Friday, September 12, 2008

Mistakes of Tactic

First of all I’d like to give a nod to the Dorsai series of the Childe Cycle, written by Gordon Dickson, for not only the inspiration for what happened, but for the inspiration it has offered. My wife has told me that I should do a bibliography of all the books which I’ve found to be a positive influence in my life but I’m afraid that it would be another project all in its own right. I can, however, heartily recommend the perusal of whatever library is physically available to you. Not an e-library, a real paper and cloth, sometimes even a few limited edition books, type of library. It’s a highly addictive (positive addiction, folks!) and mind opening experience.
But I digress
This story isn’t all that long in the telling, but I believe it to be highly indicative of the type of martial education that I’ve had.
I’ve already touched on the fact that my numerous uncles had done their best to insure that my brothers and I knew the truth of the philosophy of the martial arts and not just the “t.v.” version but, in truth, it went even deeper than that, they also required us to think; critically. Were we to dare give them an answer to anything without sufficient thought, well, how long can you tread water?
On this particular day, Uncle Frank was teaching us aerial techniques. Flying side kick, aerial roundhouse (your legs had better be in PRIME shape), jumping front kick, all the pretty moves that appear so devastatingly effective in television and silver screen. At the end of the class, however, he made a puzzling statement, “Now remember, looks pretty isn’t always good on the street, next class we talk about this some more.”
So why then, had we just spent two hours on learning and practicing those kicks? It sure felt good, not to mention that they were a whole lot of fun to do. There was something about watching boards disintegrate under your bare foot that just rocks!! I still enjoy it!
After I stowed my gi and showered up I tried to talk to Uncle Frank about the kicks but he was too busy and Mom was on a tight schedule. So the answer apparently had to wait another week.
Well, the next week came but Uncle Frank was busy working on a project with a film crew (I found out later that it was a commercial for Ford) and wouldn’t be conducting the class. Bob P. was leading the class and he didn’t have any sort of an answer about why Uncle Frank had cautioned us about using the kicks.
So there I was, two weeks worth of practice at doing aerial kicks and no idea why I wasn’t supposed to use them.
That is, until I tried to use them in a fight.
By that time, fights had become a daily fact of life for me. When I awoke in the morning, I could count on three absolutes:
(1) I was going to take care of my dogs
(2) I was going to listen to my Mother
(3) I was going to get into a fight
Pretty much anything else was optional or up for grabs.
This time it was with Ken G., the son of a local police officer and pretty much a punk no matter how you figured such things. I had been practicing the kicks steadily for almost a month, at every chance I could get in my sanctum sanctorum (and no, I’m not telling where it was) where I had a heavy bag and weights set up. I was feeling pretty good about the kicks and had lost any idea of asking Uncle Frank why we shouldn’t use them in a fight. After all, even Uncle Frank had commended me for my technical mastery of the skills.
Note, technical mastery should not be confused with actual mastery.
A fact that I was about to learn.
Well, Ken came across the street just to tell me that he wanted my hat (I’ve always had some sort of fatal attraction to various types of hats, this one was a martial arts themed baseball hat); once having made his desires known he promptly snatched the hat from my head and stood there waiting for my response. I stood there for a moment, with a look on my face that my mother swears she’s only seen on the visage of a hungry animal about to kill something.
One other thing, Ken is a few years (probably close to a decade) my senior and stood head and shoulders over me.
For whatever reason, I still can’t attest that I was even thinking at that point, I decided to try one of the aerial kicks right then and there; the crescent kick was my weapon of choice.
Let’s just say that it probably worked better in one of my movies than it did that day in Aurora. Poetically enough it took place at about noon.
Ken probably enjoyed it to a certain extent; he always had trouble getting one up on any of us.
The end result was that I was bounced on my head a couple of times before he let me go, still in possession of my hat. He was pretty well convinced that he couldn’t lose at that time.
Mom didn’t even blink when I got home. The only thing she asked was how the other guy looked. When I told her that I hadn’t even managed to touch him she said, “Well then you go out there right now, and make sure that he knows that he was in a fight.” With that having been said, she went back to washing dishes.
Mom was always one of the all time great pragmatic philosophers.
So I promptly walked back out the back door, across the back field and over to Ken’s house. I stood there looking at him for a couple of moments; he was seated on his front stoop with one of his buddies, sipping on a cola. He chuckled and said, “Back for a rematch?”
I let my fists do the talking, three or four quick jabs followed by a right cross. He went down like a cheap date on payday.
“Yep”
As I was taking my hat from his head his father arrived, having just got off shift. He didn’t even blink, just asked if I came to get my hat back, I told him yes; he chuckled and told me to tell my mother that he said hello.
I delivered his message.
That week, when I had a chance to talk with Dad he asked why I tried such a damn fool stunt to begin with, and I explained my reasoning. By that time, hindsight made it sound REALLY stupid. He didn’t laugh, too hard, but explained that real gung-fu is about what works for the fighter, not just technical mastery of a technique that physics argues against. Then he smiled and told me to make certain that I asked Uncle Frank why he had taught us aerial techniques.
Well, I got pretty much the same Q&A from Uncle Frank about what happened. He reiterated what Dad had told me and added, “Those techniques are coordination and speed drills, without a good setup, they won’t ever work in a street fight. As a matter of fact, they were only intended to be an escape technique, to help you get out of a bad situation where nothing else is working.”
Well, I’m happy to say that I’ve had the opportunity to deliver that same lecture, on that same subject, to a number of die hard tae kwon do aficionados who have way too much time on their hands and way too little sense.
Like Uncle Frank, Dad and all my uncles taught me, critical thinking is CRUCIAL!

