Wizzers II

When you experience something that works with great effect. When I took a course in wrestling at college, it was explained a wizzer was a well practiced technique of escape and reversal. Something unexpected but incredible at the same time. I want to continue with some other examples of times that such a technique made special for me.

 

8.         I recognized that taking kata techniques and making them structured wazza studies was nothing like using kata sections in reality. At the same time I realized it was a valid way to develop skills inserting the technique in a space created by an attack. It also was a tool to help individuals learn what was possible. Far from a perfect answer but still you have to start somewhere. The detractors choose not to understand that one must start to develop skill.

 

            So one evening in the early 1990s a possible application came to me. Then I chose someone to start a standard wazza attack and I showed the group what I saw. I demonstrated it a dozen times, even in very slow motion with explanations. Then I asked them to do it. Now I had students accomplished with maybe 15 years training with me. In almost every case they did something else. It wasn’t a question that their response would not work, for what they did would also conclude the attack, It was that facing the very slight pressure of the standard attack, they did not trust what I showed them and every time they chose to do something they had greater faith in. Of course had that been a real attack I would have been quite satisfied with what they did. But that wasn’t the case, this was a study, one they did not  continue. And what I was trying to show was not what  they understood.

 

            That made me think. The kata technique I was using was one they all were well versed in performing. I came up with the idea on the spot and made it work. I clearly demonstrated what to do. What was missing?

 

            The answer came to me, it was I was in tune with the Spirit of the kata. I not only knew it I trusted it and made it work. While they knew the move, when facing slight pressure, they did not really trust what they knew and so did something else. They were missing the Spirit behind the move. That proved to be a much larger issue.

 

            Another time I was working with Doc. He was attacking, I just moved forward, without thought of selecting a kata section. I just did one while moving in. It happened so quickly that I just did it, and struck him in the face. Of course that was not my intent and I apologized. Then I attempted the same thing again, and struck Doc again in slower motion. Of course he got mad, and I couldn’t blame him. I began to realize that when moving on on an opponent just using a kata section happened so suddenly they could not respond and it would work.

 

            Again and again I kept finding the same thing. When at my Tai Chi group I decided to attempt a very slight movement I was never shown how to use, and when I did so almost caved in Dennis’ ribs.

 

            Or another time after tai chi group I pulled John aside to attack me, for I had a new idea how to use the opening of Chinto kata that came to me. I was going slow and I dropped him. Again apologizing (that became a constant) I again attempted it even slower and once again he was dropped. I eventually worked out why, quite simple really, just never had used it that way before.

 

            I began to realize the key had to be in developing the Spirit of my students Isshinryu. Body, Mind and Spirit.

 

9.         One night I had a group of friends join the adult group. One of them a skilled brown belt in 5 different styles. His family kept moving and then he moved to college, accounting for his studies. They were having fun together.

 

            So one class I explained how an aikido flow strike to the throat would work, slowly demonstrating how that was done against a grabbing attack And as most beginners in one ear and out the other ear. They really had no idea what they were shown.

 

            When class concluded they started playing around. The skilled one was coming in on his friends with skilled jumping spinning crescent kicks and each time they would move away being new students themselves.

 

            So I went over and explained that what he was doing was a perfect application for what I had shown them that night. Of course they didn’t believe me especially the one doing the kicking. So I offered to show them how easy it was to stop him.

 

            He took the challenge and began his pass throwing multiple jumping spinning crescent kicks directly towards me.

 

            As he began his 2^nd kick which would have struck me, instead I moved forward and using my left aikido flow strike, my fingers flowed directly into his throat. I did not ‘strike’ his throat, instead his throat struck my extended fingers.

 

            And as I was shown, his body threw itself back from my fingers. Back 20 feet slamming into the dojo wall. And all I did was exactly what I had shown them.

 

 

10.       Next up would be meeting Sherman Harrill. In reality there were over a thousand wizzers I could select. But I choose to keep it just to one.

 

            I believe it was the 2^nd time I attended a clinic with him. One up at Garry Gerossie’s clinic. One of the moves he used was just stepping in with a single strike. Something straight out of the first basic, and also found in many kata.

        What he did was just select a different target for the strike. Where he placed his strike was straight into the leg bone of the thigh, and that caused his opponent to collapse. While several of my students were able to attend, Young could not be there.

 

            Not fully believing it would work, Young was there at the beginning of my next class. I asked him to step in and strike toward me. He did so as I stepped in toward him and struck into the thigh bone of his rear leg. Just a light strike from my hip. It hit and he dropped like a rock. It worked of course.

 

            What the strike does is make the leg develop an instant cramp where struck, and the opponent falls.

 

11.       The first time I met Sherman’s senior student, John Kerker, something Sherman said many times made perfect sense at last. Sherman always said he was always holding back at his many seminars for many reasons, Main among they because he had not trained them. I had never been able to visit his school and so never fully understood what he meant.

 

            That time I saw exactly what Sherman meant, and only that time, for in later years he was using a different gentler approach to what  he was presenting.

 

            John was literally showing how he was taught to use kata technique. Doing so he was striking his partner harder that I have ever seen anyone strike another. And even more impressive was the gentleman being struck got up after each strike and continued to attack John again and again and again.

 

            Later John would explain that in the dojo, if you chose to undergo training at that level, which meant you did a lot more than just show up for class, Sherman would strike you repeatedly showing how movements would work. As John put it, there was no square inch of the dojo floor where he had not been dropped on repeatedly. Then after you got up, Sherman expected you to do the same to him too.

 

            I would suggest John got full transmission of what Sherman had to offer.

 

12.       Over the years I would be asked to give clinics at various schools. They were never Isshinryu schools so what I showed was from many of the other traditions I studied with. Isshinryu is just too personal for me to share with anyone who was not a direct student of mine.

 

            But I was always giving them something interesting, something that worked.

 

            One of the things I confirmed was something I had gotten from Tris Sutrisno when he described his fathers methodology for giving clinics.

 

            “Pick the largest person there, and use one of your best techniques on them. Literally drop them. That establishes in everyone’s mind in the group attending, that you can drop them. After that things are very easy.’

 

            I found the same thing was true.

 

            Then one time I was showing a showboat move that was fun at a school. A female black belt there maintained that could not work. So requested her to strike towards me. Exactly as I was demonstrating I moved outside of her attack, parried her striking arm down in an arc, placing it between her legs.

            As I did that I move forward and with my left hand grabbed her arm at the wrist and lifted it up suddenly. She did not expect that (though that was exactly was I demonstrated to ‘walk’ the opponent away) instead this time when feeling her arm being lifted into her groin, she just flipped over. Mission accomplished in all the watchers minds.

 

            Another time another clinic. Not that I gave many, maybe one a year. I was showing a very basic interior line of defense from Sutrisno basics. The largest attacker attacked, and was spun down with what I refer to as a layered takedown. After I did so I asked if anyone else wanted to experience it. A line of 50 black belts formed before me.

 

            I went through the group with that move. Over and over until I was getting dizzy. When I was finished I saw all 50 of them were spun down all over their dojo floor.

 

            When a plan comes together it is a thing of beauty.

 

There are so many more examples.

The thing is the Wizzer is something that works very well.