat, but only to defend himself.

*Concord, New Hampshire (i.e. where all the best dojos are located).

As the footage embedded here suggests, however, that precept has been problematized today by Kansas City shortstop Alcides Escobar — who, as anyone with eyes can see, is very clearly karate-chopping his own self.

Indeed, it’s not outside the realm of the possible that Escobar is making a subtle, if important, point: it is the individual’s own ego, ambition, and desire which are his greatest enemies, not the buffoons of a martial-arts film or evil Cobra Kai sensei John Kreese.