A Martial Artist by a look? You know, can you judge a martial artist by a look?
No.
You know that, but let me share a few stories with you to illustrate the point.
Big and Nasty
In talking with a bouncer. I asked him about his skills, the implication being, “What martial art training have you received, and how do you use it?” His response was, “99% of my job is intimidation.” He is big, stern-looking, tattooed, and goateed. He is on broadcast. He may have no real skills, he could be all thumbs when it comes to a confrontation, but we both know that is unlikely. And he trades on the potential response you may get if you step across the line of acceptable behavior. Like Swayze said in Road House, “Be nice until it’s time not to be nice.”
An Extra Arm
The judoka was pleasant; he was from Brazil and was a guitarist in town doing some music for a Microsoft project. That is the advantage of living on the Pacific Rim. With the world’s largest software company in your backyard, they can and do, draw in diverse and interesting people, and sometimes you get the benefit.
We found ourselves training together on the Judo mat, he was a good 25 pound less than me. I started slowly, no need to be a jerk, and, well he plays guitar for a living. He proved to be more than a match for me. I swear that Brazilian guitarist had a third arm, he was coming from so many directions. I was getting my hat handed to me.
Two examples. One was the potential threat, the display of potential power the other hidden. Both useful in their environments.
So no, you can’t always judge a book by its cover as the old saying goes.
A Beer and Boxing
One last story that made me smile. The television show COPS had an episode that began with a guy bleeding from his face lying on the Las Vegas sidewalk. He had tried to steal another guy’s wallet while in the bar. The wallet he chose to steal belonged to a man in his seventies, who looked like an easy mark.
The old man was a NAVY veteran who had been a professional boxer. He never made the big league as a boxer, but he paid his dues. When he wanted his wallet back the old guy demonstrated his well earn boxing skills. He got his wallet back on that Las Vegas sidewalk. When asked by the attending officer if he wanted to press charges replied with, “Naw, he’s had enough.”
So two examples. Plus one more. Yes, the old saying is true. You know, about knowing a book by its cover. And no you cannot tell how good a martial artist is by looking at them
Kris Wilder is a martial artist based in Seattle Washington. He has authored many martial art books, including the classic, The Way of Kata. Making no apologies for his obsession of Football he can be found telling any who will listen about the nuances of the Canadian Football League.
Kata comes from a time of illiteracy. Kata served as a tool to communicate to another person, “I have found this works when the bad guy comes.” Let’s look at this idea that kata doesn’t work in fighting through the lens of a boxing technique called, The Liver Shot.
Liver Shot
A liver shot is painful and can stop a modern boxing or MAA contest. Bernard Hopkins (55-8-2) knocked out Oscar De La Hoya (39-6) with a liver shot.
Hopkins (L) and De La Hoya (R)
Like most punches in boxing and MAA striking combinations rule the day. Combinations are a set of strikes in a predesigned pattern to score a strike and/or create an opening for a strike.
The orthodox method of teaching this boxing combination is a left punch to the opponent’s right ribs.
This strike is designed to get the opponent to drop their right arm to protect the ribs, and liver. Followed by an immediate strike with the same hand to the now uncovered side of the opponent’s head.
Take The Head, Or Take The Liver When You Fight
A wonderful and classic combination designed to get the opponent to open the side of their head and jaw. The fastest way to win a boxing match is to get a knockout. To create a circuit overload in the brain and make it shut-off.
The Black Knight from the “Monty Python and The Holy Grail,” proves the point in a bloody and comical way. The sword fight between the Black Knight and King Arthur reaches comical heights. King Arthur doesn’t decapitate the Black Knight to end the fight. King Arthur worked the problem backward. The King was not going for the win.
“Irish” Mickey Ward (38-13) was the subject of the movie, “The Fighter.” Ward used an interesting combination of punches. He reversed the classic pattern that is taught as Liver, Head, to Head, Liver seeking damage and the knockout. Mickey Ward would hit the opponent’s head and get the opponent to lift their hand to cover the side of the head and then go to the Liver.
Ward changed the pattern. He reversed it from the classic way it is taught. Ward used the principle expressed in the tactics to seek a liver shot, and a knock out if possible. Would Ward have been as successful if he had stuck with the classic pattern? He did, he used the classic pattern as well.
