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