It's not about anger - it's about peace
It's not about power - it's about grace
It's not about knowing your enemy - it's about knowing yourself.

the Monk

Monday, August 25, 2008

The Mercy of a Warrior

This lesson, I almost didn’t get, understand, or figure out. Despite the lesson being taught to me from about half a dozen different directions and very nearly as many teachers.
It would probably be a safe bet to say that the lesson started in the training hall. My Uncle Bill (it was over a decade before I knew that he wasn’t a blood relation, he’s still my uncle though) was teaching my brothers and I about the old Okinawan karate masters. He’d read to us from this ancient book, explaining to us about the parts that they didn’t go into detail on. A lot of it was basic Buddhism, but it was still great to hear about it from him. I thought I had been paying attention to it all; so when Uncle Frank (Kovacks-sensei) told us break was over and Uncle Bill asked if I understood the lesson I answered with a very non-committal, “Yeah.”
Hmmmm, I should probably have answered, “No.”
The reason he had selected the subject that he did, was because there was this EXTREMELY noxious teen ager who was constantly giving my brothers and I a hard time. Derisive comments, racial epithets when he thought no one could hear him and no opportunity to “accidentally” lose control, with one of us, passed up. All this because Kovacks-sensei wouldn’t permit him to advance, and the youngest of my brothers (number four son) outranked him by two belt levels. He refused to listen when Torack-sensei tried to explain to him that his own attitude was causing him to remain at that belt level (yes, there was a time in the American martial arts when your attitude was more important than your cash flow).
This particular day it was especially bad, Uncle Bill, Uncle Frank and Uncle Harvey (Torack-sensei) all could see that my temper was getting short. He had managed to cuff one of my brothers (number two son) while we were lined up for makiwara practice and it was an especially cheap shot. Even though he was caught and had to do push ups he was still grinning. I was doing a slow boil (yes, I am known to have a bit of a temper) and they all knew that if he pushed much more that something was going to happen.
Well, it happened. He cheap shotted me, with a front kick, while we practiced self defense techniques. I got up, straightened my gi and went to Kovacks-sensei, everyone watched as I asked for an “honor” match. This was his way of allowing two deshi (student/apprentices) to settle their differences, preferably with no blood shed. He waited for a moment before asking what rules. I had to choose from one of three levels, beginner, tournament (it was a LOT different in those days, you had to know how to REALLY fight and “take a bump”) or street; as the higher ranked deshi it was my choice. Kovacks-sensei could over ride my choice, if he thought it inappropriate, but he generally didn’t interfere as long as the lower belt agreed to it. I chose street rules, which basically didn’t eliminate a lot except bone breaks and strikes that could be fatal if followed through. He looked at the punk and asked if he agreed, the overgrown twerp smiled happily and said, “Sure, it’s his loss.” Kovacks-sensei looked at me for a moment, then said, “K____, don’t hurt him bad, he doesn’t know any better.” I didn’t say anything, but Uncle Bill later told me that he was scared for the kid when he saw the look in my eyes.
The fight went pretty much as anyone who had fought me before expected it to; he tried to muscle me and I went low, staying out of his reach and waiting for a chance. I hammered on his thighs and shins whenever he got close. Eventually he could hardly stand, but he kept trying, to this day I don’t think that he believed that there was any way he could lose the fight. Ax kicks, roundhouse kicks and side kicks all went in volley after volley, straight to his legs. When I saw him teetering, I went in for the finish, a reverse punch to the groin, from a low horse stance, which put him on the floor. While he writhed in pain I walked up to him; stood there watching him for a moment. Then everyone cold hear this low, growling kiai (spirit shout) building.
