INDOMITABLE SPIRIT (Part 7)

Decade Six – A New Century in Virginia

From Theory to Practice

“A man should know the source of the water he drinks.” – Ip Man

A New Direction, An Opportunity and Another Goodbye

In 2001 I received a series of blows to my spirit. If you are fortunate to live long enough, you eventually reach a point in your life when those around you that you love die start to die. In June of that year my brother-in-law, Billy Owens, died after a long struggle with Parkinson’s Disease. My dear sister, Nelda, had been his caretaker and soulmate for his last years, and it hurt me to see her in pain. Then, just two weeks later in July, my brother took his own life in the face of the suffering and pain he anticipated from a lung illness he had battled off and on through his life. He was 66 years old. I was devastated when my sister called me with the news. He had always been particularly proud of my military service, keeping track of my progress from Basic Training until retirement from active duty. Throughout my career, when I would attend Airborne School or Air Assault School, or get a promotion, or experience some other positive event such as my assignment to West Point, he would always say, “They’re groomin’ you, Jim Bodie. They’re groomin’ you.” His confidence in me inspired me to want to succeed and instilled in me a ‘never give up’ mentality that is an element of indomitable spirit.

I had seen him just a week before and he had given no hint or clue of his intentions. Clearly, he had planned this for weeks and months, having gotten all his papers and financial affairs in order for his wife and the rest of the family. For years I tried to figure out what signals I missed. But there seemed to be none. I had been visiting mother in Tennessee the week before he died, and he was present and fully a part of the usual discussion and visitation, as he lived in the same town. As I got up to leave, I recall how he opened his arms as if to be certain not to miss a good-bye hug. I recall that he held that embrace longer than usual that afternoon, saying, “Take care of your family, Jim Bodie.” He patted me on the back, I said good-bye to mother, and I left for Kentucky. A few days later, on Friday, his wife saw him sitting outside alone in the swing for an extended time. When he finally came back into the house, she asked him what he’d been doing.

            “Having a talk with the Man upstairs,” he said with a smile. “And I think we got things worked out.”

            Two days later, on Sunday, July 1st, around 7:00 a.m., he would take his own life in a location that would endanger no one else, yet one where he would be immediately discovered. He was found holding a note to call my sister. While I haven’t quite forgiven him for leaving us the way he did, I haven’t stopped loving him either. A couple of years before he died, he sent me a hat for my birthday, accompanied by a note which I maintain to this day. Occasionally, I re-read it, and the words strengthen me in my search for indomitable spirit.      

“For those chilly mornings when all is quiet around you as you search for those relics which you desire. Know that when you wear it, that your older brother is with you in spirit though you may be totally alone. Memories of times past and time spent together brings smiles and fond recollections to the Old Man who happens to be your Older Brother.”

Love ya,

Bubba

One month after my brother, in August, my mother-in-law died after an extended illness, leaving my wife and I in sadness and pain. Then, just a few weeks later, the entire country witnessed the devastating events of 9/11 unfold. That was a tough summer, and we all had to dig deep in our faith and perseverance amid that suffering.

 I had retired from active duty in the mid-1990’s, and I worked as a contractor for several years before returning as a civilian to federal service as a training and doctrine writer. I wrote US Army reconnaissance and surveillance doctrine, and after the terrorist attacks of 9/11, I helped to train and evaluate the emerging STRYKER brigades that saw heavy service during operations in both Iran and Afghanistan. In 2005 I shifted to work as the Chief of Task Analysis (Training) for the Army’s Future Combat System (FCS). I was satisfied in my job, happy in my church, enjoying playing music, writing, and learning and growing in my Taekwondo training in Kentucky. Then, with little notice we learned that our jobs in Kentucky would be moved to Fort Bliss, TX. The Army gave me about six months’ notice, thanked me for my civilian service to the US Government at the location in the Bluegrass State, and even offered to pay my move to the desert southwest should I desire to continue my job. While my wife and I prayerfully and carefully considered their offer, we ultimately decided that would be much too far away from our children and grandchildren. Also, my gut told me that the FCS program might not continue to evolve and be funded. I feared we might move to El Paso, live there a year, and then have the program cancelled. Then we would be 27 hours from our family, without a job, and no way back. Since I was only 56, I wanted and needed to continue federal service to establish a more robust retirement. Besides, I felt like I still had much to contribute to Army training and readiness. So, I reached out and I found another job in Army training at Fort Eustis, Virginia near Williamsburg in the Tidewater area. From a familial standpoint, my daughters were not happy with our decision to move to Virginia. While they listened patiently to my explanation of the professional and financial reasons why I needed to move and not turn my back on a full Federal retirement, it was clear they felt like we were deserting them. Despite my assurances that we would return to visit as often as possible, and my offer of an open door should they come to visit us in Virginia, our departure took its toll on the family.

