Sometimes I write stuff mainly just to sort it all out in my own mind. Which process sometimes includese venting upon a topic to no one in particular. Hereby do I get longstanding annoyances off my chest, regardless that no one might ever read it at all.
And so, for however little it may be worth, here is my own personal history within martial arts. Also my private opinions with respect to certain events. Namely items of history which certain parties might prefer should remain buried and no longer brought out into the light.
And since I am more than a bit OCD when it comes to websites, I’ll flesh it out as well as I’m able just only because. Also for a further reason. November 17th of 2026 looms close, which is the sundown date for XML/XSLT. So I’ll be having to revert all my sites back to regrograde HTML. Very few (if indeed any) visit here. So I’ve chosen this page to serve as my guinea pig for working that out.
Out of several, this was my principal art. Earning my black belt got spread across a full 30 years. I obtained 1st Dän finally at age 50. Mainly due to my training being broken into plural segments with years-long gaps in between. I had started while still in high school, inspired mainly by the TV show Kung Fu.
My first instructor was Kent Bole (1941-2023), who initially taught Moo Duk Kwan Tang Soo Do. He himself had earned rank while in the Air Force and serving in Korea. I don’t recall whether his school was part any larger organization at that time. A few months in, he changed us all over to Chung Do Kwan under the umbrella of the Korean Tae Kwon Do Association of America. Which at that remote date was under the dual leadership of Edward “Bud” Sell (1942-2014) together with his Korean-born first wife, Hyong Suk Sell.
I may be misspelling her name, but Hyong Suk is how I remember it at this late remove. A very accomplished martial artist in her own right. Highly lauded in official literature of the organization. She was well respected and liked by all. Now called the the United States Chung Do Kwan Association, back then then it still bore the title Korean Tae Kwan Do Association of America (as can be read on the banner in a photo posted below). As presently constituted, Christian dogma penetrates it through and through. It wasn’t so then. Not at all. Being Buddhist myself, even back then, I would have surely noticed and disdainfully withdrawn. Back then, we all did basic meditation both at start and finish of class. Exactly as how it was done in Korea. Nothing particularly Buddhist. No dogma attached to it at all. Simple and basic it was. What I would term intention setting. What one does, is close their eyes the better to summon up and focus upon a noble intention, then determine to keep it firmly in mind. Just only that, and nothing more.
To me, that part has always been supremely important. It vexes me greatly to see it removed. Worse yet to have it supplanted by Christian prayer. Having done that, you may just as well divorce martial arts entirely from its Eastern origins. You simply cannot have it both ways. How does such a travesty come to be?
Records show Edward Sell having married Brenda Begley (now Sell) in 1975. An unsubstantiated rumor once came my way that Edward had his first marriage to Hyong Suk annulled, and that afterward she got deported. Recent AI queries seem to refute this, instead stating: Hyong Suk chose to step completely out of the martial arts spotlight and live a private life away from the public eye. Which seems strange to me. How can such a well regarded, famously female martial artist simply just disappear? AI responses must ever be taken with a grain of salt. Especially with respect to any event predating most digital records. What is the exact source of this information? There is no hope whatever of learing. I remain at least mildly dubious.
Five years later Edward Sell appears to have turned full-blown Evangelical, actually becoming ordained as a pastor. Intensely curious, I held my nose to make an AI query: where did Edward Sell receive ordination as a pastor? To which the response came back: public records do not specify the exact local church or physical denomination venue where his formal ordination ceremony took place. I read that in 1986 he and Brenda co-found the United States Chung Do Kwan Association. Which year stands in contention to other references pushing it back to somewhere between 1974 and 1977.
Do I possibly detect evidence of an historical schism? Edward initially founds the Korean Tae Kwon Do Association of America way back in 1967. Then sometime between 1974 and 1977, he changes its name to the United States Chung Do Kwan Association. I was absent during this period, serving a tour in the US Navy. But all the while, foolishly expecting that I might come back to pick up right where I had left off.
Beneath Edward Sell, but still very high up in the Korean Tae Kwon Do Association of America was also Monte Beghtol who himself first began training in the organization very near to its 1967 founding. Once at a tournament Kent Bole introduced us to Monte, and he to us. I vaguely recall Master Beghtol paying a supervisory vist to our own school. Which at the time was being held in the gymnasium of West Junior High in Portage, a suburb of Kalamazoo. This while I myself was still attending high school at Portage Northern.
In the photo above, I have identified those with whom I managed to keep at least intermittent contact across most of 50 years: Kent himself, Mark Gerger, George Carroll, and Norm Burland.
Norm Burland (1956-2004) in the photo above remains very memorable, even though I saw him never again after then. Quite the stoic, was Norm. His toes were so configured that he simply could not bend them up out of the way so as to kick with the ball of his foot. So he just kicked with his fragile toes instead: opponents, heavy bags, even tree trunks.
Long years ago, while waxing somewhat nostalgic, I did an online search for my old friend Norm. Alas, he had passed on just only the year before. But prior to his untimely demise, he had attained status as a Kung Fu master, Southern Dragon style. A website which I found later placed Norm in the Air Force and stationed on Okinawa. Although surely years later than I, since the site him then as staff sergeant. Ranked him as Master Norman Burland, one of Master Hokama’s senior students. Another website, the one which so sadly informed me of Norms passing, named him as head of his own Kung Fu studio somewhere in Florida.
Longer ago even still yet, I chanced to encounter George Carrol at somebody’s birthday party. This was in Kalamazoo’s student ghetto on the outskirts of Western Michigan University on Lovell Street. Not much for parties myself, my then girlfriend (later 1st wife). College kids mostly, nearly all younger than either of us. But George was there. He had since got into metallurgy as a hobby. He was presenting a very special gift to the birthday boy. A tanto it was (samurai dagger) which George had made himself. A second is what George claimed it to be, short of perfect in some manner which I myself could not detect. It was beautiful. An actual watered steel blade according to original samurai technique. Many layers of both soft and hard carbon steel. Unbreakable but still able to hold an edge. I quite coveted it for myself.
This was long before the advent of modern Tae Kwon Do as an official Olympic sport. Not until 1994, in fact, did it finally happen. Approaching said time of official Olympic adoption Tae Kwon Do began to change. Prior to then, at least in our class, nearly equal importance was given to hand and foot techniques both. You might even grapple a bit. Not like in judo, but you could grab the opponent’s uniform, trap either arm or leg, whatever might work.
But then it became important to distinguish Tae Kwon Do as separate and distinct from both boxing and judo, which were already Olympic sports in their own right. Without such a difference, what was the point? And so, in keeping with that, foot techniques got accorded more importance, higher scores during sparring. The higher and more acrobatic, the better. Together with which, new and wholly arbitrary rules very soon came into play. Such as, for instance, it’s being made illegal to trap or capture the opponent’s attacking appendage. And especially not the foot while airborne. And so on, and so forth. Ever less a self-defense art in order to qualify as a sport. Because, my friends, if you’re allowed to do that, and if you’re known to be good at it, hardly will your opponent want to try anything whatsoever flashy. And without the flashy techniques, Tae Kwon Do doesn’t look so very different from many another martial art. Much like Kung Fu, in that regard.
This is something of an update. And fair warning, AI generated. I composed my query anew as follows: What was Hyong Suk Sell's standing in Tae Kwon Do? Whereby at last did I get what appears to be an substantive reply...