As it came up, so did my foot; at the same time that the kiai erupted from my throat my foot came down in a dragon stomp toward his head. His eyes grew larger with fear as he realized what was about to happen. Very nearly at the same time I heard Uncle Bill shouting, “Iyai! Yame!” Japanese terms which I knew all too well, “No, Stop,” and I did stop, barely an inch from his face. I stood there, shaking from the effort of stopping a full power strike before it impacted.
Kovacks-sensei directed me to sit at the other end of the mat before he knelt down beside the terrified boy. “Do you see why he’s ranked higher than you? Did you see the skill? Do you understand the control that it took for him to stop when Bill told him to?” He turned to Uncle Bill, “Get your herbs, fix his legs for him.” He then turned to me, “We need to talk, in my office.”
I stood there, in front of his desk (only the first of many desks, I can assure you) half afraid that I was going to hear the words I’d come to dread, “You can’t come back again.” He sat there looking at me for a long time before speaking, “What you did to his legs isn’t important, Uncle Bill can fix that easily,” he gazed intently at me, “it’s what you were going to do next,” his eyes narrowed, “do you understand why it was the wrong choice?”
“No”
“Why?”
“He wouldn’t listen to any of you Kovacks-sensei, not you, not Uncle Bill or even Uncle Harvey, he just kept on.” Kovacks-sensei leaned in closer as I continued, “he would have kept on until he managed to hurt one of us as badly as he could” I was shaking with barely restrained rage at the thought, I had always been taught that I was expected to do what I could to protect my family, “There was only one way to stop him.”
Kovacks-sensei sat back thinking, while his pencil tapped out a rhythm, before speaking again, “I understand your concerns, but there was another choice you could have made. I want you to think about it before the next class. If you can’t give me a better answer by then, I don’t know if I’ll be able to continue teaching you.” He had me go change back to street clothes while he talked to my mother.
A week, that was all I had to figure out what he was talking about. A week to make sense of a question that older heads than mine had never comprehended. I was screwed.
The next act of this little drama took place in Lyons’ general store. I was over there with my best friend, Dale. We were perusing the comic books commenting on what things most young boys will comment on, Mr. Lyons and Grandpa Wilson were standing by the counter talking when I managed to put my foot into it again, up to the thigh this time.
At issue, was the latest issue of a horror comic which had a scene, at the end, where the villain meets his poetic end. Dale laughed about it; I just got a sour look and told him that a similar situation might be ending my karate lessons. That comment caught Grandpa Wilsons’ attention, he walked over and asked, “What are you talking about, boy?” I then told him the whole sorry tale, hoping for at least a LITTLE sympathy from SOMEONE.
Oops, my bad.
His first comment reflected on my stupidity for freely tossing out the information that I was taking karate lessons (never mind about the stories in the local papers, the Cleveland Press and the Plain Dealer. He then proceeded to lambast me for what I did, “What were you thinking? You would have sent him to the Creator for what? For being STUPID? What gives you the right? What would he have learned?”
“But....”
“But nothing, boy, the only ‘but’ around here is the gigantic butt you made of yourself yesterday” he leaned in closer, “Do you know what mercy is, boy? Do you know that THAT is the way of our people?”
Our people? Whuzzee talkin’ about?
“We never, NEVER kill if it isn’t necessary, and never out of anger. Our people offer the fools who torment us the opportunity to learn the error of their ways by demonstrating that we could easily do away with them, and then we offer them a chance, but only one chance, to show that they’ve learned the error of their ways.” He leaned in closer, “And sometimes, you learn that you’ve taught someone respect, that listening with the heart is the solution to their problems. Sometimes, you even learn that you’ve made a friend.”
He turned to leave; saying as he did so,“Go home boy, think about what I told you.”
Why is it I was always listening to that old nut?
The next day Gunny (my father) had business in Cleveland, at the family house and with some of my uncles to arrange for supplies for a catering job. He asked if I wanted to go with him and I jumped at the chance. Didn’t, and still don’t, much like Cleveland but it’s where I was born and it still remains my third home (Toronto is number two on that list!).
