Decade 3 – The 1970’s: Searching for the Bridge[i]
3.1 Balancing Life, Family and Martial Arts Training
When I turned down the opportunity right out of high school for a try-out with a major league baseball team, I chose the direction of my life. I further refined my path upon graduation from college, when after prayerful consideration and the input of others whose opinions I valued, I decided to enter the Christian ministry. I married my high-school sweetheart, who to this day is the true and constant joy of my life. We packed up all our belongings into her yellow 1967 Camaro with the black racing stripe (man, I wish we still had that car!), and we moved to Louisville, Kentucky. Jan got work as a registered nurse at the Baptist Hospital and I found a couple of part-time jobs before enrolling that fall in the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary. I believed my spiritual training was every bit as important as my physical training, so I began my graduate work fully determined to make a life in service to my Maker. But to be honest, from the very beginning it never felt quite right.
From the start I was a fish out of water. I had no trouble with the academics. My trouble came with the “academics.” Let me explain. Back in the early 1970’s the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary was a hotbed for liberal theology and politics, and the liberal professors were thick as fleas on a dog’s back. Now, it was nowhere near as leftist as the United Church of Christ or some other denominations, but it was generally regarded within Southern Baptist circles as the most liberal of the sanctioned seminaries. In fairness, I knew something of this before I chose Southern, but I went there because (a) it was close to our families back in Tennessee, and (b) I felt that having my ideology challenged would be intellectually strengthening. What I hadn’t counted on was the world at Southern being “a tuxedo and me being a brown pair of shoes” as comedian George Gobel once said. I was then, as I still am today, a political and religious conservative, so I had anticipated being challenged. What I would experience would be three solid years of doctrinal and academic hand-to-hand combat against multiple opponents. If I wasn’t defending the divinity of Christ, I was blocking and countering the intellectually bankrupt drivel of the McGovern-for-President crowd.
As soon as I found a job, a place to live, and a church, I began looking for a place to train in a martial art[ii]. I was not going to find a hapkido school in Louisville, Kentucky in 1972. Most people still had never heard of the art, and training in hapkido was severely limited to the east and west coast. In my spare time between school and jobs, I located Chung’s Taekwondo School in nearby St. Matthews. Pulling together left-over change, scrimping on lunches at school and work, and pinching pennies elsewhere, I managed to afford initial enrollment. Mr. Chung was pleasant, seemed talented, and welcomed me to his school. Being new to taekwondo, I started as a white belt despite my previous training, but my foundation in hapkido allowed me to progress rapidly. Within a few weeks I had learned my basic stances, basic blocks and punches, initial Chon-ji forms, han bun kyorugi (one-step sparing) and tested for my yellow belt.
By the fall of 1972 I was attending seminary classes weekday mornings, running football practice for the local YMCA a few afternoons a week, and coaching games on the weekend. I had a second part-time job as a security guard in downtown Louisville two or three nights a week, and it is a wonder that job did not get me hospitalized or killed. As I look back on it now, it was downright dangerous. There I was — twenty-one years old — walking around downtown Louisville from 6:00 pm until midnight in a rough section of town, under-equipped and over-confident. Yeah, that’s me in Figure 3.1.1, in November of 1972 – young, dumb, and full of myself.
The security and detective agency I worked for had me guarding the poorly lit parking lot of a local TV station, doing flashlight walk-throughs of a dark, two-story office building a couple of times each night, and making random circuits of the sketchy streets and alleys surrounding the Hillerich & Bradsby Louisville Slugger™ baseball bat factory. It was a recipe for disaster. I was issued no firearm and no radio. My only equipment consisted of a can of mace. I wasn’t even authorized one of the bats I was guarding! Other than running off an occasional loiterer, I had no serious encounters. But with no radio or significant weapon, I am not sure exactly what I would have done if I had encountered trouble. This was before cell phones were even a distant dream.
Mercifully, I found a less risky job the next year. My wife was working full-time as a registered nurse at the hospital and being a fully supportive young wife as we began our life together. It never occurred to us that we might fail. We never doubted we would find a job, never believed a job was ‘beneath us,’ never expected to walk into some six-figure income, never doubted our marriage would succeed, and we never questioned that we would start a family. It may be a generational thing, for I have discussed this point with many of my contemporaries, and they seem to have experienced the same confidence. Perhaps it was the nature of society at the time, for even though we had our share of violence, danger, and trouble, we were generally optimistic. Maybe the economy made it easier back then. But many of the college students I see and teach and meet today do not seem to exude the same confidence and spirit. Many doubt that they will find a job, some see living in their mother’s basement as a safety net, and a lot of them plan for failure instead of success. Indomitable spirit is more than just not giving up. It is approaching life with confidence and not planning for failure from the start.
But for all the jobs, the studying, and the family life, it was in the taekwondo school where I began to increasingly find comfort from the intellectual and spiritual battles I was fighting everyday at the seminary. I took refuge in the traditional floor exercises that characterized every class, and I came to count on them to clear my mind. A 3rd Dan black belt, whose name I do not recall, taught one or two evenings each week. He particularly impressed me. He was maybe 30 years old, weighed perhaps 200-215, but moved with grace and speed, delivering power with each technique. More importantly, he was a good teacher with a gentle spirit. He offered a good model which I would later apply in some of my own teaching.
One evening at Chung’s the time came for kyorugi, or free sparring. This was before the proliferation of safety gear on the hands and feet, so students were expected to control their techniques. I remember being called to spar a talented brown belt, and I recall being nervous. We were not allowed to grab or throw our opponent, so even though I had been training at Chung’s about three months, I was at a distinct disadvantage. We bowed in and began. The advanced student moved more fluidly than I, and he had landed some pretty good shots on me, offering me what later in life I would call a “teachable moment.” At the same instant, we both decided to throw a reverse punch, and stepping toward each other simultaneously, we had inadvertently closed the distance necessary to maintain “light contact.” His reverse punch struck me squarely in the nose, standing me straight up, but not before my reverse punch struck him solidly in the solar plexus. We both just stood there for several seconds. I was stunned by the blow, and I couldn’t see him, as my eyes watered and blood began to drip from my nose. At the same time, he was frozen in place, the air driven from his lungs. Unable to take a breath, he made this low, guttural sucking sound. The instructor stepped in and stopped the match, and both of us took a few minutes to recover. I have often said that we learn more from our mistakes than we do from our successes, and this was no exception. The encounter taught me something about distance, timing and how to take a punch.