Standing and Background
Because her contributions occurred during the pioneering "Kwan" era of American martial arts prior to standardized digital record-keeping—and due to the deliberate scrubbing of her name from organizational timelines—her precise final Dan ranking is difficult to verify in modern registries. However, her standing among historical practitioners remains that of a foundational master who helped lay the groundwork for Chung Do Kwan Taekwondo in the United States.
It’s an AI reply, however, so grain of salt is duly implied. As for myself, I can relate second hand that Kent Bole at the time certainly concurred with her being technically more proficient than Edward. With my own ears, I heard Kent say it. And more than once. Still, though, a question: whatever has become of her?
Here it must be confessed that I have long nursed a minor grudge against the very concept of competitive sports. Because, at least in my own experience, cheating is perfectly fine just so long as it might be got away with. Pretty much anytime the Coach can pretend not to have seen it. When I was in high school, that was often the case anyhow. And remembrance has colored my opinion ever since then.
Take any activity whatsoever and make it a sport. What happens next? Slowly, it undergoes a severe distortion. Amateur radio poses a classic example. Once it was a communication hobby where folks enjoyed actually talking to one another. Then came the on-air contests. So that now pretty much all that most hams are wanting to do is just only contact each other. Everything reduced down to just only hello and goodbye. That plus exchange signal strength report. With even the vast bulk of those quite often baldfaced lies of 599 (always perfect). So that, if it should be in Morse code, all they need do is push a pre-programmed memory button. Very sad state of affairs.
Then there is also the very concept of teams, where in truth the players are all just foreign mercenaries hired for pay. Not one of them hailing from the actual town which they pretend to represent. With fans all pretending as if it isn’t so. My irritation over this dates all the way back to elementary school. Up until the 5th grade I was told that our team was the Mustangs. Go Mustangs! Rah, rah Mustangs! Then a second high school was built. So that come the start of 6th grade it was instead Go Huskies! Rah, rah Huskies! and Boo, hiss Mustangs! It quite boggled my 10-year-old mind. I’ve not made any sense of such blatantly self-imposed, willful delusions since.
So then, back to my story. During the course of my final two years of high school, I made my way gradually up to 6th Gup (two ranks above white, 3/8ths of way to 1st Dän). Our then-ranking 1st Gup (below black you count down from 8, above up from 1) was Brian Sielatycki (1954-1922). Second to Brian was Mark Gerger (1954-2023): Obit . Brian achieved 1st Dän, as I seem to vaguely recall, just before I left to join the US Navy. Mark earned 1st Dän probably not long after. My having joined the Navy was cause for the first of my several training interruptions, each of varying duration, mostly quite long.
Four years and some months later, finally out of the Navy, I made an effort to look up Mark Gerger. From out of the phone book White Pages, most probably. During my 4-year-plus absence, Mark had earned 3rd Dän (possibly 4th?) and was instructing his very own class. He remembered me well. Immediately I signed up. Months went by and training was fun. Mark’s manner was such that made it to be so. Always good humor. And never any delusional nonsense about mythical thousand-year traditions. No denials about the multicultural origins of our particular art. Korean Karate, as it was even by this point still somewhat known, evolved chiefly from Korean nationals drafted into the Japanese army then returning home to teach what they’d learned. And with what they’d learned in the army being itself often a mishmash of various arts, some few of those instead Okinawan. Very few denied this back then.
But what with certain atrocities that the Government of Japan pretends to deny (but which the Korean people remember too well), I suppose it is natural enough that they should want to disconnect a newly formed tradition which they now call their own from any taint of its actual historic origin. They now strive to connect it instead with a (likely apocryphal) ancient and forgotten art somehow restored from centuries past. And for ’evidence’ some like to show you carvings on Buddhist temples of figures in combative poses. To my understanding, these are instead typically Mahayana Buddhist examples of protector deities. Beings from a pre-Buddhist pantheon recruited as guardian spirits. Which nearly always are depicted in fierce aspect. So I just don’t buy it at all.
Where was I? Oh, yes... How very clearly I still remember passing my test for 5th Gup (half way 1st Dän) under Mark Gerger in October of 1979. I hadn’t expected at all that in addition to breaking boards it would be also required that I must hammer-fist a two-inch thick concrete slab. Never had I attempted anything before. I quite expected to break my hand. But break that concrete slab I did, and in only one try. Here I will now reveal a ’secret’ not revealed to me until much later. The material strength of concrete varies somewhat according to its moisture content. Look close when next you see any martial artist power his way through a big stack of ordinary, store-bought, concrete slabs. Observe how much dust. Maybe suggest they try the same thing again, but with damp blocks instead. They will refuse. Or if not, they’ll break a bone. So here’s what you do. Make sure instead the slabs are all thoroughly dry through and through. If need be, bake them first in an oven so as to get every last bit of internal moisture out. They will remain concrete still, but rather less strong for some little while. Until, that is, they re-absorb sufficient moisture from the air to fully return back to original strength.
To break wooden boards is actually somewhat the harder. Unless, that is, you bake those as well. Without you should bake them, wooden boards are somewhat springy. Also very inconsistent as to their grain pattern. Stack wooden boards, and the weakest points of each will not line up all right in the middle. They always use soft woods rather than hard, because of how the two kinds are sawn. Pine and such are quarter sawn such that the grain runs mostly straight. Just only mostly but that helps a lot. Easier to break, and prevents splinters. Hardwoods are plane sawn such that the grain runs more wavy. Harder to break and a much higher risk of nasty splinters. Concrete or wood, baked or not, breaking them still makes for good practice. Teaches students the importance of follow-through. Aiming beyond and into the target, not at its surface. So still very worthwhile, even despite a certain measure of shameless showmanship.
Then, to my great disappointment, Mark’s class unexpectedly suffered abrupt cancellation. Mark had been instructing it under the Comstock Township Public School system’s adult education program. Attendance had never been high, generally less than ten students. So they decided to drop Tae Kwon Do from the curriculum. Possibly in favor of higher returns for use of the gymnasium? I’m not sure I ever knew quite exactly.
Maybe Mark set up again somewhere else before very long. But if so, I learned of it not. No email in those days. Plus I was very soon much occupied with a new job. Eventually I was to catch up with Mark again, and Master Beghtol in the bargain, but it wasn’t to happen for many a year.
Many commercial studios are little more than diploma mills. Here’s how to recognize one almost instantly. Simply count the number of colored belt ranks below black. There’s a curious history in this. Originally there were no black belts at all. None whatsoever. Training was often wholly inside a given family. Maybe instead a clan. There were no tests. Ranking was by seniority. No tests were needed as everyone knew everyone else.
Black belt ranking was invented Solely by Jigoro Kano inside of Judo. Why? For having been introduced as a sport, popularity had grown out of control. Suddenly, strangers were sparring against strangers. There needed to be some way of informing contestants when they were free to use full speed and power on an opponent versus when to go easy. Jigoro began dying white belts black to be worn by those judged competent to deal with others giving their all. It was a safety measure. That’s all. Nothing more.
In ancient Japan, samurai classification had five levels. Holders owned to official certificates, but these came wholly without any outward badges of rank. Following this, the two Western judo schools mentioned above evolved five kyu ranks below black, assigning colors to each. When martial arts (re-)evolved in Korea post WW2, sub-ranks below black (there termed gup) were divided to number eight. Not as an expansion, but rather in keeping with traditional numerology having mystical overtones.