While Gunny was busy I usually ran around little China, popping in at the restaurants and being “disreputable” with my cousins. Generally we’d swipe Cokes from the Shanghai (as if my uncle didn’t notice) and hang out near the corner where the family house was located. Big John was generally to be found somewhere nearby, walking his beat (a giant of a man, even among cops) and shooing us “off the street.” He knew that we were never far from him, he was always good for some penny candy or a great cops-n-robbers story.
That day I was bumming, all my cousins were either working or in school (alright, so I was playing hooky, it was educational !!!) and Big John was actually having to work. All normal options having been exhausted I went searching to see if any of my uncles or aunts were to busy to hang out with.
Strike out, after strike out ... I went down the street looking for ANYBODY to hang out with, not even Uncle Andy (at the Rockwell truck terminal) was available, he was on a run to Florida and wouldn’t be back until Saturday. Now what?
So I went prowling around the “hidden” parts of little China. Now, to make it perfectly clear, the hidden parts weren’t so much hidden, as they just were without signs. They were, and probably still are, a fact of life in a Chinese community. These are places where you might find anything from a healer, to a gung-fu instructor, and everything in between. It isn’t so much a xenophobic reaction to living in a new country as it is a practical recognition that some of our older ways aren’t able to be licensed, or even accepted, outside China.
Wandering around the alleys and through the upstairs apartments where business was frequently transacted I finally found someone who was willing to put up with me until Gunny concluded his business. Uncle Kenny
Uncle Kenny was a cook, as far as anyone else knew, but he was a great deal more than that, he was also recognized as a healer. He’d use herbs, acupuncture and moxibustion to help people as easily as most other people throw recipes together. Later, when I told him that I was reporting to boot camp, I found out that he was a great deal more.
This particular day he was “needling” a local gung-fu master (this guy was unknown outside the community, but he ROCKED) who had managed to strain his arm. I never did find out precisely how or why it was strained, but even Big John laughed when I asked him about it, before telling me that I didn’t need to know.
So Uncle Kenny asked the sifu if I could hang out and he said sure, why not? While we talked, I watched uncle use a hot herb pack, then a few strategically placed needles to alleviate the pain and speed the healing. Even though my knowledge was limited I could see the degree of change in the arm’s level of tension before and after the hot pack and needles.
We talked for a bit, mostly adult/kid stuff, how’s Mom, how’s Dad, and your grandparents and brothers, the usual. Since he also knew I was taking karate lessons he also asked about those, especially considering that he couldn’t usually shut me about anything I had just learned. I eventually even ‘fessed up to my honor challenge.
Mom tells me I’m a certifiable genius, that week I was just certifiably stupid.
Uncle Kenny was a beautiful man, educated, gentle and one hell of a fighter (according to my other uncles) but he did like to lecture. That day’s lecture was about the wu xia or “martial knights,” gung-fu fighters (both male and female) who were without peer and always mindful of their ancestors, in addition to being spiritually without equal. The Chinese equivalent of Sir Galahad, but with the strategic and combative abilities of a John Rambo.
This lecture could probably have gone on for at least an hour, but the sifu wasn’t as patient as I was (and in no danger of having his ears cuffed for being disrespectful to his elders) and he finally said, “Kenny, I think you’re about to put the boy to sleep.”
“Eh?”
“The boys about to go to sleep, he needs to hear it quicker”
The sifu opened his eyes but didn’t move from where uncle had put him, “Boy, you don’t understand what all the fuss is about, do you?”
“No sir”
“You were fighting to protect your brothers?”
“Yes sir”
“The problem is, by the way you were protecting your brothers, you were possibly starting a tong (for which read, clan) war. Creating more enemies for the family by removing one, do you see that?”