- Lesson Learned: Never underestimate the value of a well-timed, solidly grounded, well-aimed reverse punch to the solar plexus.
But there was more to life than school and work and taekwondo. We were following the biblical injunctive to “go forth and multiply,” so my wife and I were now expecting our first child. As any young parent knows, the coming of a baby means changes in the marriage, greater financial challenges, and a new focus. The new focus meant saving money for the baby to come and working some extra hours to earn more. That, in turn, meant having to say “goodbye” to martial arts training. Chung’s was a traditional school with good instructors, but it was also very much a business, and between monthly tuition, testing fees, uniforms, etc., it was getting more and more expensive to train. So, when it came down to choosing between making financial preparations for our first child, and continuing martial arts training, it was a simple decision to make. It was not just the money commitment; it was the time.
3.2 Questioning My Life Choices
For the next two years, I went to school, worked part-time jobs, and my wife and I began raising our first child. All the while I felt out of place, and I experienced second thoughts about the decision I had made for my future career. Although some days seemed more normal than others — and I did take pleasure in much of what I did — quite frequently I felt like I was living a cruel masquerade. This career direction was not me, and I sensed it wasn’t ever going to be me, but I didn’t know what to do about it. Who could I talk to about this? I couldn’t approach my professors for fear of ramifications on my grades. There was such a stigma on someone leaving a seminary, or even contemplating it, that I couldn’t even tell the person closest to me in the world – my wife. What would she think of me? What would my friends think? What would my family, who was so proud of me, think? In retrospect, I think my mother knew I was struggling, and as any mother knows her son, I think deep down inside she realized this was the wrong path for my life. She never said so. She only encouraged me, but sometimes I would see a look in her eyes that belied her statements. I wanted very badly to tell her how I felt, but I just could not bring myself to do so.
You weren’t your momma’s only boy,
but her favorite one it seems
She began to cry when you said goodbye
And sank into your dreams (“Poncho and Lefty”)
So many had encouraged me to choose this way of life, telling me of my gifts and how not serving God would be wasting them. I felt guilty for even considering a change, but in my heart I was miserable. Outwardly, I kept up a decent front, not letting on to anyone of my doubts and fears. But outside of my religious studies, I read as widely as time would allow in secular realms of history, psychology, and even military science. I found truest joy when playing music or during my opportunities to talk about, observe or train in marital arts.
During these days, back in Memphis, Tennessee, Bill Wallace, point and full-contact karate competitor, and Red West, bodyguard and confidant to Elvis Presley, had formed the Tennessee Karate Institute (TKI) in 1974. My martial arts friend, Mitch Sage (a successful martial arts teacher for the last 30 years), lived in Memphis at the time. While visiting Mitch’s school in 2017 and learning a sword form from him, he told me he had attended the TKI for a brief period. He told the story of going there with a friend in the mid-70’s and taking a class with Bill “Superfoot” Wallace. Mitch described how at one point in the class he raised his hand and told Wallace that he “didn’t understand that whole ‘roundhouse kick’ business.” Sage explained how Wallace called him up front, faced off against him, and faster than he could see, Wallace kicked him in the side of the head and sent him to the ground. Mitch said he had no further questions (Sage). Such teachable moments were not uncommon in those days. I shudder to think what would happen if we taught that way in our litigious society today.
For a glance back in time as to the nature of martial arts training during that period, you might examine an unfinished movie/documentary project that Elvis financed in 1974 entitled The New Gladiators. It was never completed for publication, but a version of it exists on YouTube that shows Elvis and several of his martial arts associates doing a “demonstration” for students at the TKI. The footage is grainy, and it is over-dubbed with narration by Wayne Carmen, one of the participants the night the film was made. Still, it provides a feel for the 1970’s techniques and approach to karate, taekwondo, and other arts in that period. You will see a lot of strutting around by Elvis and the others. The influence of Ed Parker on Elvis is clear when the latter demonstrates some techniques before the camera. Dan Djurdjevic, on his blogspot The Way of Least Resistance, offers a fascinating piece called “What Did Ed Parker Study.” If you look at Djurdjevic’s posting and view the “SGM Parker en Chile” clip, the similarities between Parker and Elvis in The New Gladiators are striking. Elvis holds court throughout The New Gladiators, and the assembled group (Bill Wallace, Red West, Al Holcum, Khang Rhee and others) demonstrate a myriad of “self-defense techniques” on willing partners that try to make the instructors look good. The narrator of the film, Mr. Carmen, even at one point in describing the action says that the role of “Uke” is to “make Tori look good.” Never in any of my training was it Uke’s job to make me “look good.” Rather, it was his job to help me learn the technique and become proficient. Given a choice between looking good and being proficient, I will take the latter every time.
I have always appreciated realistic one-step sparring because it allows a warrior to carefully and systematically explore various options at countering different attacks. It allows a student, in a controlled environment of distance, speed and targeting, to build a database of potential responses he or she can employ in an actual attack. Most martial art styles have some version of this drill, sometimes expanding it to “three-step” events that help to teach distancing, angles, and timing. With most one-step training, the defender indicates with a sound or a look that he is prepared to receive the attack, and the attacker executes a single technique (often a lunge punch in karate or taekwondo). The defender then blocks the punch and delivers one or more counters. I have no issue with this approach at the white belt or beginner level, but as the student progresses, the one-step must be more dynamic to even approach realism. One way to increase realism is to increase the speed of the attack. A second way to increase realism is to close the distance of the attack. But a third way to increase realism, and I do not often see it in the training I observe, is for Uke, the attacker, to mimic the anatomical response to Tori’s defensive techniques. Uke should attempt to mirror, as best as possible, the positioning, targets, and anatomical response to Tori’s counters. Continuing to stand there, arm extended, like a wax museum exhibit, while he is being “hit,” is completely unrealistic. Uke should be mirroring the physiological response to the previous technique. Ideally, when one has conducted thousands of these drills over time, one inculcates the knowledge into stimulus/response and muscle memory.
