Good talk on blocks

[Van Canna]

Ted Dinwiddie »

First, I think that one cannot progress in their Karate without taking it upon themselves to figure out the stuff their teacher is making them learn. One must go beyond simple regurgitation of material and really learn how stuff works for them, in their own body.

One must also come to some understanding of what they are willing to become capable of. As has been brought home so many times on this forum, we all must decide how far we can go, are willing to go, or have to go with our Karate practice.

My point is this. We all must find out for ourselves how to do this thing karate. Our teacher guides us and critiques us and kicks us in the behind. But he does this because we keep going around the next corner and shining our light into the dark to see what is there.

We decide how far. We decide which direction to go. Or we decide not to go at all.

We must take responsibility for our own development from the beginning or we will not develop.

Ted

[Van Canna]

The Elephant

RA Miller »

Have you "seen the elephant"?

I don't remember where I first heard the expression and Van-sensei asked for an explanation. I've been playing with the metaphor for a few days and it's deeper than I realized.

The "elephant" of course, is violence. Like elephants, violence is extremely rare in our society (despite the media). Some people go to zoos to see tame Indian elephants and some people watch MA tournaments. Some go to the circus or read Babar and some watch WWF.


Some people excavate and restore mammoth skeletons and some "re-create" ancient Egyptian, Greek or European MA.

Some people read a lot of text books and get a degree in biology and know all about elephants, if you ask them. Some read Quinn and Christianson and DeBecker and McYoung... and start teaching seminars on Real Self Defense (tm).

It's also like the "Blind Men and the Elephant" rhyme:

"I was in a lot of fights in high school." So the elephant is very much like a snake.

"I've competed in NHB."
So the elephant is very much like a wall.

"I used to hang out with a tough crowd."
So the elephant is very like a tree.

Or (staying with pachyderms): "My style has been handed down unchanged from XXXX where it was really used..."

Always reminds me that enough word of mouth descriptions somehow turned the rhinoceros into a unicorn. Has anyone ever stopped a charging rhino with a virgin?

My perspective is off, of course. In this metaphor, I'm a zoo keeper. I know that elephants are messy, require a lot of care and can be handled. I do have insights and I know my elephants, the violence in my world very well.

Well enough to know that each is an individual, each act of violence is unique. That violence can be damn strange.

Then, lastly, there is Peter Hathaway Capstick. If you haven't read him, do. Start with "Death in the Long Grass"

The difference in "seeing the elephant" comes out in the details. And some of the details are impossible to explain to someone who hasn't seen it.

Just as Van tries to tell people "These things will happen in your brain, be ready." and is told "Not me, that's silly." Capstick tells his clients that often, in the wild, an elephant will be very close and you can't see it.

It is so huge that your mind refuses to process it as an animal. His clients say "That's silly. I could never miss anything that big, not me."

Rory

[Van Canna]

The Elephant

Four blind men encounter an elephant. One grabs the leg and concludes it is a tree trunk. One holds the tail thinking it is a whip. Another touches the elephant's trunk and decides it's a hose and the fourth man pats the side concluding it's a wall.

The wise man tells them, "All of you are right."

The first time I heard this parable, I thought it was illustrating that truth is relative. Here are four different people, each one coming away with very different conclusions.

Years later I realized the story conveys exactly the opposite: truth is objective. After all, is there an elephant? Of course an elephant is there! That is the objective reality, independent of anyone's viewpoint.

Truth is complex, multi-faceted, and at times very difficult to fully grasp. But it's not relative. There is truth out there; we just need to figure out what piece of the puzzle we're holding onto.

The four blind men fell prey to a common mistake: reaching conclusions without sufficient information. Based on an elephant's trunk alone, it is unlikely anyone will come to an accurate conclusion.

The four blind men should talk to each other and share their information. By putting all the pieces together, a clearer picture will begin to emerge and some initial conclusions could be made: this is not a piece of furniture, it's definitely a large four-legged animal.

With more and more information the picture will eventually sharpen, revealing the identity of the elephant.

[Van Canna]

Rory is a consummate traditionalist above all from what I gather.

Much like on the women’s’ forum it is asked what does James LaFond have to offer.

LaFond gives a view of the world of violence from a street fighter’s perspective, and when he reads that post, he will probably answer it by asking his own question:

What is it that we traditional Uechi Ryu practitioners have to offer to the style followers as to the potential for the street violence equation...given that most of us have probably never even seen an act of violence, much less being involved in one, other than possibly some school yard fight?