Saying good-bye to Master Sheroan and my friends and fellow taekwondo warriors was difficult as well.

Master Bobby Sheroan is promoted to 8th degree

I had left gallons of sweat and a truckload of effort on the mats in Master Sheroan’s training hall. And now I was to leave an instructor I respected and the friends I had made along the way. Before the El Paso debacle, my wife and I had fully expected to ultimately retire from federal service and live the rest of our lives in Kentucky. I would finally be stabilized and able to train and advance within one martial arts system for longer than a few years. I had always been envious of people who trained for 20 or 30 years in a system, learning all the intricacies of that style, and advancing within the rank and leadership structure of the program. Instead, I had been a martial arts nomad my entire life, and now it was happening all over again. My quest for indomitable spirit was again tested, both by my decision to move and continue my career away from my family, and by leaving the training and learning environment of my taekwondo colleagues and friends. I tried to keep up a positive attitude toward the transition as I hugged and kissed the family in preparation to leave. I smiled and talked of my future return as I completed my last taekwondo class and shook hands with Master Sheroan. I had a job and a chance to continue my career. I had the skills to do the job. I had much to be thankful for in my life. Yet my spirit was conflicted, and I could feel myself slipping into a melancholy state.

On a cold winter day in February 2007, we sadly bid farewell to friends and family and accepted the Virginia assignment much like we had any 2-5 year “tour” when on active duty. We left Kentucky fully prepared to serve well in Virginia, but our plan had been all along to transfer back to Kentucky, live close to the family, ultimately retire there, and most likely die there. But as we drove along I-64 that cold winter day and crossed into West Virginia, en route to the new job in Virginia, the snow started falling. And something told me I would not be back the way I believed I would. “Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,” Robert Frost wrote, and he “took the one less traveled by.”

Yet knowing how way leads on to way

I doubted if I should ever come back (Frost)

6.1   A Challenge to the Body

By late February of 2007 we were Virginians. We picked out a house we wanted built in a new subdivision in Gloucester, VA, and settled into a campground in Williamsburg for the six-month construction period. I began my new job working for a combat-tested Vietnam veteran named Ray Whitney. Ray, who had never met me before I arrived in Virginia, had hired me based upon my reputation, so I felt a particularly heavy responsibility to prove him right and do a stellar job. My new work had me traveling a great deal, and having to leave my wife alone in Virginia undermined my attempt to maintain a positive attitude. That, coupled with the sadness of leaving family and friends, continued to take its toll on my spirit. I struggled to keep up a good front for my wife, but I felt myself sinking deeper and deeper into depression. As early April rolled in, I had little energy, felt weak, had scarce motivation, experienced headaches, some fever (I suspected a 24-hr bug) and I just felt generally rotten. I didn’t feel like training anywhere. I didn’t feel very much like enjoying my music. I did not want to go out and do much of anything after I got off work, and my wife sensed I was struggling. I dug up the energy to visit a couple of martial arts schools in Williamsburg, one being a traditional Shotokan school, but there was no point in aligning with a self-defense school that I had neither time nor opportunity to attend once I got moved into my new home in Gloucester, almost an hour away. Also, I wanted to make sure I chose the right training for this point in my life. I wanted to survey all the options. I did not want to commit too early to something that might not be lasting. But the truth is, I did not have the physical strength to train then anyway. And it was not until about six months later that I found out why.

Late in the summer or early fall I established a new primary care physician and went in for a routine physical. He called me at work one day and went over the results of my blood work. My blood titer results, he explained, indicated that sometime within the last six months I had suffered from Rocky Mountain Spotted Fever. As we spoke on the phone it all began to make sense. I had received a tick bite in late March/early April – a bite in a spot I could not see or actually reach. My wife had been traveling back and forth to Kentucky during the birth of twin granddaughters, so I was on my own or traveling a great deal. When I did find the tick, I removed it, but I would not have seen the reddening circle, or the rash, or the signs of complications of the tick bite. Many of the symptoms (rash, fever, muscle weakness, headache, listlessness, etc.,) matched exactly what I had experienced in those first few months in Virginia. My spirit had suffered not just due to my move, but for physiological reasons. Maybe if I had not been so stubborn about going to the doctor, I might have short-circuited the sense of depression and melancholy.

  • Lesson Learned: If you sense yourself falling into a state of depression, it doesn’t make you less of a warrior to seek some help. Sometimes, an attack on your spirit and your drive as a martial artist can be rooted in a physiological illness that can be treated or managed.