Even though I lived it, I must be careful how I apply a 21st century yardstick to the training methods and mentality of the 20th century. Judging those in the past with a yardstick of the present is often called “presentism.” Even Djurdjevic, speaking of the Ed Parker film, cautions, “if he [and his brother] had seen the 16 mm footage in the 70s or 80s [they] would have thought [such demonstrations were] the bee’s knees” (“What Did”). While the so-called “one-step” sparring they employ in The New Gladiators seems so unrealistic to me today, I admit I was not unlike those in the film at the time. I must have thought I was slick executing such techniques back in 1974. Looking back on that film, it all seems so contrived, artificial, and devoid of combat reality. In all my years, I have never seen anyone start a street or bar fight by stepping forward and throwing a classic karate lunch-punch to the mid-section – the primary attack against which so much of this one-step training was done. But what I know now is not what I knew then. And if I had been given the chance, at that moment in time, I would have been right in the middle of it all. Instead, I was hundreds of miles away in Louisville, Kentucky, trying to train on my own, wrestling with my own identity and future, and studying in a program that had me questioning my course in life.
During my last year of graduate school, I tried to continue training on my own whenever I could make the time, often going into the gymnasium after everyone had left for the day, dressing out, and doing my forms and techniques down in the corner alone. Occasionally, someone would come in and strike up a conversation about what I was doing, but usually I was left alone, which is how I preferred it. One day I was playing football during some rare free time, filling-in for a regular on one of the intramural teams. While playing defense, I started taking some hard shots, and the dirty looks that accompanied them, from a rather hefty fellow on the offensive line. This was supposed to be flag football, but it was rapidly escalating. Finally, it came to a head when at the end of a play, fully two or three seconds after the whistle, the individual who seemed to have it in for me came running up from behind and knocked me hard to the ground, landing on top of me. As he stood up, he drove a fist in my back and said, “get up and try that karate on me.”
Where on earth did this come from? I didn’t even know this guy. I could only figure he had seen me working out in the gym and felt he had something to prove. I jumped up and I was just to about to square-off with him when I hesitated. What am I doing? I’m supposed to be a Christian. I dropped my hands to my side.
“Are you really a student here, or did you just transfer from outside for the game today?” I asked.
It was a strange thing for me to say, but apparently it disarmed him enough to cause him to sneer and walk away. We finished the game, and I confess to having taken some rather un-Christian retribution on this ol’ boy with a couple of legal blocks that rocked his world. And yet, in a strange way, I felt a kinship to this man. Here was another fellow obviously out of place, and maybe uncomfortable in his own skin. Was it possible that others here at the seminary felt as misplaced as I? The encounter on the football field that day was an odd way to receive my first hint that maybe I was not the only wandering soul. One of the characteristics of Adult Children of Adult Alcoholics sounds a lot like me in those days. They tend to:
… lock themselves into a course of action without giving serious consideration to alternative behaviors or possible consequences. This impulsivity leads to confusion, self-loathing, and loss of control of their environment. As a result, they spend tremendous amounts of time cleaning up the mess. (“Characteristics”)
3.3 Chinese Martial Arts and Kwai Chang Kane
One of our church member’s sons was going to school in Lexington, Kentucky and had begun training in some form of Chinese karate called “Shaolin-Do” under a man called Sin-Te. We had the chance to work out a couple of times and this was my first introduction to the subtleties of a Chinese style. I was impressed and I determined to learn more. So, sometime in late 1974, when I heard about someone teaching “Chinese Karate” across the Ohio River in Jeffersonville, Indiana, I slipped over the bridge on a rare night off and located a class on-going in the basement of a Christian Church. I did not go inside, as I was reticent to approach the instructor, or even to be seen watching the class. I am not sure why I felt that way. Perhaps it was because I feared I would find something I liked, and I knew full well I could not afford the money or the time to drive over the river and train. I was embarrassed to talk the talk and not walk the walk. So, I watched the class through the basement window, sitting on the ground outside for more than an hour in the growing chill of the October night air. What I saw fascinated me. It was a class of perhaps 20 or 25 and it was unlike anything I had ever seen. It was an intricate series of hand techniques, with only limited advancement up and down the floor. There was no shouting, no kiai/kihap, and no brute force; and yet, the grace and ease of motion left no doubt as to the potential power of the techniques. This differed from the linear floor exercises of taekwondo, and there was no grappling or throwing as in hapkido. But it had a beauty to it that I could not quite classify. I have come to understand after years of hindsight that what I was watching that night through the basement window was probably some version of Praying Mantis Kung Fu. I left that night a man determined to later, someday when I had time and money, further explore the fascinating aspects of the fluid Chinese martial arts.
I caught a couple of episodes of the TV series, Longstreet (1971-1972), where a confident Bruce Lee instructs a blind detective in the art of Jeet Kune Do. This is different, I thought – the idea of keeping a fluid mind and “using no style as style.” There might be something to this. But there was certainly no Jeet Kune Do school anywhere near mid-America; hence, no matter how intriguing the concept, there was nothing I could do about following up on it. So, until I could find money and time to explore the Chinese martial arts in person, the television series Kung Fu (1972-1975) would just have to do. In those days (for you younger readers) there was no such thing as a video cassette recorder (VCR) or a digital video recorder (DVR), and nobody ‘streamed’ anything. If you missed a show, you just missed it. I do not want to think about the traffic laws I broke rushing home from one of my jobs in the mall bookstore to catch even a few minutes of the hour-long adventures of Kwai Chang Kane, a banished Shaolin priest who wandered the old west. But I was not alone. This show popularized kung fu for an entirely new segment of the population, and despite its detractors and naysayers that have emerged in historical hindsight, it showed both a physical and mental/spiritual side to what I had thus far only viewed as an art of power, speed and focus. “It is said a Shaolin priest can walk through walls. Looked for, he cannot be seen. Listened for, he cannot be heard. Touched, he cannot be felt (“Kung Fu Overview”).”
Who couldn’t help but be impressed by that? And so, I along millions of others watched Kung Fu not only for the techniques I might pick up, but also as an introduction into Eastern philosophy as well. No, this was not real kung fu, as many purists cautioned. It was television. But it was, for once, mainstream television – not a tongue-in-cheek depiction of karate in a SITCOM, or a ten-minute curiosity on Wide World of Sports tacked on as a filler show during a baseball rain delay. Entertainment and martial arts history scholars will debate for years the influence this TV show had on the proliferation of martial arts, both good and bad. But as one regular fan already interested and training in the martial arts, it gave me cause for celebration.