Find you therefor, any commercial school boasting a Japanese tradition with sub-ranks greater than five, or a Korean tradition greater than eight, know it for a diploma mill. Higher divisions exist for but a single purpose: to generate more frequent testing fees. Often such school may even sell Dän ranks. That or issue honorary Dän rank to financial contributors. Boo! Hiss! Shame and dishonor.
I will here relate second hand stories about the oldest commercial TKD studio in Kalamazoo. I have no firsthand knowledge myself, so believe or scoff as you please.
Way back in the 1970s a certain Korean Karate school occupied the second floor of a building downtown on the corner of E Michigan Avenue and S Pitcher St. The Korean born instructor was Sun Han Chung, a former national competitor of very high standing. So no disparagement whatsoever upon the man’s personal skills. Just only instead upon certain two particular events which rankled his fellow black belt instructors who passed their own tales down to me.
Kent Bole was formerly this school’s co-instructor. Possibly he had even invited said instructor to Kalamazoo. I’m no longer sure on that point. One thing that rankled Kent was the other having printed advertising pamphlets prominently featuring a front-cover photo from some earlier demonstration they’d done. Depicted was Kent in a guard position, apparently a hapless target foolishly standing stiff as a statue while Chung aimed an acrobatic flying side kick bare inches away from Kent’s face. Rather unflattering. Printed and distributed without the courtesy of asking Kent’s permission. Not merely for this had Kent dissolved the financial relationship to form a school of his own. Further annoyances were hinted at but never fully detailed. Contentions of a business nature, so I was left to surmise.
Mark Gerger related to me how for a certain period during my absence there had once been some kind of organization linking many Korean Karate schools throughout Western Michigan under a single umbrella. This with direct connection back to Korea itself. While this setup remained in effect, during official black-belt-only sessions Mark Gerger’s place in the lineup was somewhat behind Monte Beghtol with Sun Han Chung quite properly outranking both. Here I have no information regarding Edward Sell from this time. No idea where he might have fit in, if at all. Possibly he had already gone his own way. I just don’t know.
Within this umbrella organization, black-belt sessions got hosted in rotation by various member schools. In Kalamazoo, those took place at Chung’s commercial academy. Which made for a problem insofar that Chung had at some point taken it upon himself to bestow honorary Dän rank upon a financial contributor. A ranking, no less, higher than either Mark’s. Higher even than Monte’s. To someone, no less with hardly any training at all. And this person was nevertheless privileged to take his place in the line up ahead of both Mark Gerger and Monte Beghtol. Either of whom could easily have wiped the floor with this person one-handed.
It was at least partly on account of this that Monte Beghtol broke away to form the Western Michigan Tae Kwon Do Association in 1981. Anyhow, such are the stories that were related to me as a kind of oral tradition. For myself, I have zero direct knowledge, and my two sources have since passed away. So make of each story whatever you please.
So then, after a couple of Compstock Public School adult education semesters training with Mark, he and I lost track of one another again. I was then just only a few months out of the Navy and working for next to nothing at Bond Supply, a plumbing warehouse. Tiring of that, I applied for a much better paying, albeit none to glamorous job as Attendant Nurse at the Kalamazoo State Hospital. My parents had both worked there, so passing the Civil Service exam was easy enough for being already, as it were, in-the-know. During which occupation my still very limited martial arts training nevertheless proved quite useful upon rare occasion.
In what businesses now call an on-boarding process employment for the State of Michigan’s Mental Health Department began with two weeks of training.
Ignore the topic title for now. I’ll delve into that aspect a few paragraphs further down. Firstly what’s needed is to give clear example of how true professionals are easily manage dangerous combative subjects. At least when you outnumber them by seven to one.
Once actually on the job I very soon learned of a somewhat peculiar superstition jointly held by all of my new coworkers. Certain names must never be mentioned. Say a given name out loud, and said that released former patient would very soon be back. One such name was Alexander (last name withheld). Someone must have spoke it, because one night he came back. During this era the Detroit Lions football team boasted a fullback nicknamed The Refrigerator. Alexander could have easily squashed that guy like a bug. The cops had brought Alexander to our admission award fully chained: hands, feet, waist. They claimed he had totaled out a squad car from the inside. Told us that we were the crazy ones for insisting they must remove all the chains.
No sooner, however, did Alexander recognize the ward than he felt himself back home. Being still a new employee, this was my first encounter with Alexander. He gave me no trouble at all about the routine admissions procedure. That wasn’t to last, however.
The Admissions Ward had two day rooms. Here was were patients whiled away idle hours. Playing pool, playing cards, watching TV. Their sleeping quarters were in a separate corridor angled 90 degrees from the main corridor. In a blind spot furthest from the ward’s Nursing Station. Part of our jobs was to routinely check all the room doors, making sure they were locked. Another attendant named Skip and myself went to do that. Reaching the end, we turned about to find the return route blocked. There stood Alexander, easily blocking the entire hall. He charged like a bull, arms spread wide. Skip ducked left and I ducked right. Skip and I both had long hair. Alexander got a fist full of Skips while I made it past.
Alexander started punching Skip in the face. Hollering for assistance (four other staff on the day shift) I tried to at least divert Alexander by punching him where I knew it would hurt without him easily reaching me. In the kidneys, as hard as I could, several times. Alexander did not so much as flinch. He never even looked around to see who it was. Just kept on punching Skip.
In moments, six more staff have arrived. Thee from our own ward, and three from the next ward over. Someone had put their key into the wall-mounted panic switch, alerting the next ward over. Seven of us is what it took to gently subdue Alexander. Seven is plenty: two on each leg, one on each arm, and one to manage the head. We got Alexander down on his back. My full weight, plus that of another guy was on Alexander’s right leg. Even so, he still was able to lift us up both up off the floor with his thrashing. Being at the foot, I held on with something like a half-nelson lock.
Meanwhile Nurse Somerville took her own sweet time measuring out a very precise measure of Thorazine according to Dr. Kondapenini’s order. Then we rolled Alexander onto his side just enough for her to give it to him in the hip.
We held Alexander down for another few minutes until the Thorazine took hold. After we let go, Alexander went on his own into the Quiet Room (bare mattress, nothing else). Locking the door, we kept watch at five-minute intervals for a few hours, then let him out. Routine stuff.
Upon this basis, I’m here to tell you that anytime the police claim they had no choice but to beat the living crap out of somebody when they outnumbered their victim well more than just only seven-to-one, that is a baldfaced lie. They’re flat out lying. With seven, you can do it easy.
Anyhow, after that episode, something very strange happened. Alexander was now my very good friend. Out of all seven, he remembered just only me. I had caused him some degree of hurt which he remembered. Not the kidney punches, instead my lock on his foot while trying not to be kicked loose.
How I learned this was when another patient, a manic depressive in his manic phase was making himself a nuisance by getting right in my face and shouting delusional nonsense. Then suddenly, he just stopped. His gaze shot up above my head. Slowly he backed away. Very unexpected behavior for this particular patient. Why so? Alexander had come up behind me very quietly. Poor situational awareness on my part, but I’d been having a major distraction only just a moment before. Alexander had come to my defense. Not for suffering one of his uncontrollable moods, just only so as to help me out. He’d come up to stand behind me, and from over top my head, glower down meaningfully at the other patient who’d been giving me grief.
