Decade Five – the 1990s

My Old Kentucky Home – From Soldier to Civilian

5.1   A Return to Kentucky and Taekwondo

After leaving West Point, we moved to Fort Knox, KY, where I assumed my last duty station before retirement from active service with the US Army. I served as the editor-in-chief of the US Army Armor Center’s Armor magazine. It was, at that time, the oldest continually published military magazine in the world. The magazine was started by horse cavalrymen back in the 1880’s as The Cavalry Journal, and behind my editorial desk I still had volumes describing how to successfully attack from horseback employing the sword and revolver! I found myself caretaker of the written martial arts legacy of men like Blackjack Pershing, George S. Patton, Creighton Abrams and others. I credit several great people for their frequent advice and counsel that made that tour successful for me and for the magazine. I learned from the likes of a former editor, the late LTC Burton Boudinot, and my civilian managing editor, Jon Clemens. I had the chance to interface with the crusty, battle-scarred, aging heroes of WWII and Vietnam – men who embodied indomitable spirit. I can still recall Colonel Jimmy Leach describing the sound of German “88’s” that whizzed by his tank as he moved through the hedgerows of France in 1944. And listening to the lessons learned from warriors like Colonel Sydney “Hap” Hazsard proved to be a remarkable experience. As Kent D. Converse says of Colonel Hazsard in his Vietnam-related blog “A Glimpse of 1967,”

My main job while I was in Vietnam was flying our Squadron Commander Lt. Col. Sydney Hazzard. None of the other pilots wanted to fly Lt. Col Hazzard because they considered him to be a hazzard to their health. I loved him. He was one of the greatest army men I had ever met. He had started his army career as a Private on horseback at Ft. Riley, KS — the US Army’s Cavalry Center. When WW II broke out, he was with Gen. Patton all the way. He loved Patton and I suppose he was much like him. He was fearless. He wasn’t one of those officers looking for the next promotion. He prosecuted the war. It was an honor to serve with him.

It was also an honor for me to hold the position of editor-in-chief of this historically significant magazine and to be in the presence of such warriors and “martial artists,” albeit an assignment not likely to get me promoted further. I recognized and accepted that downside, and I threw myself into my work. My definition of martial arts continued to evolve in that rich environment.

When it came to my personal training, I shopped around for a martial arts/self-defense school where I might affiliate, but I never seemed quite satisfied with any I approached. When I found the remnants of stylistic jealousy still carrying over from the 1970’s and 80’s, I decided that maybe it was time I just trained on my own again. I began regularly working out on the heavy bag in one of the gymnasiums until they made me stop kicking it (ignorance never ceases) for fear I would tear it. Over the next couple of years, my workouts became fewer and fewer and I could feel my edge slipping away. I stayed in shape by playing basketball, weightlifting, and occasionally swimming (I have always hated running, probably because I had to do so much of it on active duty). Perhaps in compensation for what I was not doing in hand-to-hand, self-defense training, I renewed my interest in shooting, finding the time to go regularly to the range. As I have previously stated, I believe that a modern martial artist should be as familiar with the weapons of his time as the bushido warriors, the hwa-rang, or the Okinawan farmers were with their bo, sai, or three-sectioned staff during their times. Thus, I believe weapons training, and I mean firearms training, is a legitimate part of being a martial artist. I realize that my training and life experience leads me to such a view. Reasonable people may disagree.

After several years of relative martial arts inactivity — of what a Christian minister might call “backsliding” — I came to the realization that I truly missed the discipline and the camaraderie of people of like mind. So, I got off my fourth point of contact (a paratrooper term for one’s posterior) and visited several area martial arts schools. With each instructor I met, I was very clear about what I wanted to do and what I did not want to do (we older people have that prerogative). I was not interested in learning an entirely new system, nor becoming an over-50 tournament champion, nor playing any stylistic one-upmanship. I eventually found a kindred spirit in Taekwondo Master Instructor, Bobby Sheroan (Figure 5.1.1). Master Sheroan, who had operated his Taekwondo school in Elizabethtown, Kentucky for more than 20 years, also shared an eclectic background. He quickly recognized what this fifty-plus year-old man wanted to accomplish and he graciously offered to help me. I wanted to train two or three times per week to regain my timing and my power, learn the WTFforms in place of my older chon ji forms, and regain some of my flexibility (although I was never particularly flexible). I wanted to do a little realistic sparring, recapture my focus and concentration, and perhaps, eventually, test for a higher belt rank. But frankly, rank was not, and is still not, particularly important to me. Competency trumps rank every time in my experience. During my time with Master Sheroan, he motivated me to improve, learn, and give back to the martial arts community by teaching and assisting other students. Perhaps the best part of working with his school was that I was having fun training again and enjoying the camaraderie that can only be found in that community of like minds.  

