About 1984 the magazines started sharing stories about Oyata Sensei and his one touch knock our ability.
Never
saw it myself.
At
the end of that year I moved to New Hampshire from Pennsylvania.
Then
in 1985 my friend Ernest Rothrock described a karate show put on my George
Dillman where his school was putting on,
Later
Ernie told me about seeing George Dillman’s one touch knockout that he
observed.
Now
Ernie is very experienced in a number of different Chinese systems, and he was
quite proficient, but he had never seen that done before.
He
told me over the next few weeks he attempted to KO his senior students with a
similar strike, always unexpectedly, but never KO’d them.
Of
course he has so many different ways to stop an attacker, he eventually
abandoned the effort. I imagine his senior students shying away from him had
something to do with it too.
George
Dillman performing a one touch knock out at his demonstration in 1985. The
knock out was at 3:58 of the YouTube video of that demonstration. Many friends
and acquaintences also gave demos of their styles that day.
It
was never really something that interested me.
Then
in1987 just before I was flying out for a
business conference I heard George Dillman was giving a clinic at a
friends school in Manchester, NH and I chose to attend.
As
I was warming up George Dillman noticed me and said “Smith,
I know you from Pennsylvania;” Now in Penna I was too low ranked to be
noticed by him. (when I left I was but a 3rd dan0. He realistically
associated with the Big Boys (all of whom also ran tournaments).
As
the day progressed he talked, and talked and talked, never showing anything. But boy could he spin a
good tail. Personally many times I did not feel his narative was accurate. But
I was just there to attend.
Then
a bit after the lunch break he suddenly said. “Smith, you are Isshinryu, how would you explain
the augmented side block section from Seiunchin kata.”
I
believe I felt I could not do so. For in those days almost no one worked on kata
applications anywhere I had trained.”
But
from the 5 years I had trained with Tris Sutrisno, I learned quite a bit about
how his father system used kata technique for decades of unique application
studies.
Now
living in NH I began to apply the concept kata technique had many application
potentials and I started doing so with my favorite kata being Seiunchin Kata.
So
when George set me up with an uke to step in and throw a right punch(strike)
toward me, I responded.
I
parried the strike with a soft augmented block then continued by separating my
arms, placing the tight hand on the attacking wrist as I delivered a left strike
into his groin. Then as he bent over I took my left hand and grabbed his wrist
to step away using both hands to pull him down to side. The following step away
and low block.
Which
left George having nothing to say further. But he did not acknowledge what I
had done and just went on with his monologue.
I
left the clinic and had not seen George do anything.
I
had no idea what he had after being there.
Still
inquisitive I went and ordered George Dillman video tape on Seiunchin
kata.
View
the video and make your own assumptions.
I
found his claim that it mattered not how well you did the form, rather all that
was important was you knew how to connect the dots. My restatement of his
point. I thought it made it easy for
schools to let bad kata exist and continue to show the deadly things the
student could learn.
IMO,
when I saw the initial performance of Seiunchin Kata, I saw enough. The rest
was irrelevant to me, you could say I was less than overwhelmed.
A bit later I was talking on the phone to my senior Reese Rigby of Dover, Del.
He described a George Dillman clinic he attended. At that time George lined
everyone up and went down the line to knock everyone to the floor with a single
arm strike to each. When he got to Reese, and struck Reese’s arm, Reese did not
go down. G
Geroge
explained it by saying, “For some of you I am just showing where to strike not trying
to put you down.”
Reese
told me he went away not knowing if George had anything/
As
we discussed that clinic I told Reese I had bought that video tape, and I would
send it to him to see what George was actually teaching.
A
few days later I called Reese and inquired if he had watched the tape.
His
response was laughter. He also told me he was going to sent it on to friends. I
agreed to that.
Those
days were long before YouTube, and video taper were a relatively knew
thing. I only discovered it was placed on
YouTube a short while ago.
Personally
I see striking a non-moving on slowly moving target has nothing similar to a
rapidly moving target attempting to strike you.
The
years passed and I did have several ocurrances of light touch knock downs.
One
day I was demonstrating a Wansu application potential with a brown belt. When I
slowly demonstrated the movements on her, she suddenly collapsed. I immediately
grabbed her and she did not hit the floor.
I
did not understand what occurred. Eventually I worked out what occurred, but
with a relatively slow moving target. When I attempted this with other
students. The application worked but never like that first collapse.
Then
in my T’ai Chi group one Sunday I came
up with an application for the T’ai Chi press. I wanted to show it to the group
and had a student slowly throw a punch toward me. And I moving in slow motion
demonstrated what I was seeing.
When my slow
press struck his solar plexus the attacker dropped like a rock.
Apologizing
and explaining I had been going slowly to just demonstrate what could occur, I
let him attack me again, and ever more slowly I showed what I was doing.
Again, when my
slow press struck his solar plexus the attacker dropped like a rock.
I
stopped showing that technique that day. I spent the rest of the day trying to
work out what happened. Finally I gave in and called Ernest Rothrock that night
to ask him what happened. For the most part he never really covered
explanations of T’ai Chi wih me because my only purpose of the study was to
learn the form,
He
responded laughing, “Victor, I thought I
told you to never use that move on a student !”
We
discussed things further.
Yet
another time at the end of my T’ai Chi class lesson, a way to use the opening
of Chinto kata came to me. I should add my T’ai Chi students were also my black
belt Isshinryu students who had an interest in T’ai Chi. So I had a student
attack me in slow motion, and in slow motion I showed the application as I saw
it.
Before
I finished the student had been dropped to the ground.
Once
again I apologized and asked to try again. I went extremely slow and once again
I dropped him.
It
gave me a lot to think about that day.
Eventually I
worked out what happened, that
application deflected the strike, then continuing with the other moves I closed
in the attackers centerline concluding with a strike to their groin of a strike
to their center.
Then
continuing to use that section, my center took over their center and the
slightest concluding strike takes the opponent down.
So I have had
some experience with light strikes dropping an opponent. Never filmed this
occurring, just teaching my senior students what occurs.
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