I was not
looking for a magic pill. And it was around that time I began to experience the
work of Sherman Harrill. But between time with my family (and mowing my huge
yard or shoveling my long driveway, constant business travel and work commute
from hell, always focusing on my
programs, youth karate, adult karate and my tai chi group) I still had too much
free time on my hands (though now I wonder how that was).
But constantly
reading about the growing fad of meridian striking theories kept my occupied in
the back of my mind. There was no time to travel to clinics or desire to spend
money on them. So I acquired some books, chief among them was Earl Montague’s
books on the Meridians. What impressed me about them was the work he had done
to include accurate medical knowledge about them.
One of my students was my
doctor who also was a surgeon, He kept me straight. During frequent visits to
my house he would often peruse some of the karate library I accumulated over
the years.
One time time he took a book and threw it in the garbage, explaining
if they could not get the location of internal organs correct, why would you
trust anything else they wrote as being correct. After all he correctly
diagnosed my cancer, assisted in the operation I had, and also made clear only an idiot would ever accept medical advice from me, so I knew he
was most likely correct.
In my notebooks
I preserved drawings and notes I made how kata movement might match with
meridian strikes, and so forth.
But eventually I
came to realize what was being shown.
I took the 5 ‘theories’
explaining meridian strikes and did a most through analysis of what they were
saying. (That sort of analysis is how I made my living after all, only in
different circumstances).
What I discovered is that taken together they would
always cover any strike at all. Just pick and choose and if it didn’t fit, move
to a different theory until you found an answer you liked. That did not appeal
to me as logical.
I don’t care
what others choose to believe. I understand a good technician can make many
things work. It just offered nothing sounder that what I already possessed.
Then a sounder reality for me came from continued
working with Sherman Harrill.
At the clinics I
attended with him, and sponsored for him, I was gaining many ways to strike and
drop someone. Even to making subtle adjustment to the manner of striking, In
fact several of them. My students and I even studied the ‘marks’ from his
strikes the day after his clinics, learning ever more.
Then he put it
most clearly in time. He only used one point. One that
started at the top of the head and finished at the bottom of the target’s feet.
What he worked towards for decades was a strike, every strike, striking
anywhere on the opponents body, and that strike always being able to drop them.
And he did just that.
No charts, no
vital points, no connect the dots. Just the right strike, one tempered with
decades on the makiwara.
That was all, it
was enough.
There are many
answers after all, Providing man falls down goes boom, that is enough.
Technicians, skilled technicians, make them work, even when the underlying
theories are diametrically opposed to each other.
Among them are
the following force multipliers:
1. Serious makiwara and associated strike
training.
2. The
adjustments to the strike as a force multiplier.
3. The use of
alignment as a force multiplier.
4. Decades of work actually doing the kata, and
then actually using the speed of that training as the correct answer to respond
to an attack.
5. Utilization of the correct angle of entry into
the attack.
6. Take the next
step, use that next step from the kata to accompany the first movement.
(this gets into the theory behind defining
what a technique it)
7. Understand
that the direction a strike enters the body yields different results.
8. Using the
least amount of force to complete the elimination of the attack.
9. Consideration of the vital point striking
theories.
Of course this list is not complete. They can
be applied alone or in combination with others.
There are many
layers which can work, abet differently. Not one perfect answer.
Isshinryu has
evolved into many different layers of study. That is reality, but all of them
can also become effective. That becomes the role of the instructor to take what
level of training that is offered, depending on circumstances, and crafting the
students ability to make it always work.
No matter that
what is chosen does not work the same manner as the other choices.
Several related
posts from my blog:
And then there
are the vital points to consider:
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