The Lemons
One of the things you learn, and most often the hard way, is that there are occurrences in your life that are unexpected. Often they hit you very hard and you must learn how to move on in unexpected ways.
On November 4, 2002 Sherman Harrill, someone I greatly respected, passed away. Then shortly after that on July 8, 2003 John Dinger, one of my senior karate students and a tai student of mine too, passed away. Each of them had a profound impact ot me. Their deaths also had other events springing off from those times.
One of the things that occurred was most of my adult students were also affected from the death of John. a few months after Johns passing they choose to discontinue their training. Each of then had been training for over 15 years. As they were aging too, most of them reflecting on their own lives made the personal decision to end their training with me and spend more time on their own lives and their families. Those were reasonable decisions for them.
The youth program continued and remained healthy.
Young Lee had moved away from our area, leaving only Mike Cassidy to train with me for my adult program.
After
The next year, 2004, it was only Mike Cassidy and me training on any regular basis, which of course meant we could work at the highest levels. Mike had been with me now almost those 15 years and he began to assist with the youth program.
During our training I was able to integrate some of my friend Joe Swift’s translations into our study. Mike and I were having a very good time.
I was really able to work on my own Isshinryu kata. I also had much time to work on many of the 150+ other forms I had studied over the years.
Additionally, my studies into the force enhancers of our technique improved.
One day I realized something new. I was working my kobudo kata, Shi Shi No Kon No Dai, and realized I was performing it harder and faster. When I was a competitor it was the kubodo form I mostly performed. But now I was putting much more into it than back then.
I then observed Mike doing his Bo kata, Urashie no Bo, it had been his completion form 10 years before and this time he was definitely faster and striking harder with it too.
That got me to thinking, what was the difference. Time for sure was one variable. But with proper knee release and utilizing our center drop and rise, all of it made us performing better and better.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4k3Y-S4bktM
Then something new
Now when you teach someone you can't tell them in 15 of 20 years you will finally begin to get it right. But that is true at the same time.
I began to realize that more was happening, work with the Bo, Sai, Tonfa (all of them) also added more to our empty hand karate. The use of the block with the sai, added more to our empty hand blocks too.
The same with long term study with the other kobudo weapons. Block were stronger, hits became harder and so forth, I began to see that kobudo really came to its own for the long-term student. In effect a new force enhancer to assist in the fight of aging.
This was new, and I never heard this from anyone else.
I was able to link the exceptional grip strength Rothrock Laoshi developed with his great depth in Chinese weapons studies. This allowed me to look how the study of Kobudo was another force enhancer in the development of application potential. The need wasn’t for kobudo usage, the need was dan kobudo study for core development.
Face it really needing a Bo, Sai, Tonfa, Kama or Nunchaku for serious self-defense really meant very little today. As the times keep changing it is even money using them in self-defense could end you in Jail (The times are crazy after all).
My other studies with Stick, Knife certainly were viable self-defense tools, but their use would also likely put you in jail today, too.
It was the same with my other studies of using my Yang Tai Chi Sword, the Chinese 3 section staff and the Chinese Staff or Short Staffs offered the same potential consequences/
Not to suggest you should not defend yourself, however the times are crazy in many locations.
However, what I really realized was that each weapon required different handling skills. Bo, Sai, Tonfa, Kama, Stick, Tanto and Tai Chi Sword.
Each weapon requiring different handling and building very different strengths.
You get Lemonade.
I saw that a small core curriculum was all that was required for long term dan development. The entire course build towards many subtle energies for advancing development.
I continued to teach the entire system but began to work with long term students to select which kata IMO they should concentrate on. Possibly that did not make a difference, for each of them could yield the same results.
The program as it developed required all of its aspects for best personal development.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DMT8vm7s2EI
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