The point is looking at kata as a pattern of how people will behave in a combative situation is childlike. Is kata useful in fighting? no, not the way it is usually presented. Here is one method of view that likely will help.
Kata Is No Use In Fighting
The principals, the cluster of techniques are useful in fighting. There are triggers built into kata and there are triggers built into boxing. A trigger may be as simple as when the boxing opponent drops his right shoulder, you left jab to the face. In karate, it may be after a front kick is thrown, charge in with punches.
A way to approach kata is not wholly as a, “How to,” but as a, “Here’s some.” Like a song the movements of kata are strung together, to make them memorable, and useful. The creation of triggers.
Like “Irish” Micky Ward, The World Boxing Union Light Welterweight Champion. Don’t count on a pattern to save you, understand what the pattern is teaching, and apply that insight.
The Face On Mars
The human mind seeks patterns. It is called Apophenia. Apophenia is the tendency to see connections between unrelated items. Think of the face on mars, somehow the human mind can take a massive amount of rocks and the correct shadow and build a face. The human mind wants to make sense of what it experiences.
Kata takes a chaotic moment of fighting and brings order and structure to the moment via the training, and then we make the mental leap, “This is how it’s done.”
The Face on Mars
If you are looking for a kata to be useful in fighting, stop doing that now.
You will progress farther faster and with a greater quality of experience when you do. See the song, understand the song, and see the notes as well.
Kris Wilder is a martial artist based in Seattle Washington. He has authored many martial art books, including the classic, The Way of Kata. Making no apologies for his obsession of Football he can be found telling any who will listen about the nuances of the Canadian Football League.
Whispers of defeat and crab pots. The story of the crab pot goes like this. A bunch of captured crabs are in a bucket and as one crab has made it to the rim of the bucket, about to escape it gets pulled back down by the other crabs. The truth is that this is a function of the crabs trying to escape. They’re looking for something to hang on to, to pull themselves up and away and out.
Subsequently, through the act, another crab has pulled them down. We look at this and say, “Ah, look at all those crabs trying to pull the other crab back down into the bucket to live with them.”
You Are Not a Crab
I doubt one single crab looks at it that way. But it’s a wonderful story. The story has a great visual that you’re trapped like the crabs and you need to remain with the rest of the crabs. “Get back down here with the rest of us who do you think you are?” The illumination of the story is a message of the group always pulling, those try to better themselves, back down into the group. The act helps in justify the group position in life work or relationships. That is overtly clear in the story, and physically demonstrated.
What about the people who have given up they want you with them as well, but they work in small ways? They’re subtle they get your ear and they whisper, “Listen to me I’ve been there.” “I fought and lost; you’ll lose too.” “That’s how they get you.” All these are examples and there are many more of the kind of this subtle whisper.
The whisper that becomes persistent. It’s sometimes difficult to observe because it comes from a loved one, it comes from a person of authority. How do you identify somebody as a crab in the crab pot that’s pulling you down? That’s pretty easy.
The Whispers of Defeat are Loud
How do you identify somebody who’s in the bottom of the crab pot, in the corner? This subtle form of persistence is sometimes difficult to observe. Because it comes from a loved one, it comes from a person in authority, it’s a whisper from love and authority. That whisper is as powerful as a coach’s whistle in a gymnasium, action stops.
It’s a balancing act. How do you look at somebody’s earned wisdom that they’re offering to you and sort it out and say, “I’m not so sure that that applies to me?” Does it come from a situation that doesn’t exist anymore?
Does it come from the age of buggy whips? Or does it carry an immutable truth, one that has spanned the time, the distance of generations? Are you listening to a person that has given up? Given up like the crabs in the bucket, they’re doing what they can do out of instinct? The action that fails all with whom it comes into contact with?
Yes, it’s a balancing act. Yes, the message does come from power it, does come from authority and it does come from loved ones. It’s a difficult task but to listen to the whispers of people that have given up on their dreams, it’s not your world it’s theirs.
Here is a video (15:42 long) with an in-depth explanation of the Crab Mentality
Kris Wilder is a martial artist based in Seattle Washington. He has authored many martial art books, including the classic, The Way of Kata. Making no apologies for his obsession of Football he can be found telling any who will listen about the nuances of the Canadian Football League.
Karate blocks, let’s make them work. We have all caught a punch in training. I don’t mean reaching out with chopsticks and catching a fly from the air, I mean guiding a punch straight into our chest.