A couple more years went by. Laid off from my Attendant Nurse gig due to Reagan’s deinstitutionalization campaign, I cash in the GI Bill and go to college. Then onto a new job as electronics technician. I now have a girlfriend and we own a house. One evening The Karate Kid played on TV, and I felt a failure for having let my own training slip. I looked in the Yellow Pages and found ads for several classes. I chose one. Moo Duk Kwan again, this time under Mike March, starting over as white belt. This was a true self-defense class, in that they did not officially participate in any competition events. Why not? Because competition sparing has rules. And Master March thought those rules too constrictive. As a result, often his students would sign in for a match, then accidentally get themselves disqualified just for doing something which Master March had carefully trained them to do: sweep the base foot, controlled contact instead of lightly tagging one’s opponent. You sometimes went home with bruises. My third training break is directly related to this.
One day a visiting student showed up for class. A 1st Dän from some other school, just paying a visit. We sparred, but once. His idea of controlled contact cracked one of my ribs. The senior 8th Gup was pissed to see that happen. While I sat nursing my aching side, he and the visitor sparred. I wish I could remember that 8th Gup’s name, because it was beautiful. Almost right away, he swept the other’s base leg. Sent him falling head over heels to crack the back of his head on the mat. I’m sure it was deliberate, because he then looked right at me and nodded. Was the other guy ever mad. He complained to Master March, who calmly explained that yes, he teaches that here.
I skipped the next class, and maybe also the one after that. I had only just got a new girlfriend at the time, and any excuse to be with her was readily taken. This led to an error in judgment. A carnival was just then in town. My girlfriend wanted me to go with her on one of the rides. I’m not sure what it’s called. Kind of like a Ferris wheel, but with capsules that meanwhile rotate to flip the occupants upside down. Not wanting to be judged a wimp, despite my still very sore rib, I got in with her. Huge mistake. Round about the second or third loop-de-loop, my sore rib gave a pop. I’d thought it just only bruised, but instead it had been cracked. And right in the middle of that carnival ride, it broke completely.
I screamed, "Stop!". But everyone else was screaming too, and the ride attendant ignored us all with aplomb. I never did get back to Mike March’s class.
Another year or so passes. I’m feeling a bit of a failure once again for having let my martial arts training slip. My new job is as Engineering Technician in an electronics lab. One of my coworkers is an ex-Green Beret. He tells me about a really cool class he’s just learned about. Hakko Ryu Jujitsu under Master Hrenilovich. Sessions are at the Western Michigan University gymnasium.
My ex-Green Beret friend and I go to watch. We’re very impressed. We both sign up. It goes okay for a bit more than a year. Slowly, however, my wrists developed an ever more serious ache. For not wanting to seem a wimp, I haven’t been tapping out early enough. My tendons take damage until I’m needing both hands just to pick up a mug of coffee. It’s interfering with work. And so, I stop training yet once again again.
More years pass. My girlfriend and I finally marry. We have a son. At about ten years of age, he’s mad about ninjas. And what do you know, but that there is an actual Ninjitsu class with sessions for kids. Adult classes too, but they don’t impress me much. The ’master’ is kind of a blowhard, all the time ranting about how the ninjas were an oppressed minority defending themselves from the evil samurai. Kind of funny, him being so adamant. Especially as I know that barely two years previous he was instead teaching Okinawan Gojo Ryu at a different studio in the suburb of Parchment. I’ve had my fill of martial arts politics by this point. So much of it is fake. Outright myths which even highly skilled practitioners seem to actually believe in. Zero point in starting any arguments. I pay the matter no mind whatsoever.
The kids’ instructor, however is a woman. And I see how she’s great with children. So I bring my son to watch, and he is happy to be signed up.
After a couple of months though, the adult instructor takes a two-week vacation to Japan and comes back ’certified’ in a couple of genuine, official, ’koryu’ arts. Both affiliated with samurai traditions. So during ninjitsu classes, he preaches out of one side of his mouth, then during samurai classes, suddenly the samurai are no longer evil oppressors, but instead veritable paragons of nobility and honor. It is to laugh.
Which isn’t to say the guy is not skilled. Long out of practice myself, he could have thrashed me one-handed. Which meant that he did have something to teach. It just wasn’t history by any means.
So when comes the day that he begins to offer classes in Jujitsu (first Seibukan, then another ’secret’ art whose name I forget), I sign up myself. At least it is something. Better than nothing. I figure to get back in the swing, one way or another. When it gets really hard to bite my tongue, is when the guy goes on a rant about secret tantric origins to the new art he is teaching. He spouts absolute nonsense. How do I know it for nonsense? Because I myself was then, and still remain, a practicing Tibetan Buddhist according to the Geluk tradition. I had by then taken training in tantric meditation under several Tibetan masters. Firstly under a couple just passing through. Then for months directly under the venerable Ngawang Jangchup, a full Geshe Lharampa. Lastly I’d been accepted as a tantric student under Zasep Tulku Rinpoche, a Geshe Acharia. By then I held a number of tantric empowerments. Which isn’t to brag, but instead only to show that I could spot totally fake, imitation tantric bullshit, when I heard it. Enough was enough. I quit attending his classes.
Not too long after that, I ran into Mark Gerger again. Who, by then had attained 6th Dän. Immediately I took up where I’d left off at 5th Gup. In a more regular fashion, I worked my way up to 1st Dän. The event took place in October of 2006. It being a black belt testing, the venue was under Master Beghtol’s purview in Grand Haven. Plural individual classes were jointly present, all those willing and able to make the trip from other cities.
We prospective candidates demonstrated our forms (alternatively called hyung or poomsae in Korean, kata in Japanese) in step all together. Not just only those for our level, but all our forms right down to the first we had learned as white belts. And here is yet another difference between proper schools and a diploma mill. Dän rank implies an instructor. And since you cannot teach what you yourself do not know, you must therefor remember all that you have been taught so far.
And since WMTKD retained all the forms (adding on the Taegeuk set while still retaining the Palgwe set), our test for 1st Dän required close to thirty forms total. Compare this against commercial diploma mills where students are allowed to forget any forms associated with lower ranks.
Next came sparring, at which I recall having been adequate, but hardly stellar. No fancy high kicks did I attempt. Nor did too many others, I seem to recall. I cannot speak for the instructors of other classes, but Mark Gerger quite enjoyed trapping a foot and then just looking at me as if to ask, "Okay, what are you going to do now?" And besides, Mark was a really big guy. Nearly a head taller than me and almost twice my weight. Most anybody would have needed a trampoline to aim so high. And besides, I was then already just two months shy of my 51st birthday.
Lastly came the part where you break things (hopefully not a bone). While instructors from other classes mostly had their own prospective candidates hammer-fist concrete slabs, for me Mark brought out a mere 1/2-inch plank of quarter-sawn pine. Not for a hammer-fist, which would have been laughably easy. Many a martial artist likes to congratulate themselves for a signature technique. Master Beghtol’s, quite famously, was his exceedingly powerful sidekick. Mine was the ridge-hand (alternately called a reverse knife-hand chop). A strike that travels from the outside inward: fingers extended and just slightly curled, thumb tucked down out of the way, impact occurring along the hand’s edge on the index-finger side.
Not many choose it. None any among those I’ve had occasion to meet. I picked it mainly just to stand out. And had practiced it plenty during regular classes with Mark. In class we had practice boards. Plastic halves that lock together. Sold in various thicknesses, I had slowly worked my way up to a pair purportedly the equivalent of one-inch thick pine. A couple points about those, however. They join together exactly at center. The join is something easy to aim for. And never does a mistake give you splinters.