[Van Canna]

RA Miller »

Jorvik-

Of course no offence taken. And of course my experience colours my perception. More than that.

But the people who have never experienced violence, what colors their perception?

Is it fantasy? Stories? Telvision? Tradition? Logic? (And logic is one of the deadliest routes- reason rarely applies in violence.)


From a work-in-progress:

Violence is a big industry. Thousands of schools around the world teach “self-defense”, “practical combat for the streets” and “martial arts”.

We have expert credentials- black belts- that rightly or wrongly, are accepted as valid by society at large.

There are celebrities in the field who command enormous fees to share their “expertise”.

But the industry is mostly imaginary. Here in the Industrial West we are living in probably the least violent time in human history.

Personal experience with violence is vanishingly rare.

People who have not only experienced violence but done so numerous times, prevailed and extrapolated the lessons are practically non-existent.

But still the schools are open and the masters and grandmasters are willing to teach -----------------------------------------------

Rory

[Van Canna]

What the F*



Laird wrote

know we human folks can respond just like an ungulate in the headlights:
Years ago strolling down a street in Halifax. The predator growls, what the F*uck are you looking at ass*hole?

It is happening now, totally out of nowhere, you are walking along minding your own business.

Be realistic and honest with yourself. What's going on inside of you?

How best to handle this, that is if you can handle the mush in your brain.

Don't BS yourself through this. See yourself now actually experiencing it.

[Van Canna]

CANDANeh »

Heart speeds up, breathing not regular. Am I bigger than he is, is he stronger looking? If I stop walking will I be able to move again?

Taking into consideration that I don`t think I look like an easy target and rarely encounter(not since school) such a prompt to fight, he has the initial advantage in that he must be somewhat prepared to engage physically.

He has already assessed me, now fact is I am doing same and therefore one step or more behind.

[Van Canna]

This will help in putting you in the "picture" and analyze what it does to you.

The True Tales of a Yardie Troublemaker in London

Part Eight: 'What the F*ck you looking at?' June 1, 1998

"If di fish woulda keep him mouth shut, him woulda never get cook" Jamaican Proverb

1: 30 p.m (sitting on a Connex train, listening to an old Goldfinger tape and minding my own f*cking bidness) I hate the Connex train to south-East London. It's depressing.

It's always crowded; always packed with inbred drunk BNP members and their pitbulls on their way back to Plumstead; always slow, and , on this bright Sunday morning, totally unpredictable.

There's a guy across the aisle from me who won't stop staring . At first I thought he was just one of the regular disturbed people that come onto the train from time to time and do things like tell you about Jesus, or sit beside you and moan as they try to come down from the bad acid they took three hours ago.

But no, this guy is different. He's not dressed like one of the guys who sells "The Big Issue"; he's got all his teeth and he's a fat mutherf*ucker too --so you know he can actually afford to eat. So why the hell is he staring at me like that ?

As the train rattles along the tracks, his face gets more screwed and I begin to wonder if he's confused me with someone who shot his baby mother or perhaps the one responsible for giving him the thyroid problem that has made him the obese, mouthbreathing pig that he is.

I've always wondered about that "THYROID excuse" that fat people use to explain their blubber. After all, you never see any fat people like in places like Rwanda and I'm sure those poor starving bastards have thyroid glands too!

Anyway, the guy keeps looking at me ,and, before long I can't stand it anymore. I know he's bigger. I know he's uglier, but he's still looking at me after ten minutes like I'm wearing his goddamned underwear.

And he ain't a blind guy cuz his eyeballs aren't rolling back in his head the way most blind people's eyeballs do.

I HAVE to say something--any "REAL MAN" in my position would. I peer at him over the top of the sunglasses I stole from street vendor in Covent Garden and say : "What the f*uck are you looking at ?"

The girl beside me closes her magazine and gets up to move. -

"What did you say?", says the gorilla? -"I said, what the f*ck are you staring at? You've been looking at me for ten minutes now." -"

Cuz you're lookin at ME sh*thead", he replies abusively.-

"No star!", I retort, doing my best to sound like Jim Brown getting ready to back out his ratchet , "you're the one looking at ME!"

As the train pulls into London Bridge station, the staring mouthbreather gets up from his seat and moves towards me as our discussion becomes more hostile and as everyone in the train gets out of the way of the inevitable.-

"Yuh a bloodcloth eeediot", I inform him. -"Pussyhole ", he retorts, as he rolls up his newspaper and attempts to box me in the head with it.