“Huh? Why would that happen?”
“No bad person is bad in their own eyes or even those of their own family. The boy probably thought he had to prove that you didn’t deserve promoted and that he did, are you learning about ‘wu de?”
“Ummmm, what’s that?”
“Hmmmmmmm, the closest translation would be ‘martial virtue,’ the ethics of the martial way”
“Yes sir, Uncle Frank makes us learn about Musashi, Sun-tzu and a lot of the Okinawan masters. He admires them because they flourished under repressive regimes”
He looked at me for a moment, “Quite a mouthful for one so young, but it appears this uncle of yours is teaching you correctly, now, see if you can grasp this, the boy is a threat to your brothers?”
“Yes sir”
“And if you kill him, how is the threat removed?”
“He’s gone, he can’t hurt anyone anymore”
“What if he has a brother and sister?”
“Mmmm, I don’t know”
“If he has a brother and sister, they could decide that they need to avenge him because they probably won’t believe that he deserved to die, understand?”
“Mmm, I guess”
“And if he has cousins who love him? Then what?”
O.K., I’m beginning to see what the fuss is about, guess I’m not necessarily THAT stupid.
“So I could have increased the troubles for my family?”
Sifu smiled,”See Kenny? The boy didn’t need lectured.” His eyes moved back to me, “What you need to do, boy, is to show your opponent that you are the stronger fighter, get him to a place where he has two choices, surrender or die, then you know what you do?”
I thought for a minute before tentatively answering, “Let him go?”
His smile grew, “Exactly, the first time.”
He looked at me more closely, “And if he does the same thing again? After you show him mercy?”
I thought about that one for a while, a long while, before answering.
“Wouldn’t he have decided his own fate then?”
“Exactly, young warrior, exactly correct, and by that time even his own clan will have probably written him off.”
Sifu looked at me a bit longer, then asked, “So, is the ‘mercy of a warrior’ so difficult to fathom? Or do you understand it better now?”
“I think I understand Sifu”
Sifu’s eyes closed and I stood there for a very long time, Sifu didn’t even look up and asked, “What are you waiting for young one? Do you think I’m going to bless you or something?”
“Something like that Sifu”
“Forget it young warrior, go prove yourself a full warrior, not a fool one. If Buddha approves, he’ll bless you himself.”
“Thank you Sifu”
I bowed and left.
At the next class, I dressed and joined the others as usual. I guess word had gotten around about what I had been told, because everyone was looking at the two of us whenever they thought we weren’t watching. The object of my ire was looking cockier than usual, certain that he would first get rid of me; then my brothers and then, in his mind anyway, he would get promoted.
Things weren’t going to work out that way.
He was up to his usual and when we paired off I arranged things, with Uncle Harvey’s complicity, so that we wound up together. As I expected, he tried another cheap shot but because I was watching for it, it didn’t work. I redirected his kick then dropped down to one knee, using a reverse hammer fist strike to the back of his leg to sweep him. He hit the mat, hard, and before he could move I had his left arm locked up, working a cross body choke with his own gi. While he stared I brought my hand back and screamed a kiai as I brought down a tiger claw strike for his eyes.
The hall was silent.
My strike stopped just short of his eyes, which were still open and staring.
He blinked once.
I asked quietly, “Friend or foe?”
“Huh?”
“Friend or foe?”
“What?”
“Which would you prefer to be? Friend or foe?”
“Friend, I guess”
I released him and stood, then helped him to his feet. There was no applause, no cheers, this was real life. Uncle Frank walked up to me and asked, “Should we let him stay?”
“Yes sensei”
We were never friends in the accepted sense of the word, but the harassment stopped. He eventually earned his belts and even eventually made the dan rankings. Where the real education starts.
I guess you could say it paid off for me also. It wasn’t too long after that, that I was offered the rank of 1st dan, your basic black belt. But I declined it, with thanks, because I felt I still had a long way to go in controlling my temper.
((gassho)) Sifu, I’m still learning, but I’ll never forget.