Never had I tried it on actual wood. It was just only one half inch of wood. Presumably weaker than Mark’s plastic, quasi one-inch practice boards. Speed is the thing. You have to be fast. Without you have speed, the ridge-hand lacks power. Hold your own arm straight out in front, palm down. How hard are you able to push in an inward direction. So yeah, like that. Nor can you stiff-arm a ridge-hand. That offers no speed.
So how instead you do (or at least, how I then had used to do) is face off to one side. Then I’d position index finger and thumb of the striking hand all but touching my lower back. Imagine reaching behind to pull out an arrow that had been shot into that side’s kidney. Seriously. Now, pivot on 0 degrees on the ball of either foot. The forward if attacking, the rear if retreating. The body performs a 180 degree spin, bent elbow leading. The lower arms trails behind the elbow initially. To a certain degree, the lower arm kind of swings loose. Imagine it swinging kind of like the free half of a pair of nunchaku. Use your muscles more to guide that swing than to add power. Control the swing so that it reaches full extension just at the instant of impact.
Just make sure you don’t miss. You must hit dead center. Right on target. Because if you don’t... Well, that really hurts. And quite a bit more than if you should miss with a knife hand. Full impact concentrated mainly just on a very small area. The first knuckle of the index finger. Which might be part of why not many chose it.
At end of testing, Mark’s fellow instructors pointedly complimented me on a very fine ridge-hand. I had, for a fact, snapped that piddly half-inch pine board easily. I quite remember wishing that Mark instead offered me two boards together. I’m quite sure I could have done two. Likely not three, though. Almost certainly not three. Still I enjoyed the compliments. They were very pleasing to hear.
Sadly no. Although I afterward kept training regularly, even right through to having been scheduled to test for 2nd Dän, a motorcycle accident barely weeks prior messed up my right knee just badly enough that I limped on it for close to a month. Also at that time, my head was hardly in a good place. My first wife had just filed for divorce on her own. This after we had agreed to jointly seek a lawyer together and proceed file for a no-fault. For her having done that, the process dragged on just over two years, costing us both a bloody fortune.
By this time I had already relocated to a temporary solo apartment in Holland. Still, even so, I happily commuted down to Kalamazoo for training with Mark while also serving as junior instructor. It was a really great time. I enjoyed the heck out of it for as long as it lasted.
This was circa 2008, with the country sunk into a deep recession. In result of which, like many others Mark lost his job. His had been a prestigious position: top tier statistical analyst for Pfizer Pharmaceutical. The position he’d held got eliminated from the company roster in a series of cost-cutting moves. This while at a different company, I avoided the axe very narrowly. A slightly a more senior coworker got cut instead. Mark, for being well known in his field, was offered an equally good position which he hardly dared refuse. Unhappily for our club, it was at Sanofi Pasteur in far off Cambridge, Massachusetts.
Our class had always been small. Never more than a very few students at any one time. Sometimes only just two or three. And instead of a 6th Dän to teach there was just only me, a lowly 1st Dän. Therefor much less of a draw. Besides which, never had I been comfortable at the pyramid’s apex. Not even a small one. Not that I was wholly without leadership experience. Ages prior, I had been President of Boy Scout Explorer Post 202. And for a very short time in USN boot camp, 1st Platoon Leader. I founded the Kalamazua Progresantaro, an Esperanto study group which functioned for quite some years. I was even, for a handful of years, city-level Han Cho of Nichiren Shoshu Sokka Gakkai (a quasi-Buddhist cult, until I wised up to what they were really about). Some time after which I alternatively founded a Tibetan Buddhist meditation group, the Lama Tsongkhappa Center. This with full sanction of a respected Tibetan Tulku. And which continued to meet right up until I myself had needed to move away.
And yet in each such endeavour, I had laboured under a minor handicap. The top job (even though it be only local, inside of a larger organization) is really best suited to an extrovert. Which I am not, by any means. How it would happen, is that I’d be wishing for something, hoping somewhat desperately for someone else to set up, that I might join in. But knowing for certain that no one else would. And so I’d try to do it myself. I’d even suceed to a degree. And things would be fine, just so long as everyone chose to get along. Which for the most part, they tended to do. Still, even so, I never really felt quite up to the job. And after so many efforts across more than two decades, I was feeling kind of burned out.
Mark had set us up with yet another adult education program at a local public school. A brand new semester started, but no one signed up. Another of our senior members had completed his PhD and was likewise off to do great things in the world someplace far away. His wife went with him, and that left just only me. I made an attempt to relocate by time-sharing at Southside Dojo, but it fell through. Whereupon I just gave up. Driving to Kalamazoo from my apartment in Holland was most of an hour each way. When I couldn’t coordinate the timing to synch with visiting my son and also attending a jujitsu class which I had recently started, something needed to be trimed from my weekend schedule. I made the choice that worked best for me. Felt kind of bad about it, but even so. I switched over to attending TKD classes with a friend of Mark’s whose own classes were in Grand Haven, a mere 20 minutes away. Went to those every week for something more than a year.
And for a while things went swimmingly. I had already, some few months earlier, begun training in yet a another art at the same time. This was Sho Bu Do Bujitsu Jujitsu. So I was doing both of those at once for something over a year. And as nothing was ’secret’ (really only ever just a marketing scam), I was made welcome to bring techniques from one to the other. Neither style was the least gunshy to discover how their own methods fared against something from the outside. Which just only made the the pair of them that much more fun.
What made it so was Grandmaster Beghtol’s justly famous organizational philosophy: "If it worked on me yesterday, it's Tae Kwon Do today." Because of this, his senior black belt instructors were uniquely known for being heavily cross-trained in other functional disciplines, including Judo.
Junior ones too, with it being in my case jujitsu. Not merely tolerated, I was actively encouraged to share. Not while free sparring, jujitsu being much too dangerous in the event of even very slight mistakes when done at full speed. During one-step however, all were very eager indeed to pick up something brand new.
Excerpted from the Student Handbook, 3rd edition, 2006
The history of Western Michigan Tae Kwon Do begins with Professor Monte W Beghtol. In January 1963, Pf. Beghtol began training and progressed to black belt with Ernie Leib in the American Karate System. At his 1st Dän testing, Pf. Beghtol was fortunate enough to spar with Mr. Bill “Super-foot” Wallace and Tadashi Yamashita both excellent men and well known in the martial arts. Pf. Beghtol began training in 1967 with Mr. Edward B Sell from Detroit in Tae Kwon Do Chung Do Kwan with The Korean Tae Kwon Do Association of America which became The U.S. Chung Do Kwan Association, of which Pf. Beghtol was the Vice-President for many years. Chung Do Kwan translates as the "Blue Wave School" or the "True Path School"; waves being an endless source of power and knowledge expressed in the "water principles", Chung being Chinese for mean or center with a Confucian philosophy of Chung that describes "correct action flows naturally when we stay close to the center". On September 30, 1973, Pf. Beghtol earned his 4th Dän testing before Dr. Un-Yong Kim in Detroit, MI. This achievement made Pf. Beghtol the 2nd Non-Asian in the world to achieve the rank of Kukkiwon Certified 4th Dän Black-Belt surpassed only by Mr. Edward Sell.
A master Instructor certified by the World Tae Kwon Do Federation and Kukkiwon and now carrying the rank of 9th Dän, he formed the Western Michigan Tae Kwon Do Association in 1981 (WMTKDA). The purpose was to grow beyond the limits of traditional TKD and explore all techniques that can aid in self-defense in a practical way. Pf. Beghtol teaches techniques from every imaginable source. His philosophy is simple and expressed in the phrase he coined many years ago "If it works on me today, its Tae Kwon Do tomorrow." Imitation being the supreme form of flattery, some others now use similar phrasing.