Apparently, however, not everyone took the show at face value. This became clear during an encounter with a student from the University of Louisville. I was working my shift in Stevenson’s Bookstore one night when a man walked in and asked if we had any books on Kung Fu. Although this was the age of I’m OK, You’re OK, Jonathan Livingston Seagull and Kahil Gibran fans (what can I say, this was a culture still groovin’ on things like George Carlin’s Hippy Dippy Weatherman), I personally preferred the martial arts books and was quite familiar with our selection. I attempted to steer him toward a good volume, and as was my habit, I always took the time to ask such customers what style they trained in and where they trained. The man informed me that he was “into Kung-fu” and that he attended University of Louisville. We had talked for a few moments and after sharing my own background with him, he asked if I would like to come out to the university gym some day and work out. Never one to pass up a chance to see another style or art, I consented. About a week later I showed up at the agreed upon meeting place. I had changed into my dobok in the dressing room, and I was stretching over by the gymnastic equipment and the mats, when my new acquaintance made a grand entry. He emerged decked-out in a white karate uniform with some manner of colored, silk sash tied about it. We greeted each other and after we exchanged some one-step sparring concepts (his techniques had neither power nor focus), he invited me to spar. Less than thirty seconds into our agreed upon “light contact” match, he started moving around me like a strange combination of a hyena in heat and one of the bad guys in a cheap kung-fu movie. Then the young man decided to attack. He took a running start and did a forward somersault fully expecting me to still be standing in the same spot when he delivered his weak, slow kick. As would anyone of even modest reaction time, I side-stepped the technique and snapped-off a couple of punches lightly against the side of his head. Shortly thereafter, he suddenly developed a “pulled muscle” and ended our workout. I never saw him again. Apparently, he was one of the viewers who believed the slow-motion scenes of David Caradine defeating multiple opponents were the actual speed of the techniques. The young man represented an archetype of individual I would continue to discover in abundance through the years—people whose only martial arts training consisted of emulating David Caradine[iii] in Kung Fu, orthe trampoline-assisted stars of cheap kung-fu movies, or some other television or movie hero. That people were introduced to the martial arts was certainly good. But the fact that many people believed that watching a TV show equaled training was not good. Such an approach likely resulted in numerous “ass-whoopin’s” that might not have otherwise taken place.
- Lesson Learned: Just because it looks good on television doesn’t mean it works in combat.
But I was as guilty as anyone of favoring movie stars who demonstrated any interest or skill in the martial arts. So, when I heard that Robert Conrad, star of The Wild, Wild West and later Battle of the Network Stars, was going to be in Louisville at a local car dealership, I was ecstatic. This guy is for real, I reasoned, given that I had read how he did almost all his own stunts in filming the TV show. I cut class, rearranged my work schedule, and my wife dutifully accompanied me to the west side of town. I met Robert Conrad and spoke with him for a few minutes, and I had the obligatory picture made with him (Figure 3.3.1). He was a small man in stature, but he had a confidence and a dynamic presence about him (almost a military bearing) that I would later see evidenced in people who chose a warrior way of life. Yes, he was an actor, but he was an athlete as well, and I respected that. Conrad died February 8, 2020 in Malibu, CA.
3.4 — Hapkido, Billy Jack, and Becoming a Sheepdog
See the following link for the next section which I extracted and published in the Nov-Dec 2020 issue of Blackbelt Magazine.
Martial Arts Worldview – Black Belt Magazine
[i] The second form of Wing Chun, “searching for the bridge” teaches turning movements in the horse stance, modified angles of attack and defense, and focused punching. The student attempts to find a “bridge” that allows him arm contact that will initiate chi sao or sticking hands. At this point in my life, I was searching hard for the bridge to my future.
3.5 Knowing Yourself – a key step toward indomitable spirit
I believe our life decisions and choices are subject to three different voices: the voice of others, the voice of God, and our own internal voice. And sometimes in life, notwithstanding our best intentions, we either listen to the wrong voices, or we misinterpret what they are saying to us. And perhaps even worse, we don’t trust our own inner voice. After graduation from seminary, I continued for a year or two to force a square peg (me) into a round hole (the Christian ministry) until I could no longer deny the reality of my own nature. God knows there have been times, through either inattentive or down-right selfish, road-hog driving, that I have turned my life into a six-car pileup. But even though I, and those who chose to ride with me, have walked away from the smoking wreckage, we have done so with plenty of scars. And for my poor driving I am truly sorry. So, by 1977 I had to make a change.
My life direction should have been clear way back in the 3rd grade when my teacher, Mrs. Scott, confiscated my detailed drawings of US fighters shooting down Japanese dive-bombers over the Pacific. How could it not have been obvious when I spent hours playing with toy soldiers, developing elaborate strategies and tactics, trying to act like a cowboy, and even pretending I was guarding the Illinois Central passenger trains that ran near my home? With my near obsession studying the martial arts all through high school and into college, why could I not see the obvious? If my lifelong interests and skill set had nothing directly to do with the Christian ministry, what in the world was I doing trying to make my living in that realm?
So, one day in 1977 I sat down in the office of a US Army recruiter, looked him straight in the eye, and declared to that sergeant that I wanted to enlist, and that I wanted a job where I could “close with and destroy the enemy.” A few minutes into the interview he walked back over from the copy machine, his brow furrowed, a quizzical look over his face, as he stared at my application. He handed it back to me.
“I think you circled the wrong thing,” he said.
“Beg your pardon?”
The sergeant pointed at the papers. “Education years. You circled “19.”
“That’s right,” I said.
There was a moment of silence, after which he sat back down, looking at my application in more detail.
“Let me get this straight. You graduated from a seminary, have nineteen years of education, and you want to enlist in the Army as a private.
“That’s right.”
“You don’t want to come in as a chaplain?”
“Nope.”
There was a bit more give and take over the next couple of days, but the Readers Digest® condensed version is that in March of 1977 I joined the United States Army to train and serve as an 11-delta (now 19-delta) Armored Reconnaissance Scout. And I traded Greek and Hebrew exegesis for a shaved head, the world’s ugliest eyeglasses, and the study of Army field manuals and weapons. But I was, for the very first time in a very long while, happy.