Even amid those depressing early days in Virginia, I made a list of goals I wanted to accomplish while living in the Commonwealth.  Here is that list:

  1. Find a church and actively participate
  2. Find a martial arts school and achieve proficiency in a new or different style
  3. Achieve promotion to the next paygrade within government service
  4. Establish a new acoustic music group and play in the Tidewater area

My wife and I found a wonderful, welcoming, Christian family of fellow believers in a small, rural church not far from our new home in Gloucester. We made some great friends in the area once we settled into our new home, and we began to explore the musical community on the peninsula. As previously stated, I have always believed that playing music supports the flow of chi (qi), or life energy, and therefore enhances both my personal life and my martial arts training. I have not written a lot in this book about chi. The whole concept is subject to multiple interpretations, a myriad of definitions, and not a little skepticism as to its practice or employment. But to me, the search for indomitable spirit is inexorably linked to an understanding of, and appreciation for, chi as a fundamental element of the journey. I do not find the concept of chi to be in any way incompatible with my Christian faith; indeed, I find evidence of life-force or spirit-energy very much a factor in my belief system. “The Lord God formed the man from the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and man became a living being (Gen 2:7 [NIV]).” My faith teaches me that the life force, the spirit energy, carries one throughout life and does not end with physical death.

As a martial artist, you will not find me trying to shoot “chi bullets” out of my fingers and across the room to defeat my opponents as depicted in some absurd kung-fu movies. I will not be doing carnival-like chi demonstrations or attempting to levitate myself and hover about in a karate class. But you will find me meditating, praying, and attempting to focus my internal life-force in support of my daily life and training. According to the website Martial Development, “Chi (qi) is an ancient Chinese term, which can be translated as energy. Like energy, the word chi is used in both abstract and concrete terms and applied to both general concepts and specific phenomena. In other words, chi is ambiguous (Chi Gong 101).” Chi kung (Chi Gong) is a practice, often entailing specific exercises, that harness or highlight the energy within the body. There are many open sources that examine these exercises and several books dedicated to the study of chi for those who seek more information.

For me, music is a big part of the effort to focus chi or inner strength. Music allows me to focus my mind and relax my body in pursuit of an “otherness,” or a consciousness outside the day-to-day norm. Lest that sound a bit too metaphysical for some of you, consider that the Berklee School of Music has in its catalog a course entitled, “Playing in the Key of Qi: QiGong for Musicians.” The course …

“…explore(s) the fundamentals of qigong and how students can employ these practices in both their musical and daily lives. Students will learn a variety of exercises as well as breathing and awareness techniques to increase the flow of chi throughout one’s system. These exercises promote emotional balance, mental clarity, and an optimum physical state. Students will learn about the unique physiological benefits as well as how to apply these exercises to their instrument, daily activities, and creative endeavors. In addition, students will learn how qigong can act as a catalyst for healing or preventing an overuse injury and other health maladies”.

So, as you can see, the concept of chi applies across many endeavors. But I have for my whole life played music as one of those endeavors. And fortunately, I found in Virginia a group of people that welcomed my participation and helped my wife and I to develop friendships and find fulfillment by forming a musical group that would perform in and around the Virginia peninsula area for the next three years.

For the first couple of years in Virginia, I did not affiliate with a martial arts school. The new job was taking a toll in both time and travel, and with the new house I did not feel I had the time to dedicate to a regular martial arts program. I used my job travel as opportunity to expand my understanding of different martial arts styles. Wherever I traveled for work or for leisure, I would research the martial arts school in the local area and make a phone call or email contact prior to arriving. I would visit the schools in the evening after my duty hours. Sometimes I signed an insurance waiver and trained with the class. Sometimes I just sat and watched a class or two, took notes, or asked questions. Occasionally, I would visit two schools in the same evening. To mention just a few of the programs I observed or visited, there was the:  

  • overtly religious Kung Fu instructor in Missouri
  • friendly eastern European guy teaching Choy Lay Fut in Georgia
  • gregarious Hapkido instructor in Texas
  • meticulous Taekwondo teacher in Alaska.
  • talkative Jeet Kune Do guy in Arizona
  • flexible Praying Mantis Kung Fu practitioner in South Dakota

I always learned something wherever I went. I took notes on class format, uniforms, teaching approach, class length, types of training drills, rules and frequency of sparring, etc. Whether I was invited to participate in class by some of the more open-minded instructors, or whether I just watched the class and took notes, I always came away with more information than I had when I arrived. Sometimes what I learned was valuable, and sometimes what I learned was that I never wanted to do things the way I saw them done. But I learned, nonetheless.

  • Lesson Learned:  When you have the opportunity to encounter a martial arts style different from the one in which you primarily train, instead of trying to figure out what’s wrong with the style, try asking what is right with the style.

