The it became as if a new day dawned.

 

The journey I have made in the arts if of course a personal one. The fullness of my art goes way beyond what I shared with my students.  Any art is that way, when things became a formula to instruct students  those formulas never ever touched on what  was possible in more time, decades of work. Nor was much of that even expressed to students, it was beyond where they were.

In my own journey there were those moments when things came together and something new and exciting occurred. Occurrences that were unexpected and very exciting. Many of them I described to my senior students, many that I did not because they never had the full context behind what I have experienced.

 

Make no mistake about it, what I gave them worked, very well. But when you enter the infinite nature of one’s art, there are those discoveries that will remain one’s own. And that is ok, as they will experience their own discoveries that will also be theirs alone.

 

 

I think I would like to express some of my own discoveries.

 

1.    The day I realized that a technique could be described as what I needed it to be. One result what that every movement of every kata could be amended to include the next step of that kata. Which then became each technique would become a takedown requiring less power, a new force enhancer to add to the depth or my art.

 

2.    When I realized that the act of turning in kata was a weapon in its own right, as well as a force enhancer to add to the following kata technique. I discovered that the hammerfist strike in Seiunchin kata when accomplished with the following turn would drop an opponent with very minimal power.

 

3.    One time a different way to utilize a technique in Wansu came to me. I light applied it to a brown belt, which resulted in them dropping down toward the floor and necessitated me catching them. This was my first experience using extremely light force and obtaining such a result.

 

4.    One day after showing some new students how a light aikido flow thrust with the fingertips could be used, after class another student showing off his jump spinning back kicks (learned in prior training) was forcing them to retreat from him. I went and approached him and said that what I had showed them that evening could stop that attack. Of course as he had previously held a  brown belt he did not believe me. So I asked him to throw his kicks at me. As he did so I stepped into him and as he turned with his jumping spinning kick I lightly used a fingertip  flow stroke into his neck. He immediately flew back 20 feet into the dojo wall.

 

5.    Another time with a new student I had him step in and throw a punch toward me. I responded to that attack using a Ghost Technique and by the time he finished his punch I was no longer there, Instead I was standing 20 feet behind him.

 

6.    Another time it was teaching my T’ai Chi class and a use for the T’ai Chi Press came to me so I grabbed one of the guy’s (one of my Isshinryu black belts) and asked him to step in an throw a punch toward me. He did so and I very lightly applied my t’ai chi forms press into him as a response. It caused him to drop like a rock. I apologized to him as that was not intended to drop him, especially as I was using very light power with the press. So I asked him to do it again that time using even lighter power. The same thing happened. That night I called Ernest Rothrock who taught me the form. When he heard what happened he replied laughing: “Didn’t I tell you never to apply that to a student.” When I studied with him we did not explore applications just how to perform the form. So on my own I discovered how effective T’ai Chi could be. I learned how powerful the turn of the hip from that section was used as a force enhancer.

 

7.    Another T’ai Chi class ended and I came up with a different way to use the techniques from the opening of Chinto. So a asked one of my students (another of my Isshinryu black belts) to step in and throw a punch, I was just working my way through that application and was using very little force. Before I completed the movements what I was doing had dropped him. Again, I apologized, and trying to understand what occurred was going to use even less force. He attacked and again before I finished my movement he hit the ground. Later that day I worked out what occurred. Use of the turning hip in that motion was the reason the force dropped him.

 

8.    Another t’ai chi class I worked out with the guy’s how the focus of the tai chi movement would be at the very end of the technique. I worked out that was where t’ai chi and karate intersected, that feather touch of power at the conclusion of techniques. The next weekend Sherman Harrill was giving us another of his clinics. I could see my guy’s eyes move from each other as they saw his karate demonstrate the same principle. There is but the touch of a feather between what makes T’ai Chi and Karate effective. The same touch in each case.

 

9.    Another time I was working on the Tomari Rohai for myself, that Joe Swift and Mario McKenna had shared much information about the form with me. I was just working through the form. An interesting opening, akin to Ueichi Sanchin, with what appears to be a finger tip thrust with a hand, actually what happens is from chamber it begins as a nukite thrust, but on the end becomes a single knuckle descending thrust. It is very rapid and unless you know what you are looking for it appears to be a nukite  thrust.

 

So working on the technique slowly, one of the parents of the youth I taught from the previous class came up to me and said that did not look like it would be effective. He volunteered to let me strike him with it. I did so extremely lightly for I just wanted him to feel what was happening. Instead that slow motion strike left a mark on his chest that was there for a month.

 

There are more such events. They showed me that there was a lot to what I was studying.

 

O’ my students did learn something too. It could be painful to be my attack partner.