(re:)

of the local toughs who showed up on occasion, some of them left after going through one session and getting their ass handed to them, some started coming as students (and once they got some technique down, those guys were brutal), some started sending their kids.

The one wild-haired guy, IIRC the dojo was finishing up a kids’ class and getting ready to start an adult one, and sensei had pulled his back recently and wasn’t going in too hard, so they invited him to sit in on a class a/o come back some other time and nothing came of it.