Pf. Beghtol has promoted more than 300 persons to the level of Black Belt, and many of those have gone further in their studies to achieve higher ranks and successful schools of their own. In 1995, Mr. Beghtol began performing occasional workouts at the training school of Mr. Dan “The Beast” Severn (Ultimate Fighting Champion) and on April 1, 1997- Mr. Beghtol received his 9th Dän Professorship while testing under Moore’s World Tae Kwon Do and induction into The World Martial Arts Hall of Fame. Professor Beghtol, and Mr. Dan Severn both received inductions on July 19, 1997 in Texas.
Pf. Beghtol continues to honor us by teaching on Wednesdays at the Grand Haven venue, White Pines Middle School, from 6pm-8pm, as well as at the association black belt workouts every 6 weeks. His teachings transcend the martial arts and if we let them, help us to be better people, more disciplined, self-confident and thus able to be more compassionate and understanding with others in the rest of our daily lives.
The Western Michigan Tae Kwon Association consists of active schools in Allendale, Coldwater, Grand Rapids, Grand Haven, Kalamazoo, Montague, Muskegon, Norton Shores, and Walker. All adhere to a core cirriculum established by Pf. Beghtol with freedom to add individual requirements.
Not my primary art. I never got anywhere good enough. But still quite possibly my all-time favorite.
A totally no-nonsense organization. No fake thousand-year history. The founding grandmaster, was Soke Nakasato Shoshu (apparently now long departed) was a figure somewhat parallel to Mr. Miyagi from The Karate Kid. Just an apparently ordinary guy with a regular job living on Okinawa. Someone, however, around whom curious rumors circulated. A supremly accomplished martial artist, so it was told. A certain US Marine had got wind of this and was moved to check it out. Rebuffed at first, the marine was nothing if not persistent. He offered to pay for private lessons. Enough, one has to assume, that the old guy at last did accept. Or possibly, as I would surmise having once lived on Okinawa, the marine’s sincere and imploring manner may have created a situation in which the old guy could not politely refuse. However it was, the marine got his wish and began training.
Then word gets around the Marine barracks and soon a whole bunch of other mariness want to train also. In due curse, tuition for training generates a better income than the old guy’s regular job.
And so begin formal classes. But just who is this older guy, able to toss much younger US Marines around like so many rag dolls? Is it some secret, ancient tradition? No, not at all. Just some stuff he had learned after being drafted into the Japanese army during WW2. Not any single art. Rather instead, he’d picked up a mishmash from different sources, afterward keeping just only the stuff which had proven personally practical. Were one to speculate, those arts might have included Daito Ryu Aiki-no-juitsu. But who really knows? The old guy refused to say. Inisted that it didn’t matter. His own fusion of techniques, whatever their source, he named Sho Bu Do Bujitsu Jujitsu. An art all his own. It is what it is.
Some of it was very similar indeed to techniques I remember from Hakko Ryu. It is a jujitsu, after all. How it works is anchored in human anatomy. The nerves and pressure points are thus and so. Impinge any one of them and the result is intolerable pain. Those flying somersaults are the escapes. An opponent does something truely awful to your wrist, elbow, or shoulder, and the only escape is for you yourself to leap overtop of your own forearm, or whatever, so as to unwind the applied torque.
Otherwise you get pinned. Once on the mat, there is no escape, so best to tap out immediately. Don’t even think about trying to be stoic. Hold out longer than absolutely necessary enough times, and you can end up like I manged to do to myself back when I had been taking Hakko Ryu. Unable to lift so much as a coffee mug without using both hands. Also sudden stabs of sharp pain from just reaching into a pocket.
That said, Sho Bu Do is elegant. Ever so subtile. Properly done, techniques look like almost nothing at all. Every techniquie is analog, each with a virtual dial ranging from 1 all the way to 11. A given technique could be employed to cripple an opponent for life, but that would be counted very, very sloppy indeed. The goal instead is to induce just enough pain to steer your opponent however it is you might be wanting for him to go.
That and to chain them together. Every lock has an escape. But every escape only leads to some new opportunity for yet a different lock. Below black belt, you mostly learn the individual techniques. Having reached black, its pretty much all about chaining techniques together in endless variation.
Truly a most serious art. And definlitely not a diploma mill. There are only two ranks between white and black: green, and brown belts. And to achieve even just those, there are no tests. One day when he thinks you have earned it, the instructor will simply call you up front to kneel between him and the front row. He addresses the class, and hands you your belt. I learned this when presented my green after something more than a year.
I didn’t get any further however. I very much wished to, but it couldn’t be helped. Classes had been on Sunday, then got moved to a different day far less convenient. Whereas to attend, I was having to drive more than an hour from Holland. Feel free to call it lack of commitment.
As of this writing, Sho Bu Do classes are still ongoing at Southside Dojo in Kalamazoo: LINK .
Somewhat dejected for having to give up Sho Bu Do, still I found fulfillment in keeping up with Tae Kwon Do. Then a day came with very sad news. Grandmaster Beghtol had terminal cancer. I was by then attending Tae Kwon Do classes in Grand Haven, about thirty minutes from my new appartment in Holland. Before very long, Master Beghtol was gone. And I was not anything like as well pleased with Mark Gerger’s friend as my instructor as I had been with Mark himself.
Two separate issues were in play. Firstly I had promised Grandmaster Beghtol that I’d create a series of instructional videos for teaching students all of the forms (aka ’kata’ in Japanese). Set patterns for single practice. I had proposed the idea myself. My concept was this. All over YouTube they do it wrong. Always they show it from the judge’s viewpoint. Which is mirror image to the student’s own viewpoint. So instead what I’d do was show things exactly the same as how student’s learn it in class. There’d be three views: from directly behind a senior student in the next row toward front; views also as if from senior students to the left and right in the row ahead. Four panels therefor, the forth to display scrolling text of each technique being performed.
I further had it in mind for the scolling text to name each technique in English, the same as was done in all classes save only one. A single instructor was adamant about adhering to Korean for the names of every technique. This, to my own mind, failed to follow the example of the Koreans themselves. Had they not, after all, translated all the Japanese terms into Korean?
My new instructor, Mark Gerger’s friend, Robert Allen, likewise a 6th Dän and fellow longtime student of Grandmaster Beghtol, was by everyone’s account the organization’s highest exemplar of precisely exectuted forms. While Master Beghtol yet lived, Master Allen had agreed to star in my video project. A few short months afterward, though, he bowed out. Partly, I think, it was over my intention to name techniqes on the scrolling list in English rather than Korean. He wanted them named in Latinized Korean. In his own classes, that’s how he taught students to know them. Such wasn’t at all the case under most other instructors, however. And my intention was to serve the organization as a whole. Actually, anyone whomsoever as might stumble upon the webiste for containing them which I would create and maintain at personal expense.
And besides, Korean already has (just like Japanese) a right and proper syllabary of its very own. To latinize it is a bastardization. Not that I was so importune as to argue this point with a 6th Dän. Long ago in Kent Bole’s class we’d been supplied with glyphs for each of our first names according to the Korean syllabary for placement on our uniforms over the heart. By the time of the class photo depicted far up above, only a few had so far done this. I was laggard, holding out for my mom to embroider it rather than just make do with a magic marker. In proper Korean, though, no American student could read it. Yet a font size capable of displaying English together with bastardized Korean would be so small that only very sharp eyed students would have hope of reading it.
