On Seeing Something the First Time

 

So many people, so many great moves. I have been going over so many memories and have selected a few of them where I was totally amazed.

 

Some of them worked for me the first time I used them. Some were always beyond my ability. But I always learned how surprising finding someone who used them, and continue to be astonished.

 

1.     I was a brown belt in Isshinryu training with Charlie Murray after he had moved near Scranton, Pa. where I was living. At that time I was also a student of Tang Soo Do Moo Duk Kwan, where I was a 3^rd red belt and as there was not Isshinryu in the area when I moved there I signed a contract for two years of instruction. I was still under that contract, so I trained there twice a week and continued my Isshinryu studies with Charles approximately 3 days a week too.

 

Charles was extremely gifted as a fighter. Truthfully when I trained with him I always felt he was light years beyond me.

 

One day when we were sparring I went after him with a thrusting side kick. Only to find out that he was on the floor and sticking his own side kick into my groin.   He then proceeded to show me what he did and how to do it myself.

 

The next week in Tang Soo Do class we had some sparring. My opponent came at me with his own thrusting side kick. Unfortunately I was not where he wanted me to me. I had moved in toward him, dropping to the ground and threw my own side kick into his groin.  Lesson learned.

 

 

1.     A bit later after I had been awarded my own Isshinryu Black Belt, I found myself on my own after Charles returned to the USAF for his career. About 6 months later I began to study T’ai Chi Chaun  with Ernest Rothrock. I had one class a week. After a bit I took advantage to travel to his Wilkes Berry, Pa. school to attend the Saturday afternoon free workout  sessions.

 

Those  who attended each took turns on the floor and practiced what they wanted to. I was just working on as much of my T’ai Chi form that I knew.

Ernest also took advantage of that time and joined in with his own forms practices.

 

One Saturday I observed he was working with one of his students, preparing for an upcoming demonstration. I was not studying any of his other Chinese Arts at that time, everything I saw was new for me.

 

Then he responded to an attack with what appeared to be a walk through the attacker’s legs, causing the attacker to drop to the floor and Ernie also going to the floor to deliver a kick to the attacker’s jaw.

 

I had seen nothing like that before and noted that because it was new.

 

I never studied that with him, but slowly over the next few years began to workout what he had done.

 

Then as a mixed martial arts group we both belonged to had a meeting up where I was living in Derry, NH. I got to see Ernest do it again.

 

Discovering that my effort to work it out was correct. I understood it, I could to it, but it never made in into my student’s studies, Just another worthy technique I now understood.

 

 

3.     About a year after I had moved to Derry I had traveled down to Tamaqua, Pa. to spend a weekend training with Tristan Sutrisno. At the conclusion of that weekend I was going to participate in a clinic he was throwing for his students in a new school of one of those students.

 

As everyone was warming up Tristan was trying to explain something to one of his senior students. Suddenly he turned to me and said, “Victor, just step in and throw a punch.”   I knew what that meant I was going to experience something new, unexpected and likely painful.

 

But I stepped in and threw that punch.

 

Before I completed moving forward, I felt Tristan standing atop my shoulders. Then he jumped off, kicking a light kick towards my face to then land lightly on the ground in front of me. With a s*** eating grin on his face.

 

I remember how totally astonished I felt, and I had no idea how he did it.

 

There is an unwritten rule that I followed,  I would never ask him how he did it. Probably out of foolish pride.

 

But I turned to the rest of the group, all of them his black belts, and asked them how did he do that. To an individual all of them explained they had no idea, and all of them were watching.

 

What occurred that they did not see it was simple to understand. All of them expected me to get zapped meaning they were really not watching what he did. So they did not really see how he did it.

 

I remember that night on my long drive back to Derry trying to piece out what he had done.  Over time I worked up two possible way he might have used.

 

Several years passed and Tristan was back in Derry giving another clinic for my students.  He had one of his students with him and was demonstrating aikido takedown from his families system.

 

I saw how he entered the space the attack offered, then used his students forward momentum to leap up wrapping his legs around their neck and rolling them down to the floor.

 

Immediately I worked out that is how he did it, but instead of placing his legs around my neck, instead used the borrowed forward momentum to place his feet atop my shoulders to stand up.

 

My effort worked out 2 possible ways it might have been done. And it turned out it was a third answer.

 

I immediately went up to Tristan and questioned was this how he did it.

Grinning he confessed that was what he did.

 

Some things cannot be intuited out, not having the correct training.

 

I realized that I had seen this my first night training with hi, but never attempted it, as it was beyond my range of potential.  While I learned many, many things after seeing them one time, that was not possible for everything I saw. There are limits after all.

 

 

4.  I had trained with Sherman Harrill a bit, learning many amazing things. I found his work on Isshinryu was similar to my own analysis, but he was almost 40 years ahead of me.

 

At one of the clinics Garry Gerrosie and I hosted for him, I saw a technique whose simplicity astounded me.

 

When an attacker step in with his left foot and left punch, Sherman just stepped outside the strike.  Parried the strike with his left side block, then to lightly strike his punch from his right chamber into the opponents thigh lightly. The opponent dropped like a rock. And I do mean his strike was very, very light.

 

Sherman explained that this was just a use for the opening of Seisan kata, but this time the right strike was a tap into the thigh bone of the opponent. That light strike immediately created a Charly Horse in the opponents thigh. That was what caused him to drop.

 

As it turned out one of my senior students was not able to attend the clinic.

 

So before the youth class, where he was assisting me, I went up to him and requested he step in with his left foot and throw a left punch. Whereby I responded to that attack exactly how Sherman had shown us.

 

Even with a light right strike into his thigh bone, I caused him to immediately drop to the floor.

 

Worked first time, worked every time.

 

These are but a few of many, many, many examples.