-"You fat mutherfukin black pig", I respond as I duck to avoid getting slapped in my head, "come out a di bloodcloth train if yuh tink yuh bad!"

The next thing I know, I'm on the platform at London Bridge , ranting and raving, waving my fists and cussing the pig about his mother, his sister, his grandmother and her grandmother.

How did this happen? -"Come over here mate", says the pig, "away from the camera's." So, like the testosterone poisoned (and delirously hungry) individual that I am, I drop my bag and walk over towards him as if I know how to fight or something.


Suddenly , I'm brawling with the pig. He's taking swings at my head and his fists are glancing off the hard , top part of my skull. I manage to give him one or two good shots but they aren't quite producing the desired effect, which ideally, would be something between quadriplegic and death.

The brawl continues as the both of us draw a small crowd who are happy to see two niggers kicking the **** out of each other for free.

-"Kick him in his head", screams one old woman. -"Push him in the tracks", screams someone else. And on it goes, until a guy dressed in one of those blue train outfits comes up and gets in between, stopping the fight.

-"You're a punk", exclaims the gorilla, if you weren't in a public place you wouldn't go on like you're bad!"- "You punch like a girl", I replied as he turns and walks away breathing like a beached whale.

I stood there on the platform for a while watching him walk away and I looked over at the railway tracks which are less than four feet away.

A train came speeding along the same tracks and I imagined the embarrassment (among other things) I would feel if I had been had thrown into those tracks, got run over , and then , by some stroke of bad luck, lived to tell the tale over and over again as neighborhood children listened in fascination and asked to touch the stumps which were once my legs.

"Pretty stupid" I thought, as I made my way towards the Underground. That could have been a tragic waste, and for what? A little display of machismo? And so, after all is said and done, what have I learned from this potentially tragic experience?

Well, next time , I'll think twice before asking someone twice my size what the f*uck he's looking at. Next time I'll be more sensible about how I deal with such violently psychopathic unsavoury types.

Next time, I'll fight him inside the train.

[Van Canna]

Don Rearic »

I lurk here quite a bit. Stopped posting for the most part after getting into it with emotional folks over gun control. I felt about as welcome as a turd in a swimming pool after that...even though some folks agreed with me...

But this is a very good thread.

But to respond properly...

For nearly a decade, I made a living going into buildings that possibly had burglars in them. While I only saw a few of them in those 8 1/2 years, I never had a real problem with them per se...but getting in and out of a building you have keys to, and most of them are in crack neighborhoods, can be a most violent experience...


This was proven time and time again to me. friends, relatives and co-workers who did not have that "job" to do, they all thought I had a screw loose one way or the other. Maybe to a certain degree, they were right.

I can tell you the one "secret" thing to do when confronted and you must do it or you will usually not be able to keep a clear head.


When you feel like you want to hurl your guts from the butterflies coming on and you feel the slight tremors in your hands and you instep wants to twitch like it is on a bicycle (ever experienced that?) and you are taking a break...when you know it is coming and you are beginning to feel that fight or flight...your vision can narrow...sounds become distant...

Breathe, exhale deeply and blow those tremors out of your hands...then take in some air...breathe...

If you cannot do that, and you are facing someone who can really damage you, you're usually lost from the start.


Don Rearic

[Van Canna]

Don Rearic>>

I think one of the greatest myths regarding Martial Arts is the teaching of "Multiple Attacker Kata."

Once they are written in stone, you are screwed, it is far better to give the students the tools and then let them develop those tools and those attributes, give them some guidelines as put forth by Mr. Laur and others_

and then let them spontaneously drill to develop attributes without prearranged sequences which are a non-reality because you cannot and will not ever be able to dictate where these two - to - however many - individuals are going to be.

They won't be there as the prearranged kick, knee, elbow or hand lands. That being the case, the movement is busted open right then and there.


The way I like to approach this on a smaller level is, get three guys with focus mitts on each hand and have them box your head with them and fight through it, slowly and methodically at first, like a safe driving course tells you to look for an "Out," so should multiple attacker training because you don't want to STAY there in the fatal funnel they are arranging for you.

It's a Kill Zone by it's very design and intent and you must get what you can done and leave that area, if for no other reason, to regroup and you have hopefully put at least one of them out of commission.