Not only does it hurt our arm or chest but it hurts our ego. “I thought was better than that.” Runs through our mind and then a quick, “Let’s do that again.”
Often the same results.
We try to fix it by being faster, by anticipating or shifting our body. We are trying to do everything in our power to honor the block as it was taught.
A Lesson On A Pacific Ocean Beach
One late summer many years ago I was at a karate club summer camp. It was late afternoon and my teacher tapped me on the shoulder, “Let’s go to the beach and do kata in the sunset.” “Heck yes!” was my reaction. We crossed the dunes and walked onto the hard pack sand left by the receding tide of the Pacific Ocean.
“Let’s do the first kata.” As my teacher pointed to my place beside him on the sand. We did the form; it was a magical moment and place.
He stepped back and pointed to a new smooth patch of sand, “Now you do your most advanced form, I’ll watch.” I did as he asked. The moment retained its magic.
See The Facts
Afterward, he called to where he was standing. “Look at that pattern in the sand,” pointing to the first kata I did. Then casting his hand over to the second form I had done “That kata has the same stances in it, right?” The word, “Absolutely,” fired from my mouth. “Why are they different?” came in response as my teacher pointed to the sand.
He was right, the tracks left in the sand where different. I pondered for a minute. “Look, I’ll help you.” He stepped forward to the kata left in the sand. “You learned that kata when you were a white belt, that one over there as a black belt.”
The Bomb
Then he dropped the bomb, “Why are you still doing that first kata like you are still a white belt?” “All your kata should reflect a higher ability, not held in the past.”
The chest block is a fantastic tool to prove the larger subject. Transferring our knowledge downward into our already trained habits is our goal.
The story I told about training kata in the early evening on a beach looking out over the Pacific Ocean was a great lesson. I wasn’t progressing as I should. Here are a couple of pictures to help illustrate what I am talking about.
Let’s Make Karate Blocks Work
Many kata begin like this picture. Arms crossed, held closely, and then a powerful exhalation while stepping forward into the form. If you do Sanchin kata this position may be familiar. The move elsewhere in other karate systems.
It feels good, It feels powerful, and it is LARPing LARP is an acronym for Live Action Role Play. It is pretending. The arms are close to the body away from the threat. The arms and the hands are moving inward away from the threat. You run away from a predator and it chases you. The movement is not based in reality.
Both arms can be stopped with one of the attacker’s weapons, a hand, or a shield of some form. See the red X.
You can see from the side view the space ceded to the attacker. The green line illustrates the distance from the fingertips to the crossed arms held close to the body. This space should be yours and not the attackers.
The chest lock as taught when you were a beginner served you well, it fails you now.
This is a position or a similar position often taught at the beginning levels of martial arts. Here is how to do a chest block. It serves a purpose and once that purpose is served move on. Alan Watts is quoted, “…if you get the message, hang up the phone.”
When we started our karate journey we learned blocks and strikes. As we grew in time and understanding we were told, “There is no block in karate.” The block is a violent defense. Of course, there are exceptions and they are situational, but that is for you to determine.
Sure, Nothing New Here You Say
Sure, nothing new here you say…
I suspect you’ve done what I have done. Explained that the blocks are not blocks but an attack design to gain the advantage. And then I’ve turned around and said, “OK let’s practice our blocks.”
The Japanese word for a block is “Uke” and it can translate to receive in English. But in karate blocks should be seen as an attack the majority of the time. Jack Dempsey (World Heavyweight Boxing Champion from 1919 to 1926) called it Aggressive Defense in his book.
I choose to think of the block as an attacking weapon. Not new as we know. Here is a brilliantly explained demonstration by German bladed weapon expert Roland Warzecha.
This is a 30-minute video warrant your time.
A Foundation For A New View
Simply put he gives you a foundation for a new view.
Look at how aggressive defense is demonstrated in his video. Consider adapting your movements as he has suggested. Of course, he is using a bladed weapon and that changes distance, timing, and strike, but focus on the shield work. Sit with this link and see you’re dealing with is an Attacking Weapon. These terms are from Roland, they are not original to me, and I use his words now when working with advanced students.
The Way To View The Karate Block
Again, some exceptions, but the majority of the time you should say, “Attacking Weapon,” and “Exploiting Weapon.” instead of block and attack.