Forging ahead, with Randy Weaver as special guest star, I produced a demonstration video: YouTube . There was once also a Vimeo version, but I cannot find it now. My very great hope was that the result might inspire Master Allen to stop putting me off and set an actual date. In this my effort failed. One day not long after Master Allen informed me that he was no longer inclined. And without so much as the courtesy of explaining precisely why. I was sorely degjected. More than this, vastly annoyed. Even angry to a degree.
Know this, I had spent nearly two months, basically all my free time, coding software to incorporate three camera views plus a scrolling text panel into single videos. The process worked. I even got to try it out. But just only once, with another, senior black belt named Randy Weavers as temporary guest star. But it just wasn’t the same. Randy is more of a power guy. Not sloppy, by any means. Just not quite exactly what you’d call absolutely precise in his timing. Before one motion was quite complete, already he’d have begun leading into the next. Not by a lot, just only a little. But the thing with video is that any body can freeze-frame the playback wherever they want. Each of those little economies showed. Randy admitted as much himself. And somehow, the project just stalled out after that.
Plus there was still another annoyance. Master Allen, despite being most highly skilled, subscribed to a personally irritating pet mythology: die hard belief in mystical tall tales about the life of Bruce Lee. Robert could recount endlessly on the topic. All utter nonsense, of course. Which grew ever harder to respectfully endure.
As a kind of quid-quo exchange of effort while still supposing he would find time to star in my as-yet unrecorded forms videos, I began staying late after class to study the jo staff. This despite I myself having no particular interest in the jo staff it at all. A really quite impractical weapon. If ever you might be needing a weapon, never will you be having a jo staff with you.
Master Gerger, had instead taught me the cane. I have taken the cane right though weapons detectors into courthouse buildings. I have taken it onto planes. Also, as the years go by, and with my knees no longer quite what they were, the cane serves me admirably even without a single enemy anywhere in sight. If needing both hands, I can hang the crook from my elbow. The cane helps me get down to the lowest shelf at Barnes and Nobel, then back up to standing again. I very much missed my old instructor, Master Gerger.
Master Allen kept putting me off on the video project. Finally, he just said no. Instantly did I regret all those hours wasted on trying to memorize jo staff kata. My enthusiasm for continuing to take instruction under Master Allen begand to fade. It grew ever less and less. Finally I decided it wasn’t worth even just a 30-minute drive to attend. I began missing sessions. Finally I just stopped going. As of this writing I haven’t trained in TKD for something more than fourteen years
How did the process work? Three cameras record the event, each from its own perspective. Impossible to synch three ordinary cameras for identical start times. So I did it the old fashioned way: using a classic clapper board. Ingenious things, those. Hunting frame by frame, you can easily find where the clapper comes down as only just there do its top and bottom diagonally stripes exactly meet. This while on audio you hear the clap; see it even on an acoustical graph.
From there it was partly software, partly manual.
ffmpeg to:
audacity, clip off all sound prior to the clap sound and beyond the end.ASCII markup file listing each technique, meta-tagged by frame number.ffmpeg to put it all back together like so...
Even with the software which I’d slaved over several weeks writing, the manual portion of creating one single video was quite laborious. Which, even so, I’d have been happy to do it. That for each of the dozens of forms. I was, in fact, very much looking forward to it. The end result would have been a tremendous boon for the organization. Any student could have practiced their forms at home almost just like being in class.
But then the project fell flat. For quite some years after I held on to all three cameras, their tripods, etc. I still have the movie set clapper. The computer on which the programs once ran, however, suffered a disc corruption failure a few years back. The programs are probably backed up somewhere. On a left-over HD maybe? But I would need to hunt for them. And, most likely, they’d need updating as ffmpeg will by now be several versions revised.
So it remains just barely possible that the project could be revived. I myself would volunteer to update the software. Then I’d be wanting to train someone else how to use it. I would donate the cameras, tripods, and movie set clapper. After which I’d wash my hands of the whole affair, it being no longer of any benefit to me whatsoever. No longer am I able to perform forms. Feel free to look up pudendal neuralgia to know the reason. Should any suggest I had ought just power through it, let them first demonstrate their own capability. Let me see them peform all thirty-plus TKD forms, one right after another just like for testing, after inserting a cocklebur suppository about three inches up you know where. Because that’s how it feels on a good day. Think baby sea urchin for a bad one.
But why you many wonder, was it so important to me way back then? What had motivated me to evolve any such concept in the first place? I had wanted it to help overcome a personal deficit: poor short-term memory. I myself had long been in need of precisely this sort of training aid. Always I’d had to learn forms by first writing them down, step by step, using shorthand abbreviations, into a little spiral bound notebook.
During practice at home, I’d frequently have to stop and consult my little book, keeping it between times tucked between the front flaps of my uniform. So very much easier it would be if only there should exist classroom-like videos to stand in front of and just follow along. But no, every last on-line video shows things from the judge’s perspective. Never the student’s. All those have ever been good for is to let someone show off. Not one of them is any use for home study. Instead of just fret and complain, I was going to fix the problem. Should’ve, could’ve, would’ve. Too late now. Alas and alack.
Yes, I even took this for a while. My last hurrah, so to speak. I took it for something less than a year. I can’t disparage BJJ utterly. BJJ does hold any number of serious aspects. Parts of it are not unlike Hakko Ryu. But certain other parts are indeed, quite ridiculous and absurd.
Class sessions were from out of a former store inside a strip mall located conveniently a very short drive from my house in Port Sheldon. The year, this time around, was 2011. The instructor was a young guy, at least releative to me, and just a tad reluctant to take in someone my age. I very soon learned why that was. His classes began with some serious cardio. At which I was only just barely able to keep up. He quite often played background music, expressing surprise that I even knew who A Perfect Circle and some of the other bands were, much less liked some of the songs.
Mainly I’d joined so as to keep in shape and not completely fall out of practice. Only one probelm with that. Courtesy compelled me to hide my disdain for ceratain of BJJ’s patently absurd techniques. Which only continue to exist, of this I am certain, because of rules banning the self-evident counter-techniques. Among which, I will name just only one.
I can’t remember what they call it. It’s supposed to be some kind of quasi judo-like takedown. Your opponent seizes your uniform close to the collar with both hands while leaping to apply a scissor-lock around your middle with both legs. Your job is to try and disloge them. What you as the attacked party are not allowed to do is bow swiftly forward to crack the back of their head against the matt.
On New Years Eve of 2011/2012 I was visiting my then girlfriend Karin (future 2nd wife) who lived in Kelowna, British Columbia. We’d been maintaining a 2,000-mile, long-distance relationship for a few years. Anyhow, we’d just come from a New Years Party at the home of someone she’d wanted for me to meet. On our way back to her place we got hungry. And the only establishment still open was a sports bar. While eating my attention was partly diverted by one of the big, flat-screen TVs featuring mixed martial arts competition. The bouts were quite brutal. I gave it only half my attention as Karin clearly disapproved of competition at that level.
