The past few days I have been thinking about changes to my art that slowly occurred over the decades. They each took effort to learn and then utilize. Each one changing what I knew.
Let me give a few examples.
I was into my own Isshinryu practice 20 years when I first met Sherman Harrill. I was practicing, teaching and conducting my own studies on how Isshinryu technique might be used in self defense. Meeting Sherman was like a 20 year leap forward in my own understanding of how Isshinryu could be used.
I used everything I had learned to attempt to retain what I saw. I took extensive notes. When permitted I filmed some of those clinics. But as Sherman privately explained to me, even with everything he shared at his clinics there was a great deal he could not share. For one thing there was not enough time. Then he was restricted because those attending were not his students and he really did not know what they could take.
At his clinics he would select various partners and as they attacked, his technique would drop them, over and over. Yet he never stuck with anything like full force, They did work!
The day after his clinics my own senior students would meet with me, and go over what we remembered, to fix them in our minds.
One of those Sundays as we reviewed what we retained one of my senior students, Tom Chan, showed us the marks that were still on his body from Sherman's strikes. They were red indentations on his chest from when Sherman struck him. We found they were not full fist indentations, instead they were indentations made by Sherman's knuckles, struck in a vertical line.
Now Sherman did not teach this in his clinics, but we worked out how that strike worked. Simply by shifting the hand, perhaps an 1/8 of an inch to strike not with the flat fist rather with the knuckles of the vertical fist, would cause more intense pain with that strike.
So we immediately began to try it on each other. Even when using extremely light vertical knuckle strikes, every time our opponent FELT the strike.
Of course the training with the makiwara would increased the power of those strikes. But as makiwawa training was not an option for our group, we had worked out an invaluable tool that would still increase our striking power.
Many times I used such a light strike when working with someone from another system and I always heard "Owieeee, that really hurt". Of course I never explained to them what I had done, after all they were not my students.
But taking the time to work together always was useful..
Now let me give another example. I am going to switch to my Tai Chi Chaun studies. (This is the simplified version of this,)
When Ernest Rothrock taught me his version of the Yang Tai Chi Chaun form there were many vertical palm strikes, I spent 2 years studying the form with him (with one half hour lesson a week.) Then I worked and worked and worked on that form, Eventually when approached by several of my senior students I formed a small tai chi class for them, which helped me in my own practice too.
Along the way I collected many books and magazines about Tai Chi too, Eventually I began to realize there were likely hundreds of thousands of versions of the Yang form being taught around the world. Each somewaht similar yet each different from each other.
About 25 years into my own study, I believe it was in an Inside Tai Chi magazine with an interview with a senior Chinese instructor, where he described a slightly different version of how to form the vertical palm strike hand. It intreagued me so I tried it out. Wow, I felt a very different energy in my palm when using that formation.
I never taught that to my students, keeping then to the Rothrock version, however for my own practice I varied my palm between how I was originally shown.
As the years passed I know Ernie became an expert in his Ying Jow Pai instructors Wu Tai Chi (theTeaching form and the Fast Form <much more advanced>).
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One weekend when he visited me, he began teaching me the Wu Tai Chi Chaun Teaching Form. (He taught me quite a bit for the Wu form is also a version of the Yang form) Of course there were many differences (some of which were painful at first). Then he gave me a video of his instructor performing the form and told me to practice. That was it, so practice I did.
Later that year I visited him in Pittsburgh and he taught me more of the form, After which he told me to teach myself the rest of the form. It was a great deal of work but I did.
Now at that time I was no longer teaching, My practice was both the Yang and the Wu Teaching Form. I worked both forms religiously. As time passed I discovered the Wu form was causing the feeling of energy in my palms increasing. I called Ernie to ask about that and he told me that occurs with correct practice of the Wu form. I wasn't imagining it.
The interesting thing was what I was discovering with my Wu palm was identical to what I experienced with the palm hand positioning from the Inside Kung Fu article.
Much later I reviewed my notes from my first meeting with Jim Keenan and his description of the 5 bows explained the same thing. At that time I did not fully understand all he was saying. But these accumulated experiences told me the same thing, just with a different description wording.
Now to take a step back this is what I have been thinking about. When you really study your art over decades you eventually learn more about your arts potential. Which makes more sense with decades of experience.
Learning does not stop.
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