            Perhaps it is my military background, but I have always been partial to traditional martial arts schools. Do I tend toward the eclectic? Yes. But somehow I keep coming back to touch base with the traditional approach. I have visited enough of what I call the designer dojos. You know the ones – they come complete with carpeting, mood music, over-stuffed trophy cases, and a general feel of slickness that turns you off. The traditional structure of stretching, warm-up floor exercises, forms, one or two-step sparring, self-defense drills (e.g., release from the grab, knife defense, etc.) and free fighting (sparring) developed for a reason. And while I have issues with some of it – issues I will share in detail later – I believe that format existed and continues to exist because it is doing something right. As you will see later, I believe there are some weaknesses in this approach, but generally it has turned out some solid warriors over the years. The strength of a traditional school often lies within the established lesson plans and programs of instruction (POI) that ensure the curriculum leaves nothing out. Mistakes and oversights can often occur in a martial arts school that allows a laissez-faire management style. Some instructors attempt to disguise laziness and a lack of planning under the veil of “allowing the students freedom of expression.” Students are done a disservice when a school allows a variety of teachers to free-lance unscripted, unplanned and unsynchronized classes on a half-dozen different days or nights of the week. 

Sometimes traditional schools, while encouraging respect for the teacher and the fellow students, may sacrifice approachability in the process. But that limitation can be overcome by the personality and approach of the instructor. The instructors in our school in Elizabethtown, Kentucky trained the total person when conducting classes and holding promotion boards. We cared about how students were doing in their schoolwork as surely as how well they knew their Taekwondo terminology. That kind of traditional school gives people something to belong to that makes them proud, and it shows them how to be a part of something greater than themselves. Having said all that, I am still enough of an eclectic to recognize that often a more informal instructor-student relationship can foster free questioning and embellish learning if properly handled. Students in any type of school should be encouraged to politely raise their hand to be recognized and ask the sensei or sifu questions. They may question the application of a movement in a form or even raise concerns about the validity of given techniques. If you find yourself in a non-traditional school, you should keep clearly in mind the student-teacher relationship. The instructor is not your buddy. The tone and manner of your questions should demonstrate respect and appreciation for what one is being taught and for the person doing the teaching. And if you have issues with the competence or approach of a given instructor in a given class, you do not necessarily generalize those failures to the entire school and quit in search of a better situation. You just stop attending that particular instructor’s class, and you try another day and time with a different instructor. Water flows around the rock, Grasshopper. But if the situation bleeds over into other instructors and classes, then it is rightly time to re-evaluate the competence of the teaching and the validity of that school.

            Sometimes, however, both traditional and more modern martial arts schools create training events or circumstances that do not properly prepare students for the realities of self-defense. Instructors often do this in the interest of safety. Distance between students in one-step sparring is frequently exaggerated – so much so as to make an attacker miss short even if the defender fails to properly block or evade an attack. Schools often disallow light contact kicks to the groin even with students wearing a cup. Some schools allow no contact whatsoever to the head, while some rule out hand techniques, even with head safety gear and mouthpieces firmly in place. Making allowances for safety on a case-by-case basis demonstrates common sense and business sense. Some teachers in the 60’s and 70’s learned the hard way the economic lessons about letting your students beat each other up in class. I have personally witnessed people limp out of class on Friday night and not return on Monday or any other night. Extreme training methods may cost students valuable training time for physical recovery from broken fingers or separated shoulders. In some cases, it will run them off for good. But when a dojang, dojo or kwoon reaches a point where unrealistic distances and strict no-contact rules are the only mode of training allowed, then that school is at risk of creating in students a false sense of confidence in their own skill sets. That unrealistic self-image may someday get them seriously injured or perhaps even killed. Still, no reasonable Shotokan sensei is going to ask the brain surgeon training for his blue belt to crush his skilled hands on a makiwara. No clear-thinking Aikido instructor will demand that a senior student execute on that surgeon a wrist-lock or throw at full combat speed. Ask yourself this question: If you were scheduled on that surgeon’s operating table at 6:00 a.m. the next morning, would you like knowing he had damaged his hands the night before? As Ross Perot used to say, “I rest my case.” Now here comes the qualifier. At the risk of sounding crass, too old-school, sadistic, or pointlessly hard-core, allow me this observation. At some point, and I mean more than once-a-year as if it were a holiday event, students need to feel some of the pain of getting hit or thrown, and/or a little taste of their own blood at a level short of serious, permanent damage or hospitalization. “You’ll never learn to fight until you know the feel of hitting or getting hit” (Morgan 67).