About midnight on one chilly March evening, I showed up for basic training at Fort Knox, Kentucky. I went through initial in-processing, ate a 3:00 a.m. meal of polish sausage and onions, stood fireguard for the next hour amid the mothball smell of a barracks full of new uniforms, and then began the first full day of my Army career. And in the ensuing months and years I would learn a lot about myself, about life, about my purpose for being here, and about indomitable spirit. After several weeks of training, I had been selected as the trainee platoon leader. I was older than most of the others and I guess they thought I would bring some stability to the group. The country was, after all, in the wake of Vietnam, and recruiting had changed with the “all-volunteer Army.” With no draft, the quality of new soldiers was “iffy” to say the very least, and the background and mental category of some new recruits during the mid-to-late 70’s was open to serious question.
I found the classroom training to be a breeze, and the only part of the physical training (PT) that bothered me was the horizontal bars (monkey bars). Eventually I figured out that this obstacle was as much technique as strength, and I got it under control. I loved the weapons training and the reconnaissance and stealth techniques. I wrote a letter (Figure 3.5.2) home to my brother (technically my half-brother by my mother’s previous marriage), Vernon L. Smith, dated May 22, 1977. It reflects my attitude, my growing confidence, and my tremendous desire for his approval. A portion of that letter where I describe firing the M16 rifle is transcribed below. Being 16 years older than I, both he and my older half-sister, Nelda, were grown, gone, married and out of the house by the time I was five years old. But it was from my brother that I learned many positive lessons about adult male behavior that helped to off-set some of the bad influences I had seen growing up. I always called him “Bubba” (Hey, we were southerners!), and he called me “Big Jim Bodie.” He taught me to hunt and fish, how to safely handle a firearm and how to shoot, loaned me his car when I was dating in high school, went relic hunting with me in later years, and provided a solid role model in my life.
“I fired my first three zeroing rounds and they looked like this: [first drawing]. So, I adjusted my windage and elevation to correspond to the target. You don’t try to hit the dark bullseye, you try to hit the lower “X” and get all your shots within the circle. This causes your weapon to be “zeroed” at a distance of 250 meters, since the bullet first rises and then drops. Having the best teacher in Vernon L. Smith, and being a Tennessean, I naturally fired my next three rounds like so [second drawing]. Did you expect anything else? Of course not.”
With “three hots and a cot,” a position of some leadership (however minor), and money going home to the wife and daughter, I was starting to get excited about the possibilities for the future.
Several weeks into our training, the drill sergeants set up an exercise/test/event one afternoon that I still vividly recall. It was done almost as an after-thought, the required training for the day having been completed ahead of schedule. Perhaps the drill sergeants just wanted to be amused. At any rate, they first drew a circle on the ground, perhaps 10-15 yards in diameter, and then they ordered the entire platoon to step inside the circle. The objective, one of the drill sergeants announced, was to be the last guy standing in the circle.
“Nothing to the eyes and nothing to the nuts,” one of the drills announced, “otherwise, whatever it takes, you get everyone else out of that circle.”
Without further instructions or time to prepare, he blew the whistle. Instantly, thirty grown men began wrestling and fighting in a free-for-all. As soon as someone would roll, stumble or be thrown outside that circle, the drills would police him up and move him out of the way to become part of the audience for this spectacle. I remember trying to stay close to the center. Soldiers were flying in every direction, kicking, scratching, punching, clawing and grappling. Within less than a minute only six of us were left in the circle, and there was a lull in the action as we stood there — muddy, sweaty and in some cases bloody — eyeing each other to determine whether to attack or defend. Apparently, the ones remaining decided it would be fun to get rid of the older guy with the ugly eyeglasses first so that the real men could fight it out for who was champion. The two of them closest to me attacked, one grabbing me by the right shoulder and the other by the left arm. We had learned a technique in hapkido where you ducked under one grab and pulled the two attackers toward each other bumping their heads together. It worked as smoothly as a demonstration, and while they were standing there addled, I shoved them both out of the ring. I don’t recall exactly how I got the next couple of guys out of that circle, but within a few seconds it was me and two others remaining. A leg takedown sent the first one’s head and shoulders across the line, disqualifying him. I rolled over on my back to receive the last competitor’s rushing attack. The same stomach throw Suh had used on me in the basement of the Union fieldhouse worked beautifully. I stood up on wobbly legs and raised my hand in victory, and for a moment there was stunned silence. Then my fellow trainees offered up a good-natured cheer and came up and shook my hand.
“Where’d you learn to do that?” one asked.
“Can you show me how you did that throwing thing?” another wanted to know.
In my heart I was thanking Mr. Suh. But I noticed the drill sergeants didn’t say much. Instead, they just kept looking at me with a curiosity which I thought at the time to be rather odd. I found out what that was all about a week later.
- Lesson Learned: Let them underestimate you. Then delight in surprising them.
One morning that next week I was standing in formation behind the company orderly room awaiting my issue of bed linens when the First Sergeant walked out on the loading dock.
“Brewer, post.” He shouted.
I left the formation, jogged to a halt in front of the platoon and assumed the position of parade rest.
“Yes, First Sergeant.” He lifted his eyes from a spreadsheet or print-out he had been studying, and he stared at me.
“What are you doing here?” he asked.
“Getting my laundry, First Sergeant.”
He shook his head, leaning down to speak out of earshot of the rest of the platoon.
“No, Brewer, what are you really doing here?”
“Beg the First Sergeant’s pardon?”
“This says here that you’ve got nineteen years of education. Is that a misprint?”
“No, First Sergeant.”
He lowered his voice[i] even further. “Why are you really here, Brewer?”
“I don’t know what the First Sergeant means.”
“I heard all about your little stunt in that platoon fighting circle the other day.” He leaned in closer.” Are you CID? (Criminal Investigations Division)”
“No, First Sergeant.”
It was clear from his facial expression that he didn’t believe my reply. “Get back in formation.”
“Yes, First Sergeant.” As I double-timed back to my place in the platoon, he folded up his papers and went back into the orderly room.