It's not about anger - it's about peace
It's not about power - it's about grace
It's not about knowing your enemy - it's about knowing yourself.

the Monk

Sunday, August 3, 2008

Rabbit Lesson, Part II

Ummmm, yeah, whatever, I went back to perusing the comic books.
The next day while I was getting ready for school I happened to glance out the window. We had about a full acre in front of the house and there was a cat (we didn’t have Saber at that time, another story there) prowling about. This cat was a local nuisance, routinely trashing gardens and wreaking havoc with henhouses. This time it was trying to get a nice fat bunny that was leisurely chewing some grass.
Fully expecting to have to tell my mother that there was a dead rabbit in the front yard, I watched the show, and I do mean show!
The cat stalked up on the rabbit, the rabbit just kind of wandered off a bit, not seeming to move much, then the cat stalked up a little further and, again, the rabbit reciprocated.
The third move in this dance took place and I realized that each move the rabbit made was taking it a bit closer to the wood’s edge but the cat never seemed to notice. My elbows were now perched on the window frame as I watched the game. The last move of the dance took place when the cat, losing all patience, essayed a leap for the rabbit when even I could tell that it was not going to work.
Without missing a beat, the rabbit leapt into the woods with not a glance behind, hitting the ground at a dead run.
There was about forty five seconds of the shrubs and grass thrashing about, then a loud yowl, audible even behind my window, as the cat flew from the blackberry bush, leaving behind a few tatters of fur on the stout spines.
That rabbit was one of about a dozen that liked to call my father’s newly planted orchard home. I took to watching them with my telescope, trying to understand what happened when they hit the tree line.
It took time, but I finally understood that when they went into the overgrowth, they weren’t just fleeing in blind panic, they were following a well scouted out path. They would go into their maze of trails, try to get about a turn ahead of the predator, double back and lay doggo. Watching as the predator would dash past, either losing the trail or blindly rushing into an “unpleasant situation.” Usually it was the blackberry brambles.
I have no idea how long it took me to reach this realization, I just know that it was a lot of time at my telescope (which I never complained about) watching from my room and sometimes moving it to the concealment offered by the driveway.
When I finally reached the realization, the idea immediately came to mind about how I could apply this to my own life.
The next time one of the teenaged thugs attempted to pursue me into the woodlot I followed the example of the rabbit, doubling back after gaining that one turn of distance; I then followed the advice of my father. I gained the high ground. There, I waited.
I was crouched on a tree branch which crossed over the path that we had entered on, which led back onto our street. In my possession was a piece of deadwood about the length of my arm and as thick as my thigh. As the would be miscreant came back through I swung the stick with everything I had striking his head and performing a flip that would have made Jackie Chan proud (I don’t believe he had even started his film career at that time, by the way).
He dropped like a puppet with its strings cut and didn’t move. I approached cautiously, poking him a few times to make certain he was out cold. Like my uncle (the Taoist healer) had taught me, I checked to make sure his heart was beating and that he was breathing with no difficulty. Satisfied that he would recover, I stood up. That’s when I heard his friends calling to him, wanting to know how much longer he was going to beat me, then they laughed.
Well, I don’t know why, but I got an idea and immediately put it into action, then I zipped up my pants and took refuge behind the bushes.
He never did own up, to his friends, about chasing after me, I understand that his father whupped on him pretty good for losing to “the gook,” never mind about the concussion or the flaming huge bruise between his eyes (Dad laughed himself sick, one of the only two times I ever saw him do that). What was even worse was that his darling boy had pissed himself in the process!
Life can be good sometimes, even for a little half breed kid.
There were other lessons, to be sure, but that was how the first ones taught by Grandpa Wilson and my father turned out.


It's not about anger - it's about peace
It's not about power - it's about grace
It's not about knowing your enemy - it's about knowing yourself.