While multiple attacker situations are not hopeless, they are in fact incredibly dangerous and it is very easy to get killed during such an altercation.

It is a lethal force situation to be sure and one of the best arguments for the edged weapon and concealed handgun that you can possibly imagine.

Don Rearic

[Van Canna]

There goes the Kanchiwa bunkai flying out the window.

Think about it...you program to remain in the kill zone while playing with three attackers around you.

And you really think you are learning something.

[Van Canna]

LeeDarrow »

Geez! This sounds like what happened to me back in the Jurassic Period on my way to take a six-credit hour final exam in Statistics for the Behavioral Sciences and Experimental Psychology (the department head was teaching the class and the final was an ORAL, done in study triads, no less!).

Ravenswood El, Chicago, just outside the last station. I am alone with three nondescript types. The motorman was sitting with his cabin open, waiting on signals, which at that time could take up to five minutes.

The trio approaches as I stand at the door. In a joking tone, he says, "Got any change?" I reply in the negative, saying I'm on my way to take an exam and then home.

He grabs my wrist and says, more strongly, gimme your money and swings with his other hand. I managed a dodge and disengage, hitting him with my free hand and kicking him in the knee. He went down.

No. 2 moved in and I saw a flash of steel. To this day, I do not remember how I hit him. All I know is that he want down clutching his throat.

No. 3 caught a sidekick in the chest. Something went Crack!

The motorman had closed his door and was yelling on the radio as I picked up my textbooks, to find a 5" folder stuck through a section on figuring Standard Deviations.

When we hit the station, the cops piled ME into a corner and were about to do unpleasant things when the motorman came out and yelled, "Not HIM! HE'S the VICTIM!!"

About that point, the chemical cocktail made its after effects known and I dumped my breakfast all over the train car.

I spent the rest of the day at Swedish Covenant Hospital identifying the bad guys and at the District station, filling out forms.

I did manage to call the professor from the hospital and inform him of what had happened.

He said, "Glad you're okay. Don't worry about the exam. You've got the 'A'!" I barfed again.

My condition - one destroyed statistics text book, one ripped sleeve on my jacket, one seriously messed up electrolyte system and a load of police paperwork to deal with.

Opposition forces: one black eye, one fractured knee, one dislocated larynx (he survived) and one cracked sternum (I got REAL lucky with the timing on that sidekick!)

Final results - an A in the class, several weeks of sleepless nights over the guy with the throat shot, four appearances in court, including one attempted suit against me, which was summarily dismissed and I still have the occasional nightmare about it.

If this happened today, I would probably not have lived through it. I was VERY lucky.

Six months later, I got the snot beaten out of me leaving an El station near home. Blindsided by an unrelated thug. No concussion but a doozy of a black eye and minor contusions in lots of places. Never hit him even once.

Conclusion - somedays you're the pigeon - others, you're the statue. Nobody's Superman. Certainly not me.

Respectfully,

Lee Darrow, C.Ht.

[Van Canna]

Leon DaDamaga »

Halifax is the Mississippi of the north. If Laird is white and the predator was black, then run like hell cause the rest of his kliq is in the alley already counting his money.

If Ugly Elk is Black and the predator was white, then run like hell cause his kliq is in that parked camaro you just walked past, waiting for it to jump off, so they can buy "sqreech".

Halifax, not the racially friendliest place in the world.

------------------
choice X will = consequence

[Van Canna]

Laird>>

Van's original posts of what you go through, what you feel should be addressed.

Normally when I engage I'm scared sh*tless. No I have not had to change my shorts after but the loss of control is always sudden and significant.

Observers have told me that I turn white. All blood drains somewhere, the core?

I have uncontrollable trembles, I fix on the aggressor, I hear smell their breath, and some times hear it. I see the pores on their face , things move in slow motion.

When the dance begins it's a blur. When I'm confident I remember every detail. Things will continue in slow motion

When I'm hyperventilating, growling and clenching my teeth fighting in fear/anger, I remember nothing except the end and beginning, the rest a blur.

I feel the bruises and scrapes for days after and ponder how the damage was done, in the heat of the moment, these painful memories were of so little consequence I did not even notice them.

I feel like Sh*t, I won, it's been a week, I wonder what the other chap feels and thinks.

And after each encounter I deprogram, I'm surprised to find how simple the real bunkai is and see it all in new light.

It may take days to actually remember how it went down.