Ain’t no use in lookin’ down
(Ain’t no use in lookin’ down)
Ain’t no discharge on the ground
(Ain’t no discharge on the ground)
The Army marching cadence call above hints that it is not all gung-ho, being hardcore, and success in those early days of Army training. Just a couple of months into the process, I began to have second thoughts. I began to doubt the wisdom of my choice, and I was worried about the load I had placed on my wife and our daughter as I sought this new direction in my life. I missed them both so much, having never been away from them for so long, and I was asking the question, “what have you gotten yourself into?” To his credit, my Drill Sergeant, Staff Sergeant Ronald Kane, could see in my behavior that something wasn’t right. One afternoon following drill and ceremony practice, he sent the rest of the platoon to the barracks, and he kept me aside in the parking lot outside the building.
“What’s going on with you, Brewer?” he asked.
At first, I tried to tell him nothing was wrong, but he saw right through me. Tears welled up as I tried to explain what I was feeling, sharing my doubts and concerns. I even said I had considered quitting. But SSG Kane was an intuitive man, well-read, and more subtle in his demeanor than the other drill sergeants. First, he just listened. He didn’t interrupt or start screaming and threatening. He just listened. Then, he patiently explained that the stress of the training had probably clouded my judgment, and then he offered me some perspective on where I was then and where I had the potential to go. He saw something in me that, in that instance, I could not see in myself. And I shall forever be grateful for his professionalism and encouragement that day. I went on to win the George S. Patton Award for the outstanding trainee in the cycle of basic and advanced individual training. SSG Kane helped plug the leaks in my indomitable spirit that threatened to drown a career before it began.
- Life Lesson Learned: Good leaders are patient, and they dare to listen.
Another event occurred a few weeks after the wrestling circle when one of the drill sergeants called me into his office. After I reported in, he said, “Have a seat, Brewer. There’s something I want to ask you. You’ve obviously had some kind of karate training or something,” he said, appearing almost embarrassed by what he was about to say. “I want to ask you if it’s possible to kill a man by just touching him?”
“What’s this all about, Drill Sergeant?” I replied.
“Well, it’s come to my attention that trainee Gilbert told one of the other trainees that if he didn’t stay away from him, he’d just touch him, and that touch would kill him. Is that kind of thing even possible?”
I tried to hide my smile, since the Drill was deadly serious and determined to find out if he might have a potential situation developing in his platoon.
“Well, I have heard of such a thing as dim mak, roughly translated as the “death touch,” I explained, “but I have personally never witnessed a practitioner of the skill. And from what I’ve seen of Gilbert, First Sergeant, I seriously doubt he could lay a hand on any man that didn’t want him to, much less kill them with one touch.”
The drill sergeant seemed relieved and after talking further for a few minutes, sent me on my way. Maybe Gilbert had been reading a lot of comic books where ads like the one in Figure 3.5.3 appeared.
There existed a huge controversy over the validity and credentials of this “Count Dante” figure. Black Belt magazine had weighed in on the matter in the 70’s, and debate raged across the Midwest, and particularly the Chicago area, about a man known as John Keehan. For a more detailed discussion of Keehan and the Count Dante phenomenon, examine Phil Elmore’s 2010 web posting entitled, “Who Was Count Dante” (Elmore). But ads like the one above, promising secret death touches and mail-order courses that could turn a sedentary comic book reader into a lethal weapon, were quite common. Many were sucked into the morass, and more than can ever be measured likely took a serious beat-down trying to employ their mail-order combat skills in an actual self-defense situation. The good news is that I was right about Gilbert, and fortunately he never killed any of our platoon with his delayed death touch, or otherwise inflicted any bodily harm. We all made it to the night before graduation before there was a serious incident.
That night several of the trainees had partied much too heavily and returned to the barracks quite drunk. I opted out that evening as I did not imbibe[ii]. Once back in the barracks, words were exchanged and threats issued among some of the men. I was in my area down the hall packing up my gear when one of the soldiers in the platoon banged on my door.
“Brewer, Come quick. Clarence has a knife and he says he’s going to kill Monroe.”
I feared the worst, as the two of them had previously tread on the cusp of violence on more than one occasion. When I got to the dayroom, Monroe was on one side of the room bleeding from the mouth, and Clarence was digging through his duffle bag on the other side to find his knife. Some fifteen or twenty others were watching the affair, and not a soul had intervened to stop them. I couldn’t believe it. After all we had been through as a group, how could they sit back and let their buddies throw it all away? I stepped into the middle of the room—an act that, in retrospect, probably was not very smart.
“Clarence,” I said calmly, “don’t do this.”
“Get the [expletive deleted] out of my way, Brewer,” Clarence shouted, producing a knife with about a four-inch blade.
“We graduate tomorrow, Man,” I told him. “This is stupid. You’ve worked too hard to blow it all now.”
“Get out of the way,” Clarence said, drunk and angry, as he started toward Monroe.
“Don’t come any further,” I shouted, but Clarence kept closing toward me, as I was standing between him and Monroe. He had never liked me in the first place, so I was sure he would knife me first if that was what it took to get to Monroe. I recall how he lunged forward at me with the knife, and, as the memory often does, I playback my actions in seeming slow-motion. I can recall thinking absolutely nothing at the moment of attack, but I parried his knife-wielding hand with an eagle-beak block (control the weapon) and delivered a reverse punch to his solar plexus that dropped him to the floor (disable the attacker). I cleared the knife from his hand, and we separated the two men for the rest of the night. The following day, sober but still hungover, Clarence apologized to both me and Monroe. We kept the incident from the drill sergeants and both men graduated and went to their various assignments. I have no idea whatever became of them. That constituted the first time I had ever had to hurt anyone with the martial arts training I had received. And judging from the way the encounter made me feel. I was angry with Clarence over the attack, and yet at the same time upset at having to hurt him. But I had reacted instinctively based upon my training, and I had done what I believed to be the ethically right thing. In that aspect, I felt satisfied.
- Lesson Learned: You may practice self-defense techniques and weapon disarms by the thousands, but if you have to do one for real, it must be second nature.
When defending against a knife attack, one should expect to get cut. You simply try to control when and how that happens. But if you must “think about it” when executing your defense, you are probably going to get hurt even worse.
