⊰ Magician ⊱

Many years ago, back in high school, I practiced kung fu. I was on the team and trained every day after school at the community center next to my home. All the other trainees—and even the instructor—were new immigrants from Russia and the surrounding areas, and I was the only Israeli.

One day I arrived at training and saw the instructor (uchitel) Vladimir talking with the community center director. My teacher was as angry as I had never seen him before. He also taught us Tai Chi and was generally a tolerant, calm person. I sometimes tell this story under the title “The Day I Saved the Life of the Community Center Director.”

I managed to piece together from the other trainees what had been said before I got there. The situation was that my instructor had asked the director for training weapons, mats, a training pole (a wooden post with sticks), and more, and the director’s response was that he had no way of obtaining all that - or, as he put it, “What, am I a magician?”
At THAT point, my instructor lost his cool; remarks like “Why curse? There’s no reason to talk to me like that” were exchanged, and then I started to probe into what in the wording had triggered such an intense emotional reaction - until I discovered the source of the problem.

As it turned out, the instructor, who was also a new immigrant, had misunderstood the hebrew word “Kosem” (magician). He thought that was the masculine form referring to the curse word “Kusamak” (which he assumed was its feminine version). Once the actual meaning of the word was explained to him, everything was set right. In the end, we even got most of the weapons and items he had requested during that conversation.