            Many schools make students spar with chest protection, hand and foot pads, groin protection and a mouthpiece. We all understand the safety mitigation for such rules of conduct. Personally, I detest the “Olympic-style” chest protectors. I feel like either the Pillsbury Doughboy® or the Michelin Man® – slow, rotund, and completely void of agility. I also find it difficult to breathe properly in that straitjacket. (Although I recently tried on a new design at Mitch Sage’s school, and I was impressed with how light and flexible it was). The problem with the chest protector – other than limiting mobility and adversely affecting breath control – is that it insulates you from the true price of making a defensive mistake. You do not feel the true pain of an error, thus you do not associate the mistake with the proper resultant level of impact. Pain is a great teacher. Unfortunately, no one wants to take its class! Hence in an actual self-defense encounter you may waltz into an opponent’s attack believing that his well-chambered, heel-driven, sidekick into your ribs can be “absorbed” without adverse effects. Yes, chest protectors cut down on injuries. Just recognize that they also cut down on learning, and never allow wearing them to be the only way to train in sparring. Sure, if you are training for the Olympics, go for it.  But if you are training primarily for street self-defense you may just be putting yourself at serious risk. 

            Perhaps the bottom line of this diatribe is this: At least recognize that when you apply too many safety off-sets you are making a sacrifice in terms of viable techniques and attractive targets. Whether it is one-step done at unrealistic distances, or body padding, or limiting targets, recognize what Sgt. Rory Miller calls “the flaw in the drill.”

            In any drill where students are not regularly hospitalized, there is a DELIBERATE flaw, a deliberate break from the needs of reality introduced in the name of safety. In every drill you teach, you must consciously know what the flaw is and make your students aware of it (Mediations 107).

 And never, ever, get the misguided notion that dressing up in thick padding like a rape-avoidance dummy, and then limiting the targets ala Olympic rules, has anything whatsoever to do with your ability to defend yourself in a real combat, self-defense situation.  “A real fight for your life is NOTHING like sparring (Miller, Mediations 111).” Sure, it can be fun. It even provides a half-way decent cardio workout.  But it is a game of tag, not unlike the old point karate tournaments of the 1960’s and 70’s. If fact, just three days ago I tuned into an hour-long “karate tournament” on ESPN broadcast from Orlando, FL. I could only stand to watch about 20 minutes of it. There was no question these young men and women were physically fit, well-trained athletes. But the individual forms competition looked more like a gymnastics meet, and “synchronized forms” resembled a Las Vegas show. And the sparring was a game of tag. Yes, I know I sound like a curmudgeon. But I warn you: do not spend too much time practicing sexy, “pretty” techniques. I am talking about actions like I referenced previously, i.e., dancing one-legged across the dojang while flicking out quick, but impotent, roundhouse kicks at your opponent’s chest protector to score points. You will create a habit that will get your ass bundled neatly and handed back to you on the street. You will fight as you train. If you always pull your punches in class, you will pull your punches in a real fight. And whether you realize it or not, you are highly likely during the adrenaline rush of an actual assault to flick-out a beautiful, lightning fast, perfectly controlled round kick that will gently tap a mugger on the chest. Unfortunately for you, no one will blow a whistle and stop the action, or check with the judges and award you a “point.” Instead, the attacker will absorb your worthless blow, maybe even accept a cracked rib if you got lucky, and then he will grab your leg, break it at the knee, or sweep your supporting flamingo-like leg out from under you. That pavement will be unforgiving as he takes you down to the ground for a Quickrete® face tattoo, and then he will turn it all into a wrestling match with a semi-conscious opponent (you). So, you better hope (no you better KNOW) you have some ground skills! Spend time in class practicing techniques at the speed, power and on the targets that will work in the real situation.  

I have always believed in training hard and relying on what works, regardless of the style or approach from which the techniques came. One evening several years ago, after a particularly strenuous class, and some serious “light contact” that drifted closer toward full contact, a fellow black belt and I were walking back to the dressing room. Our sparring that night had been intense. He had tagged me with a couple of pretty bone-jarring kicks, and I had lit-up his rib cage with some spine-rattling punches.

“Brewer, you’re all screwed up,” he said, slapping me on the back.

“Is that so?”

“Yep. You’re the only man I have ever fought who kicks like a Korean, punches like a Japanese, slips like a boxer, and moves like a Chinese.”  For a second or two, I wasn’t sure if that was a compliment or an insult. I determined to take it as the former.