the Monk

Saturday, July 26, 2008

Rabbit Lessons, Part I

Just to be absolutely certain, I have mentioned previously that this would also touch on my education and experience as an outdoorsman, right?
Excellent, I thought I might have forgotten to mention that.
One other thing, due to the length, this commentary is going to be in two installments.
It all probably started out pretty much the same as it would have for any other child, of my generation. Too much “Daniel Boone” and “Wagon Train Days“and, until we moved out to a farming community it was all just an abstract idea. Living in the city of Cleveland, the closest thing we had to a forested area was an abandoned lot, over grown with pioneer plants and shrubs. Being between two houses with a fence at the back there wasn’t too much mischief that we could get into there.
After we moved out to Aurora, however, everything changed. The very things we had moved to escape, encroaching racism and prejudice, were already firmly established there. At that time, Aurora wasn’t even big enough to qualify as a village and its main “claim to fame” was that it was where state routes 306 and 43 met. They were also pretty much the only paved roads in the area.
After we moved into the area, I wondered where the other children were, our neighbors didn’t seem to want to have much to do with us. I didn’t understand why, or care, at the time, because I had my younger brothers to play with.
It wasn’t until September, when I was to start school that we gained a pretty good idea of what was going on, you see, the local children (in my immediate area) were pretty much all older than myself, which wouldn’t have phased me as I was accustomed to associating with adults, as were my brothers. What we didn’t know was that we had been watched, spied upon, state it however you’d like the result was the same. The local “gooks” were kept a close watch on.
Until that first day of school, I hadn’t had any real contact with bullies. There had been a few pushing matches to be sure, but nothing that would have classed as a real fight. So what education in the martial arts I received was largely limited to the philosophy and some of the basics. My uncle and my father saw no need to hurry things; my mother would have been just as glad if I never needed to learn to fight.
That first day of school I crossed the lot behind our house (which we didn’t own at the time) with a kiss goodbye from my mother and an armload of supplies (backpacks weren’t the utilitarian/fashion requirement that they have come to be). As I exited the overgrown lot, there was silence at the bus stop. After a pause, one of the teenagers standing there with the elementary school children approached me, smiling, as he watched my struggle to balance the cumbersome load.
“Well, looky here, a gook,” he stood over me for a moment, then knocked me to the ground, books, papers, crayons; all the detritus required for the first grade, on the ground in front of me. As I struggled to get everything together again, he swaggered back to the congratulations of his friends and the elementary school children. I gathered my school supplies and stood behind the others, waiting for the school bus.
The first grade teacher was standing there, waiting for her new charges to arrive when the bus parked. As soon as she saw my disheveled state she rushed me to the office, helping me to straighten my appearance out; all the while pointing out to the principal the error of permitting the high school students to use the same bus stops as the elementary school students.
What followed next were several hurried phone conferences between my father and my uncles, and late night conversations between my parents which eventually led to my starting a more formal education in the combative sciences.
But these last three paragraphs aren’t the main focus of this article, they are actually the prelude to the main concerns of this article, my education as an outdoorsman.
I know that somewhere out there, are about nineteen other men who can state that they had the opportunity to learn the things that I learned, but those are all I can vouch for.
You see, my father took those things I saw on “Daniel Boone” and built on those. We would be watching the show and he’d make a comment or two about how he might do something, which usually involved some sort of combat or scout maneuver. Generally it would involve just a small change like, “...if he really wanted to stay out of sight while he was waiting to ambush that guy, he’d climb a tree ...” or perhaps when he saw the “Rifleman” peering at the landscape while “scouting” he’d comment, “... he wouldn’t be so easy to see if he’d just crouch down beside that boulder ...” Little things, small comments, but they were the comments of a member of the Marine “Combat Raiders” and a former intelligence operative; made to a son who took note of them.
Took note of them and applied them to his own situation.
There was a small woodlot on our street; it didn’t take too long before the other children, regardless their age, hesitated to follow me into that area with violence in mind. The first times they had done so, they managed to get hold of me and a fight ensued. In those days, the outcome was highly variable. But my uncle made certain to mention that, as big as the size difference was, there was no such thing as a fair fight and that I should have no qualms about using whatever means lay at hand to end the fight, preferably in my favor.
Another elder, Grandpa Wilson, whom I met at the local general store, had advice which always seemed to sound demented but, in retrospect, was some of the best advice I got in my life. I’m only sorry that I didn’t pay as much attention to him, as I did my first love, Science.
The first time we met was at the store and he stared at me intently, ignoring my brothers. Then he came up to me and introduced himself, after doing so he asked my name; then my nation. I stared at him blankly, until Mr. Lyons told me that he wanted to know my ancestry and I replied that I was Chinese. He looked at me intently and said, “One day you will know who your people are.” Quite frankly, on hearing that, I thought he was just plain nuts. It was sure obvious to everyone around me what my nation was.
Shifting gears without a second thought he then asked why I had a black eye, I told him about the recent fight, my dash into the woodlot and the subsequent fight. He smiled when I told him about nailing the departing thug, in the back of the head, with a thrown branch (I hadn’t even heard of rabbit sticks back then!), he smiled in approval then asked why I had decided to fight someone who was so much larger. I told him that I didn’t have much choice. He told me that the choice was always there. I looked at him blankly and he laughed, “If you want to know how to escape your enemies, then watch the rabbits.”