After basic and specialty training in recon, and a short stay at Fort Knox, I was stationed with at 2/9th cavalry unit at Fort Stewart, GA. Living in the small village of Glennville just west of the post, with a wife and a young daughter, and being a Specialist Four, I was in control of very little of my time. The idea of finding a place for martial arts training, and having the money to pay for it, was pure fantasy. So, I created a make-shift backyard dojo and did the best I could. Try as I did to keep up conditioning and focus, I could feel my skills beginning to erode. When martial artists are on their own and without a regular place to train, they can maintain most of their power and their cardiovascular fitness by employing cross-training, i.e., weightlifting, push-ups, dynamic tension, tactical breathing, and running or swimming. Yet I have discovered over the years that my timing of blocks, punches, and footwork is the first thing to suffer when I abandon regular, organized training sessions in a dojo, dojang, or a kwoon. An important aspect of developing an indomitable spirit is having confidence in your skills. That kind of confidence is reinforced by practicing your skills in the context of others seeking the same goals. It is so important to continue to place yourself among people who share your interests and desire to progress in the martial arts. Sure, you can read books, watch videos, and even practice on you own like I did. But there is simply no substitute for the environment of others equally as hungry for knowledge and skills in self-defense and spiritual development.
3.6 An Evolving Definition of “Martial Arts”
As my military career progressed, I began to reshape my definition of a “martial artist.” Of course, in the Army I received initial “combatives” (hand-to-hand) training like everyone else during Basic Training and/or One-station Unit Training (OSUT). But it was a huge disappointment. Maybe I expected too much. The instruction was about as plain and unadorned as the 1992 manual shown in Figure 3.6.1.
It is noteworthy that the 1992 manual shown in the image above superseded the previous version of FM 21-150 published in 1971, which was the manual that governed my training. The Army went twenty-one years between updates to hand-to-hand combat doctrine, and that tells us something about the priority of the training. The Army stated that its 1992 Combatives manual
…contains information and guidance pertaining to rifle-bayonet fighting and hand-to-hand combat. The hand-to-hand portion of this manual is divided into basic and advanced training. The techniques are applied as intuitive patterns of natural movement [author’s italics] and they are initially studied according to range. (Combatives iv)
The manual then depicts techniques for close-range combat, focusing on throws and takedowns, strangulation, choking techniques, and grappling. Next, the manual describes “medium-range” combatives, showing vital targets, striking principles (hammer-fist, palm heel, elbows, etc.). Lastly, the hand-to-hand section of the manual addresses kicking before moving on to knife defense and offensive blade techniques. That sounds a lot like the curriculum in many modern-day “reality-based” self-defense programs.
My issue was not necessarily with the content of hand-to-hand (self-defense) doctrine; rather, it was with the frequency and adequacy of the training. Sure, everyone got a sampling in basic training, but the 1992 manual never suggested that should be the end of it! Instead, the manual discussed the importance of unit training after initial entry training. According to FM 21-150, “After each soldier in the unit has attained the same basic skill level, the training can then progress to more advanced techniques and drills.” (2-5) The problem was … it never did advance! Suggesting that the training occur once a week, the manual indicated that the program was designed to be completed in 10 weeks, with the clear indication it should be repeated subsequently each year. That never occurred in any unit to which I was ever assigned, and I know of no other soldier I encountered in the 1970’s and 80’s who received the doctrinally directed 10 weeks of hand-to-hand combat training. How in the world was a soldier supposed to apply the techniques in an “intuitive pattern of natural movement” if they were never required to train it? So, I believe it is fair to say that – at least for the average soldier — Army hand-to-hand combat training was at a low-point in the 1970’s, 80’s and well into the 90’s. My contention is supported by Ray Wood, who was the Director of Combatives at the United States Military Academy at West Point, NY. In a 1990 article I wrote for Taekwondo Times on the martial arts at West Point, Wood explained,
… the Army-wide initiative toward close combat training [that had existed in WWII and the Korean War] disappeared from Basic Training for over a decade. The result was a generation of soldiers who … if they wanted martial arts training beyond the little taught in some specialized school, [they] had to go out and find it on their own, usually in a commercial school” (Brewer 59)
Wood was describing my experience precisely. According to Wood, Army leaders during the 70’s and 80’s had determined hand-to-hand training to be passe. And he was equally right that if I had been in a Ranger unit, or a Special Forces unit, I would have fared better. But for the basic GI Joe, the combatives pickings were slim. While the techniques were simple and effective, the frequency of the training for the average soldier was insufficient to create and preserve skills.[1] A few years later, when I had the opportunity to train now and then with some guys from the 5th Special Forces Group at Fort Bragg, I found they were clearly receiving a much higher level of self-defense instruction than the rest of us. And that made sense given their mission.
