When fiction hits the metal it gets real.

 

 

Back when I was a beginner I used to enjoy reading Destroyer Novels (written by Murphy and Sapir), in fact I still do. In one of those books the hero (an American assassin) declined to shake hands with someone,  my paraphrase of that was’ he stated  shaking hands means I trust you and that was something he did not do.’

 

I always remembered that and several years later when I began teaching karate to the young through the Scranton Boys Clubs it remained in my mind.

 

To begin with I understood the underlying theory behind that statement. When we learn most movements we are young, have some difficulty learning them, often falling when we were little, and then when we got it down that motion became automatic. Meaning that after that we would most often do that motion without regard for our surroundings.

 

One of the oldest jokes (of course funnier for the observer than the object of the joke), was when someone was going to sit down and then their chair was pulled out from under them. No chair…fall down…go boom… observer laughs (of course often because it was not them who were made the target of the joke).

 

The fault of the target was they were sitting down on automatic, not being sure the chair remained where they thought it was.

 

Now extend that to shaking hands. Someone extends their hand to share hands. But that is because they expect the other person to then take their hand and shake it. More done on automatic expectation the other person will shake hands. But, their placing their hand out to shake, really is creating a path to their center where they are not really observing what could be happening. That can be taken advantage of.

 

Now I was not an assassin, but that possibility could be used for a valuable training experience for my students.

 

The reality teaching karate there is a great deal you can’t do, because the student does not possess the technique or knowledge to do much for years. One of the lessons I felt most important was to make each person aware of how open they were to possible attack, Awareness development the goal. And this was not the standard karate training.

 

So thinking about how to get the lesson across I remembered that old story. And that gave me an idea.

 

When any student received a promotion I decided that would be the lesson.

Part of the promotion was that I would shake their hand to congratulate them.

 

So what I did was extend my open hand as to share theirs. Then they would extend their open hand to shake my hand, Instead my open hand slapped the palm of their hand and instead my hand formed an Isshinryu fist to strike them in the solar plexus.

 

Now I had very good control and those strikes were not hard, just enough sting to know they were hit, and of course they would register surprise on their face and have something to think about. Of course the rest of the class laughed, not realizing in time it would then be their own turn.

 

In time when I went to share their hand they had learned not to automatically extend their own hand. The lesson was learned.

 

Then when I visited other schools I trained with , also with adults, and someone their received a promotion I would give them the same ‘treat’ on their promotion. Spreading what gifts I have freely.

 

In time I also began teaching adults, and I continued to use the same handshake with them, but with greater body mass I would sting harder. So they would really know they were hit. It rarely worked after the first time.

 

But the logic was sound, without constant vigilance of your surroundings you are more open to a chair being pulled from under you, or a far more serious attack. And that was what I was really training them to avoid if possible.

 

Years later I had a young woman join the program. At the end of the first night she asked me what to do if she was attacked by somebody in a car. My response began; first you don’t get into cars as doing so can be deadly. It was not what she thought I would say and was a bit disappointed.  Then I discussed the issue further explaining often attacks happen from someone you know, and so forth. So my beginning response was an accurate one.

 

So as you can imagine my students rarely shook hands with me, They would often try to stop me making it more fun when they attempted to do so.

 

I kept my instructor world separate from my real life but for one time.

 

A vice president where I worked was making the rounds to say goodbye as he had accepted another job at a nearby company. When he got to me and reached out to shake hands, I lightly tapped his palm and then flowed a strike to his solar plexus. A very fast strike, of course I stopped it right on his shirt with no penetration or feeling from the strike.

 

When it registered that he was so open to an attack, well he did not react well. Immediately he began hyper-breathing  from the pretend strike. He got over it of course. In one sense it mattered not as he was choosing to leave the company (which could be considered a joke after all), but I learned a valuable lesson, not to play with civilians.

 

The strike works.