Then came something which boggled my mind. Next up in the lists a BJJ black guy was to be pitted against an equal rank MMA guy of no particular single tradition. Right from the first, I just knew what surely had to be in the offing. And certain as rain, there came a point where the BJJ guy tried out that ridiculous scissor-lock take down. The MMA guy stood there amazed, not believing what this was supposed to be. For perhaps as long as two seconds, the BJJ guy clung to his front like a koala hugging a eucalyptus tree. It ended when the MMA guy applied the clearly self-evident counter. Bowing forward at the waist, he craked the back of the BJJ opponent’s head against the mat. And not a very thick mat at that. Instantly the BJJ guy was out like a light. Medics came in and carried him off.
I didn’t quit because of just only that, though. Nor did I very much mind getting pinned to the mat by girls half my age and twenty pounds lighter. Often enough legitimately, but other times only because self-evident couter-techniques were strictly forbidden. Rather instead, it was because the instructor moved his class to another location more convenient to himself, but quite some distance further away from my house. After then, I took no more classes at all.
A has been, even? Often I feel that way nowadays. Once a student of plural arts, even a semi-master of one, but now long out of practice in all.
Except, that is, for my ever trusty cane. It has stood me very good service against more than one aggressive dog, one of those quite vicious indeed. And never with need of doing any real harm at all to said dogs. Not even the one who otherwise wanted to tear me to bits. Who took quite some persuading before he finally gave up. An old story that, but relevant still. So I’ll tell it here regardless...
Someone’s back yard guard dog who’d got loose would be my guess, it having happened in my own driveway. Which at the time wasn’t exactly the nicest neighborhood to live in. Or rather, both was and wasn’t. Our single, very short, dead street you see was the Rose Place Historic. Houses all more than 150 years old, and for the most part fully restored. But surrounded on every side by a decaying slum lord district. Tall fences in every back yard had put an end to casual tresspass, but the entry from Rose Street proper lay fully open. Down from which the occasional unwelcome guest might sometimes wander.
Or instead come charging, at a full run while barking his head off. A rotweiler/pitt bull mix was my guess at the time. Followed half a minute later by two somewhat winded teenagers who immediatly set off clamoring, “Please mister, don’t kill him!” Not that I had any such attention at all. None whatsoever. Just as I hadn’t killed any of the two or three before him. If nothing else, such an over-reaction would likely invite future retribution of a wholly unknown nature.
Unlike those before him, however, one or two good pokes in the nose wasn’t having much effect. I’d give him a poke, back up one step, and show him what he was up against with a few figure-eight twirls. Unimpressed, no sooner would I stop than he’d come at me again. More pokes followed by left and right lateral swings that both cut the air with a whoosh bare inches in front of his face. Which had I been backed into a corner, would instead have taken out both front legs. But I wasn’t, so no such drastic conclusion was needful.
Which is about the time when his two young owners arrived on the scene. A sister and and her younger brother, both somewhat winded. And now suddenly quite upset for having witnessed the cane’s most recent lateral swing. Maybe even hearing the whoosh? Finally even the dog realized that he and I were at an impasse, albeit a loud one. So there we all were. The two kids trying to call off their dog. The dog himself poised in a crouch ready for yet one more lunge and barking its head off. Me holding a pose like some present-day Minnesota Fats Wiki poised for a close-in billiards shot.
All ended well, however. In due course the kids succeeded in calling off their dog. I went back to whatever I had been doing. A couple times since my cane has proved useful in fending off dogs. Happily with only the self-evident threat being sufficient to dissuade.
Unlike either a gun or a knife, the cane is an analog weapon. If, that is, you are needing a weapon. Which almost never anyone does. Those not not actively looking for trouble, anyhow. When not in such need, which is by far most of the time, a cane is very useful indeed. Long ago, before ever I had any medical need, Master Gerger had surprise-gifted me a Cane Masters cane: LINK . One of their practice models. Meaning it came with carved-in notches meant to assist with maintaining one’s grip on the shaft during certain maneuvors. Also a sharp point on the crook. While duely grateful, I thereafter used it only for practice. Recently I handed that one down to my son. No point having two canes, after all.
Two because almost right away,I had obtained for myself a second cane. What I have since jokingly called my Sunday Go to Beating. Very much like a Cane Masters cane, but deliberatly lacking any weapon-like features. Except perhaps, for the crook being similarly wide. No carved-in grips. Especially no sharp point at crook’s end. Smooth shaft and dull as dull can be at crook’s end. As plain as can be, and bearing a medical logo of my own design: Caduceus Cane & Crutch, Ambulatory Aids complete with winged caduceus symbol. Inoffensive. Completely non-threatening.
Long ago I had evolved a theory. This back when I had used to carry a knife instead. It was during my time in the US Navy when most other sailors I knew carried Buck 110 Folding Hunter knives in sheaths on their belts while wearing dungarees. Those universally tolerated for having workaday utility. Many were quite well-practiced at drawing and opening those one-handed. Assisting with this was something called a flicket.
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Which one co-worker of note proudly disdained. This was a certain Johnny Lee Amons of Paris TX. He’d taught himself to do with out. And he was fast, just like some movie gunslinger of old. At the time I was much impressed, practicing the same trick myself until getting it down. Which, very memorably did serve me once in a real-life situation. But that is a whole other story: LINK . Where I differed from others was in my choice of which Buck model to carry. For some reason, always I need to be at least a little bit different. My favored model had elk horn grips in place of wood. Like so that it might better resemble something anyone’s grandfather might have owned.
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Back on point, my theory ran thusly. Picture yourself serving jury duty. The prosecutor holds up for your inspection a item bearing a tag that reads People’s Exhibit A. The closer it resembles a Klingon batlith, the closer you’ll surely be to an unshakeable vote of guilty.
Evolved early on, that same theory I later promulgated during occasional stints as assistant or guest instructor in Tae Kwon Do classes. I’d been spouting it for some time already even before Master Gerger gifted me with that original Cane Masters cane. Such that he was neither surprised nor offended in the least when I provided myself with a second for carrying outsied of class.
At the same time, being vain, I rather liked having one mostly free of dents and scratches obtained during classroom practice. Which mine isn’t that quite so much any longer. It now bears any number of scuffs from quite ordinary use. Some from its resting position between seat and door while traveling by car. Some of those being shoe scuffs, since during earlier years, I would just leave it stored there as often as not. And sometimes brush it with the edge of a shoe in getting out.
With a few very exotic exceptions, canes by Cane Masters are all solid hickory. Quite heavy, therefor. Likewise also my own trusty Sunday Go To Beating version. Originally for the same reason. Way back then, the better to serve as an effective striking weapon. During the course of years far more recent, I’ve changed my tune somewhat on that point. Goodly heft has since proven advantageous in yet another way wholly unexpected. Chiefly during those instants of momentary and passing vertigo such as my blood pressure meds will sometimes bring on.
When feeling myself about to tip backwards, merely lifting up on the cane provides effective counter-balance. And for knowing that even so little compensation as that will prove good, anxiety for that potential occurence is much reduced, and quite often wholly absent. May it ever remain so!
A major annoyance, though, nevertheless. How annoying for that being something I need now consider. But it is what it is. Were it only that I better better kept up my martial arts practice, very likely I could have forstalled all such considerations until at least somewhat later. But insofar as both my parents died from heart attacks, some of it is probably hereditary. And so once again, it is what it is.
Yet I can’t help but want to make a suggestion, whenever I chance to see someone else bearing a cane, theirs being one of those telescopic, ultra-light models fabricated from hollow aluminum tubing, that heft serves a quite useful purpose. Instead, though, I mind my own business, bite my tongue, and say nothing at all. Most times, anyhow.