As stated earlier in this series, by my old karate instructor on the beach, “Why are you doing your kata the way you did it when you were a white belt?”
Don’t forget to mark your calendar for Roland Warzecha’s Martial Arts and Life Podcast Interview.
His interview is available on November 4th, 2020. You can subscribe here: iTunes
A few links to other podcasts and blogs you will likely enjoy.
Kris Wilder is a martial artist based in Seattle Washington. He has authored many martial art books, including the classic, The Way of Kata. Making no apologies for his obsession of Football he can be found telling any who will listen about the nuances of the Canadian Football League.
Victim times three. The title sounds like rejection or oddly an acceptance of what is happening, but in a strange and odd way. “This is not happening,” or I am a victim of a certain circumstance is not an attractive look.
Business Destroyed
Recently my karate dojo got flooded. The dojo was destroyed. The unit is going to be stripped to the walls. And finding contractors in this environment is difficult. I’m not teaching in my dojo, not for some time.
Upset when I got the call? No, not at all. It’s not what happened to me, it is life and life always is happening. Life does what it does, pipes fail in this instance. Other things have happened to you I’m sure. Some of those things, well you can measure smaller and some I’m sure you could measure much larger. In seeing life happening and not happening to us we take away the victimhood.
Victimhood Is Not Honorable
Victimhood is popular but it’s weak, it is not virtuous and it is narcissistic. Let me say that again. Victimhood is weak, it lacks virtue and it is narcissistic. It’s weak because it has a ceiling, it only goes so far, and then it limits out. It reaches the top and it doesn’t allow the true potential that a person possesses to rise to blossom to bloom.
A Road Sign to Loserville.
Victimhood, it lacks a virtue is not good, that lack of virtue is a result of poor standards personal and public. You see there incomplete. Thirdly victimhood is narcissistic and it’s the weakest form of narcissism. It doesn’t define you by your good looks or your status. Victimhood defines you by your self identified incompleteness. It says that only something other than yourself can repair you. A victim is in denial of who they should be.
The Taste Is Bitter
As for the flood of the dojo? Did I want to be upset when I got the phone call? Yes, I wanted to for about one hot second, then I saw it as victimhood and I spat it out, the taste is bitter. It was a good day, a win, and I trust you will find those wins in your life. Where you’re able to say, “That victimhood, no that’s not happening,” because life is not happening to us, it’s happening.
Here is a podcast that offer concrete action you can take immediately to shift away from victimhood: What Happens
Let’s Connect
KRIS WILDER
Kris Wilder is a martial artist based in Seattle Washington. He has authored many martial art books, including the classic, The Way of Kata. Making no apologies for his obsession of Football he can be found telling any who will listen about the nuances of the Canadian Football League.
Improve my life. The idea of improvement of getting better is not inherent in all of us. We do what we need to do and not much more. The caveman Grock needed a better smashing rock so what he did was he fashioned a new tool, enter the rock on a stick. The rock on a stick had an advantage and it was an immediate advantage.
Humans don’t often seek improvement when the goal is not clear. Oh, the improvement has potential but the payoff is not immediate, “So yeah let’s push that off.” For those on the cusp of a striking out on a new path of self-improvement, I have a recommendation.
Choose One Thing to Improve Your Life
Choose one thing, and here’s the secret make it small. How small? Here’s an example of how small I made one small improvement. I have a friend that must explain something three times. The story must be told three times not once, not twice, but three times. When I listened to it once I get it, I got the story. I get the explanation but two more versions are coming when regardless of my response. My small improvement was to nod between one and two and between two and three. Once that system is completed, we can discuss it.
A Small Change in Your Life
The smallest of changes, I am wiggling my head. It makes them feel good because they get me in their process, a process that must happen. A small choice on my part with a large improvement.
You want improvement choose one small almost invisible act and do it. The game is how small, how little, how singular can you make your act, and still get the results in the direction you desire?
The goal plus the smallest act should equal the desired result. Remember the game about this way of self-improvement in life is built around the smallest act.
Grok added one stick, I removed words. These are the smallest of changes, yet yield results on the way to the goal, and an improved life via the small change.
Kris Wilder is a martial artist based in Seattle Washington. He has authored many martial art books, including the classic, The Way of Kata. Making no apologies for his obsession of Football he can be found telling any who will listen about the nuances of the Canadian Football League.