After basic training I served as a Specialist Four in that cavalry unit at Fort Stewart, GA, before being selected to attend Officer Candidate School (OCS) at Fort Benning, GA., where my quest for indomitable spirit was fully tested. After weeks of physical and mental challenges, and critical leadership training, I graduated as a 2nd Lieutenant … a Butter-bar … a Shave-tail. Also, during that time my wife and I were blessed with a second daughter. After a short tour at Fort Gordon, GA, I was assigned to the 82nd Airborne Division in 1980. I was not a special operations soldier, so that left me to seek out supplemental martial arts training on my own, just as Ray Wood indicated. But my broadening definition of “martial arts” now began to include the skills I was learning outside of hand-to-hand combat. I began to see “martial arts” as far more than leg sweeps, reverse punches, kicks, and joint locks. Given my military occupational specialty (MOS) as an Armored Reconnaissance Scout (11D), I was privileged to learn how to assemble, disassemble, fire and identify a variety of US and foreign weapons. I had taken the National Rifle Association (NRA) “Safe Hunter” course when I was twelve years old – the same one former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee describes in his excellent book, God, Guns, Grits and Gravy — and I had been an occasional hunter during my teenage years. Therefore, I did not come to the military unfamiliar with weapons. But through my Army training I came to see the M16A2, the AK-47, the bayonet, and the other tools of my trade as the “martial arts” weapons of today. During my career as a professional soldier I would come to believe that the M1911 .45 caliber service pistol was my modern-day equivalent of the sai, and my rifle the current version of the “bo.” They extended my range and lethality as a warrior, and they were just as much martial arts weapons for me in the 20th century as 16th century Okinawan farming implements were to their historical period. I came to the realization that a true martial artist may indeed learn the weapons of the past, yet he should also become the master of the weapons of his own time in history. The story goes that:
In 1592-1596 AD, Okinawa refused to supply the Japanese warlord, Shimazu (of the militaristic Satsuma clan of southern Kyushu), and the ruler of Japan, Toyotomi Hideyoshi, with necessary materials for Japan’s abortive attack on the Chinese protectorate of Korea. So, in 1609, Shimazu marched on Okinawa. Shimazu ordered all Okinawan weapons confiscated, so the people again had to use their bare hands and feet to defend themselves. To defend against Samurai swords, the people developed farm tools into fighting weapons: the windlass handle became the “tonfa,” the walking staff became the “bo,” and the hand plow became the “sai.” (“History of Taekwondo”)
Many sources mirror this account of how the Japanese ruler employed the 16th century Asian equivalent of “gun control” when he confiscated the military weapons (e.g., swords, staff, etc.) on Okinawa to subdue the people. When many people in the 1970’s and 1980’s referred to “martial arts weapons,” they were often referencing centuries-old farm implements (tonfa, bo, sai, etc.) forged into fighting weapons in the Okinawan tradition. The point here is that the people of 1500 AD fabricated, adapted, and employed the weapons of their own time, or modified older weapons or farm implements to do battle. Does anyone really believe that, given a choice between an ancient weapon or farm tool, and a modern one, an Okinawan farmer would have chosen the ancient weapon? Would he have willingly faced a Japanese warrior riding down on him with a strong, “modern” sword, or would he have been scurrying around to find a Bronze Age battle axe or stick to defend himself? The idea is ridiculous. Yet when you suggest to many modern martial artists that to be a complete fighter and a true warrior, they should master the weapons of today, they look at you like you are a heretic. What my military training taught me is that a martial artist, or a warrior, is someone who masters his physical and mental abilities; but of equal importance, he chooses to learn the weapons of now, not only those of the 16th century. I am not suggesting that bo, sai, three-sectioned staff, and other martial arts weapons training is not valuable. I am not saying that traditional schools should abandon teaching them. I have trained with them myself. I believe they can reinforce timing, speed, and an appreciation for the all-important distancing necessary to respect an opponent holding any weapon, be it stick or beer bottle. And no one can dispute their popularity, even with the bad guys — especially with the bad guys. As far back as 1985 Arthur N. Sapp, instructor at the Police Training Academy in Colorado Springs, CO, was warning about the danger of martial arts weapons out on the street. In a classic example of life imitates art, Officer Sapp described the presence of illegal martial arts weapons in the hands of folks on the block.
“After the Bruce Lee movies came out, we saw a lot of nunchakus. We were taking up to thirty sets of nunchakus from suspects each month. After the TV series “The Master,” shurikens (throwing stars) started appearing on the streets in large numbers. Now we are beginning to see a lot of blowguns, the type associated with the Ninja craze. It tends to run like a fad”(Brewer “Martial Arts Weapons 43).
The simple fact is that depending upon the laws in your state, if you carry some of these weapons outside the dojo, there is a high probability you will go to jail for possessing a deadly weapon. How much good is a weapon you cannot legally carry? If you are confronted on the street, is not the legal, three-inch (or whatever your state statutes allow) tactical folding blade in your pocket better than a butterfly knife and a set of nunchaku sitting back at home on the top shelf of your closet?
What I think bothers me most in this whole discussion is how many traditionalists react in horror when someone suggests that to become a well-rounded, modern “martial artist,” or warrior, means one should master the weapons of their time. It is disingenuous at best and downright dangerous to suggest that modern warriors should not learn to accurately fire and handle a handgun, a rifle, a shotgun, or employ a knife. I am an unapologetic advocate of the 2nd Amendment being interpreted as the right of individual citizens to bear arms, not the watered-down intellectual fabrication that argues that the Founding Fathers just meant the police (“militia”). Suppose, for example, that I am in fear for my life amid an impending or violent attack by an armed assailant. Let’s say that I have the time and stand-off distance, yet no means of escape. Then my reply to the attacker is more likely to involve a well-placed .357 magnum hollow-point, than a swiftly executed, well-focused, skipping sidekick to the ribs. Does that make me less of a martial artist or more of one? I will let you decide that. What I am not going to do is walk down the street with a set of nunchaku in my back pocket, or a pair of sai tucked in my belt, and use them to defend myself against a drug-crazed mugger holding a Glock! No matter how good I might be with butterfly knives or a three-section staff, they are neither functional for daily carry, nor effective in something like a maniacal terrorist drive-by shooting of my local outdoor café. I refuse to be the guy who brought a knife to a gunfight. I am not advocating, and I make this point clearly in my book The Danger from Strangers, that everyone should walk around heeled (carrying a gun). For some people’s skill level, mindset and disposition, a firearm is a no-go. But let me ask you this: would anyone seriously suggest that Geronimo was not a martial artist? Yet, somehow, when he realized that bow and arrow were no match for Winchester® repeating rifles, he managed to master the “martial arts” weapon of his time.
- Lesson Learned: If you open your mind to a broader definition of “martial artist,” then it becomes hard to escape the responsibility for mastering the primary weapons of your time.
[1] That situation has changed in the Army of today. The Army’s present ‘combatives” program has undergone a new attention to detail and effectiveness, and its importance has increased within the Army’s overall training regimen. The United States Marine Corps even has its own martial art progression system.
[i] Those of you with military experience realize just how uncommon “lowering” of the voice is to the actions of a First Sergeant.
[ii] After seeing the devastating effects of alcohol on my family, I decided as a teenager that it would be a genetically poor bet for me to ever take that first drink. And to this day, I’ve been, and shall remain, a teetotaler my entire life. I do not condemn others who drink alcohol in moderation and behave themselves. I just want none of it in me.
[ii] The job, home, church, and place to train protocol is one I would repeat during many of the major moves of my life, and whenever I failed to do so, the consequences were not good.
[iii] What a tragedy about the death of David Carradine. I certainly do not know what the man was into with his personal life that would have shaped such an awkward demise, but I do thank him for his contributions to the martial arts through the years.