It's not about anger - it's about peace
It's not about power - it's about grace
It's not about knowing your enemy - it's about knowing yourself.

the Monk

Wednesday, July 9, 2008

Changes

For the first few years, everything was very intense. I was expected to learn beside, and with, adults. I had to compete with them, and against them, but nothing was watered down, no exceptions were made. Kovacks-sensei made it very clear that if I wished to be promoted two things had to happen. The first was that my grades couldn't fall below a "C" or I would be placed on probation. If I got an "F," well, I'm sure you can imagine. The second thing was that anything I did was measured the same as the adults. If they broke boards, I was to break boards. If they kicked to the face, I had to find a way to kick them in the face also. Kovacks-sensei didn't teach us forms as he first wanted to make certain that we would live to see the age of eighteen.

Kovacks-sensei made it very, very clear that just being a strong fighter wasn't enough. You had to be a canny warrior as well. He taught my brothers and I (they began training about a year after I did) from "The Art of War" and "The Book of Five Rings" in those days. He made it quite clear that, as did Sun-tzu, he considered the greatest victory to be that achieved without bloodshed or violence. I learned why later.

We were doing well enough as fighters that at one point we even had some of the police officers in the training hall teaching us to be "tougher" mentally (on their own). To handle the verbal abuse that they felt we would run into. It was a few years too late but it did come in handy.

As we had made progress and were doing better than anyone had anticipated, we were featured in the local newspapers, which led to a demand for childrens classes. Everyone seemed to think that just because we were doing well, that ANY child could do as well.

This is what led to a ....... complication.

I don't know what happened in the childrens classes, but I can guess. Kovacks-sensei had expected my brothers and I to "take a bump" just as any of the adults in the class. Its an old way of training and is a good practice. The only problem is, the degree of force that one had to put out for an adult to feel the same "bump" when a six, or even eight year old is the "aggressor."

This is where it got interesting.

Although we usually trained with the adults on Thursday night, one week Kovacks-sensei told us that he also wanted us to come to the Saturday afternoon children's class.

Everything went pretty much as expected except that there was very little in the way of "contact drills." Hard blocks against each others arms, legs; block and strike drills. We didn't understand it but had sufficient discipline to not question it.

Everything took a left turn when we lined up for "free sparring," kumite. Free sparring is when you have three minutes to score points against each other. Strikes and kicks had to be clear, strong techniques. There couldn't be floppy strikes, weak forms or anything else that wouldn't have worked on the street.

I was lined up opposite a twelve or thirteen year old girl who stood head and shoulders over me. She had a fit of the giggles, I just stood there watching her, looking for weak points in her technique; the way she presented herself. There were no shortage of them. The girl's mother (sitting in the viewing gallery, newly installed) thought the fight was going to be terribly one sided; well, she was half right.

The fight only lasted about fifteen seconds, but it changed a lot of things for me, she tried to come in with a back fist strike but it didn't work like she wanted it to. It didn't work because she ran into my skipping side kick. Which knocked her about six feet back, flat on her back, struggling to breathe.

Kovacks-sensei yelled for the break, directing me to my corner, I sat there waiting for the girl to get her breath back. To me it was no big deal, you took a hit, you lose the point, you get up and carry on. What everyone else had forgotten was that I had spent all of my time training with adults.

In (what was to me) a surprise turn of events, the girl got up, gathered her things and went home. While she was doing this, Kovacks-sensei knelt down beside me and said, "K____, I know you didn't mean for that to happen like that, but you must never, never hurt a girl like that again."

For whatever reason, his instruction that day had an immense impact on me. My mother could always tell when I'd been in a fight and what gender it was with. If I got into a fight with a boy, she'd get a phone call from some irate parent who got told that the mere fact of my being a small teener, did not mean that I was the punching bag for their delinquent.

On the other hand, if I got into a fight with a girl, I'd usually come home with a black eye.

I was probably thirty something before, with the help of an aikidoka friend, I figured out how to defend myself against a woman without hurting her.

This has been a sometimes problem for me, but it has also caused a certain amount of merriment among my friends, and consternation for my commanders.

One last thing, to those who've commented on my first post, "gassho," I thank you deeply and I will definitely take what you have stated to heart. To the gentleman who wished for the colors to be other than what they are, my apologies, but it is a "style" thing. Most of the other color combinations didn't feel appropriate to the topic.

It's not about anger - it's about peace
It's not about power - it's about grace
It's not about knowing your enemy - it's about knowing yourself.

the Monk