Two Hours

There is an oooold saying, “When the student is ready, the instructor will appear”.

I realize that sounds like something from an old Zorro movie, or perhaps an older zen koan. But that is exactly what happened to me.

I was a black belt in Isshinryu. As part of the training I received I had the Isshinryu Kobudo kata forced into me by that time, one exception. Bo Shi Shi No Kon No Dai was taught 3 months later.

Then I was alone to maintain my practice. And practice I did, over and over. There were no books or You Tube at that time, I had no access to the movies that were available. And one time I started Urashie and ended up in Shi Shi by the finish. It took me a week to work that mistake out. So I began to use tournament competition as a place to force a higher level of practice. Many of the competitors were national champions or regional champions. They proved to be good sharpening stones for my own practice.

Taking advantage of offers made by instructors at those same tournaments I began traveling to train with them on occasion. And when shown something I did not know, I did my best to learn and then practice what I was shown.

Those opportunities were in many systems. Among them I spent 2 years learning 1 form, the Yang Tai Chi Chaun form. So many forms and among them a variety of weapons forms.

But the most unique experience also proved one of the most lasting ones for me.

When I was training with Charles Murray, one time he went home to Deleware to visit his parents, When he returned, I discovered he spent time practicing with Lewis Sensei, and also visited one of his friends Reese Rigby.

Reese had also acquired Bando staff and stick. That visit he had taught Charles the Bando staff form he knew, and in turn Charles taught it to me, more to have someone to train with. It became another form for me to study.

Later I visited Lewis Sensei and stopped to train with Reese, who was also one of my seniors. And he drilled me over and over on the Bando staff, working on fine details.

Reese was a strong regional competitor himself. Often for variety mixing Isshinryu Urashie with the Bando Staff form. And often when he was in a tie experience, would use the Bando Short stick form.

One of my later visits in 1982 he showed me the opening to the Bando Stick form one time. I hardly could be said to know it, but I had long gotten into practicing what I was shown. No idea if I was practicing it right or wrong, just working on what I retained.

So in those years I guess the clearest thing I was learning was that I could retain something in short order. I was doing that over and over again, in many diverse systems of study.

The reason those Bando forms were studied by Reese Rigby is that Lewis Sensei had many Bando friends, and his students attended Bando Summer Camps and learned those forms there.

So in 1983 when I was invited to one of those Bando Summer Camps, because of Lewis Sensei, I chose to go and participate. It was a great experience, I participated in more than several dozen different training sessions there, All are still sharp in my memory, bando, arnis, isshinryu with Don Bohan, and many others.

That Saturday I made friends with one of their black belts, we talked way into Saturday night swapping experiences.

Then Sunday morning I awoke early, To clear my mind I practiced the bando staff form I knew as well as the piece I had of the short stick form. I did not realize I was being watched by that same black belt I met the day before. He asked me how I knew those forms, so I explained how that happened. He was getting ready to attend a private Bando black belt session way in the woods with Dr. Gyi. But he made a point that I really did not have the Bando Stick form.

So he grabbed two of his brown belts and told them to teach me the stick form. Then he left for his own training.

I do not had the slightest idea who his name was, or the name of those two brown belts.

But teach me they did. Move by move, constantly showing me how each of those movements was applied at the same time. After an hour they took a break.

At the same time Dennis Lockwood’s daughter Anna, came up to me and asked me if I could teach her the Bando Staff form I knew. So I did so as a mental break, realizing that doing so would help me move what I was shown into Long Term Memory. The most necessary component of learning.

Then back to the short stick instruction. Another very intense hour.

Too soon they were done. I never saw them again or their instructor.

Whatever I had I had, and went off and worked on it. The camp closed and all the way home I kept going through the movements during my 3 ½ hour drive. Then getting home more practice. And the next day, and the next.

No one but myself cared if I had it. No one to correct me. Later that year I once again visited Reese. He showed me his, I showed him mine. They were close and also different. Each of us agreed we would keep to our own way.

From that practice I came to appreciate the form more and more.

For the next 5 or so years I just practiced. Then developing an adult program and when having students that reached brown belt, I shared a short version of the form. By that time I realized I did not want to overload the students, I already had many supplemental forms they also studied, But I considered the form so important for them I saw that a short piece of the form would be significant for them. The remainder would be one of their earliest black belt studies.

The more I worked and taught the form, the more I realized that it could be performed with literally anything in one’s hands, A stone, a stick, a knife, a staff, a sword. Literally anything you could place in your hands could be used, and that the empty hands could also be used, another empty hand fighting tradition.

Then in 1993 one of my students,Young Lee, walked out into a NH tournament floor in the weapons division. As he walked forth I heard mummers in the audience at that tournament, “He does not have a weapon with him.”

He announced himself and his form. Then as he began his stick dropped from his left sleeve into his hand, It had not been seen before. The audience gasped. Then I realized what the form could truly do.

I did not teach stick to children, that was never the plan. But those young people who reached black belt after the average 7 to 9 years, were no longer really children either.

One time did a one off with the kids. I was hosting a New Years Eve sleepover training session for the kids at the club, To give their parents a night off.

And that time I gave a brief clinic of how a rolled up newspaper could be used for self defense. I long realized you could show almost anything, then not having it a part of their class, would just become a one time experience. Of course that session was also a real experience that could work.

I had gotten the idea long before from an acquaintance in Goshin Do, who would tell when a brown belt working in NYC used to always carry a rolled up newspaper with him, just in preparation for any attack. That idea worked well with the short stick technique. But that one training session aside, I never again shared that with youth.

So did I get it or not? Never again trained with anyone from Bando, so I could not say. Sufficient that what I got worked for me for decades and became a core black belt practice in my group.

Full version I taught