I also realize that when the fan is spinning I'm not making little hssssssssst sounds, I'm growling like the primordial beast and sucking every cubic inch of air into the bottom of my lungs through my mouth, (ya can't breath through a broken nose).

The other thing that comes up in the oh Sh*t moment is the squeeze of and pulling on flesh and body parts that just doesn't happen in kumite back in the dojo.

Reality it appears may be a different game.

It will not be pretty. It will be big time primal, full of large body mechanics and intent.

I'm always shocked by the violence that I have engaged in, surprised by the intent to injure and destroy. I am totally fixated on causing harm until I gain control of the opponent.

On one occasion my opponent who started it faired so poorly I had mixed feelings for him. Part of me felt empathy for him as he lay on the ground after having mounted a very weak attack.

The other part of me felt extreme disdain for him and his pitiful attack, hardly a man at all lay at my feet. I had a huge urge to humiliate him, I considered urinating on him.

I turned my back and walked away, I loathed his weakness, his lack of resolve.I was repulsed by his weakness.I have never felt such contempt for anyone before of after the incident.

So there you go, feelings can be all over the map in conflict. Many times I'm shocked by what I'm capable of. I find the quicker I engage the more likely I will be in control.


Extra long rant, even for me.

Laird

[Van Canna]

Yesterday by the highway bypass out from “piazzale corvetto”__ a pick up truck rear ended and stuck in the middle of the road. Six PM, the usual rush hour madness.

Well, okay.. A bit longer in line..be home in a while.

Wait, what are those people doing horsing around in the middle of the road in this traffic?

Ah..no..no..they are not playing…there are two of them, no, three…oh God..one has a baseball bat and is chasing another…the third is trying to grab the one who is running away….my God.

Scenes of violence almost daily these days. People predisposed to massacre you for getting into a car accident [with a bat? If they catch you, chances are you might be killed.]

The sensation? Fear

Animal fear, even of handling the cell phone to call the police..

What if he sees me make the call? He’ll go berserk and start by smashing my windshield with the bat, then threaten me and possibly beat the crap out of me….and..and..

Anyway, I did call the cops.

But the fear remained. And along with the fear …a horrible sensation, similar to the one experienced a month ago at the public garden, where I was watching my little son who was getting too far away from me, I could not follow him, I was still on crutches, and I was looking at him intensely.

Didn’t even notice the guy in between, who now approaches me and says, “What are you looking at?”

No, wait, I was looking at my son, see, he is down there, and I am worried because I am on crutches, and if he bolts in the middle of the road, I won’t be able to catch him.

Imagine. People ready to beat on you because you look at them, only because you look at them a second too much.

Then I think about my aikido and karate, stuff that is worthless because I am not a fighter, because I am not inclined to get into a fight over a look and or a rear end accident.

And if I meet someone who is, he will beat me up, no doubt about it, because I will not be in a mental state to react.

Oh well, by now…in this s*hitty town, meeting such a type of street vermin is not that difficult. I will hope that he will vent his anger quickly, that he does all that his beastly nature commands him to do, but leaves me a bit roughed up and bleeding, but still able to stand on my two legs.

Forgive my venting, friends, but I am really very saddened. This is my town, and I have contributed in making it what it has now become. I am more than anything, worried about my children, who will have to live in this city, in this climate of daily violence, absolutely gratuitous.

Unfortunately, I don’t know what to do.


And for those who say: “ What? You are a black belt, so you are dangerous for those people”

I barely hold back the impulse of telling those people to go F** themselves, as they don’t realize that what makes someone dangerous is not the years in a dojo in mimicking deadly moves, but the “brain weapon”…if your brain is not of the mindset of taking a certain action, you are disarmed.


Well, it bears repeating, we study for fun, to stay in shape, for the “art” and that’s about it.

Self-defense? Think again..When your knees go weak in witnessing someone chasing another with a baseball bat.

So a while back I was in line at the stadium to buy tickets for the game, here comes an “industrial size” Gorilla [the baseball bat type]_ he cuts into the line and hits the first person who complains with a head butt, busting his nose with blood spraying everywhere in front of dozens of police officers.

Imagine now the scene: a mad crowd waiting for the officers to do something_ and the cops now talking to the guy with the busted nose:

C’mon, do you really want to press charges? You know he’ll get bailed out and come after you again. Now the crowd wants to lynch the cops, who now scared ****less, finally handcuff the head butting freak and take him away .

So what's the little man inside your brain telling you now?