Back home in Virginia, I continued to visit several martial arts schools in the area. When I evaluate a school, I never use the black belts or other high-ranking students as my primary gauge of the quality of instruction. Black belts, or students of advanced rank, are supposed to be good. The white belts, or the beginners, are supposed to be awkward and lack proficiency. When I examine martial arts training, I take a close look at the middle-level students, i.e., green belts and blue belts, etc., when evaluating a school. Naturally, the demeanor and approach of the head instructors or their lieutenants is important. But the true measure of a school can be found in the progression and advancing talent of the middle-grade students. Does the green belt maintain good balance? Is his or her stance steady, low (if it’s supposed to be) and rooted? Are the blue belts beginning to show “snap” in their techniques, or are they just going through the motions like a dancer? If it is a soft style they are practicing, do the middle-grade students show smooth transitions between techniques? When you have studied and visited schools for a few years, it is pretty easy to tell when students have been advanced for something other than proficiency. You look at the preponderance of the students, not just one who might be having a bad night. What if all the green belts are forgetting their forms halfway through execution? What if the blue belts are throwing random techniques during free sparring that are far out of range (something I call “advertising” your skills)? What if they show weak defense and no fear of being hit? And more importantly, what if no one corrects them? All of these are indicators that something in a school is amiss.

A few of the taekwondo schools I visited near my home in Virginia evidenced some of the worst students and instruction I had seen in forty years. I crossed them off the list as potential places where I might train, not only for the poor quality of the instruction, but also because I had decided to expand my parameters and work in a different style while in Virginia. During early 2008 a local sensei in a Japanese style invited me to attend a class in his school. He ran a traditional class and seemed to me a fundamentally good man with a solid reputation. But the style seemed like just more of what I had already done, and it was not the direction for me at that point in my life. Then one weekend I stopped into an “open” tournament at the Moose Lodge in the area. I took a seat in the audience and just watched. What I saw in between the hajime/mate of the sparring matches was a lot of showiness and attempting to call attention to oneself. I guess some things never change. It was the same silly, strutting around that I had written about twenty years earlier in Tae Kwon Do Times. “Behavior, or ‘showiness,’ I said back then,” that actively solicits praise goes against the fundamental grain of what the martial arts are all about (Brewer “Martial” 65).” Yet every time you point a finger at someone else, you have three pointing back at yourself. So, I re-read my work from two decades earlier, and I found a series of questions I generated at the time that might bear repeating here. These questions might offer us a test to see if we are show-offs as well.

  • How hard do you train when you are the only one in the training hall?
  • Are you looking to see who’s looking at you train or compete?
  • What’s more important, how good your uniform looks or how accurate your punches are?
  • How would you feel if your school decided to cancel all further testing and did away with all rank, but continued to teach the same quality of self-defense?
  • When an opponent hits you with a solid shot, do you let him know that he did well, or do you feel that it lessens you to compliment another martial artist?           
  • When you are defeated in a tournament fight, do you bow respectfully to the victor or do you feel that you really won the match, and the judges just didn’t see you score?
  • If a fight begins to develop, do you go and stand nearby, hoping that maybe you’ll be given an excuse to get involved?
  • Do you spend more time watching karate/kung fu movies than you spend training?
  • Do you really believe you can fight five real street thugs singlehandedly, and still emerge unscathed just like Bruce Lee?

The way we answer these questions says a lot about ourselves as martial artists. What is the image we project to the general public and to our students? Are we satisfied with what we see in ourselves? That next to last question in the list above, as I re-read it some twenty years later, convicted me. I really did not watch many martial arts movies, but what I had been doing since arriving in Virginia was a lot more looking, watching and studying than I was training. For the next several months I conducted some periodic workouts at the gym with some of my job colleagues, active duty and civilian, but I still resisted affiliating with a school or style. I read widely on various martial arts disciplines, collected many new sources, and re-read those that had previously influenced my thought and action. 

In 2008 I noticed that the local YMCA was offering an Aikido class. It was near my home, whereas some other locations to train were an hour away. That was an advantage. It would potentially complement and supplement my work in taekwondo. That was a plus. And recalling the skill of our jujitsu instructor back in Colorado, I thought I might give aikido a shot. So, I met the instructor and took a couple of classes. The sensei was a courteous, quiet man who ran a traditional class. And while my visit to his class refreshed some old lessons from Hapkido, I did not feel that it was the right fit. I could execute the techniques, and with much continued training I could probably have gotten them down to a baseline level of proficiency. But I worried that the fine motor skills required for this art would take years to master to a level I could depend upon in the street. Perhaps if I had been 25 or 30 years old, and had a decade or more to spend in steady training, I would have been a good candidate for this art. But I knew I would not be in Virginia that long, so why start something that it would take longer to learn than I had time to invest?

Aikido, which is an excellent art, was not for me. Yet still, I knew I had to find a discipline in which to train. One day I came across one of my belt buckles tucked away in the back of a drawer. A student back in Colorado, Lance Millstead, had made it for me and presented it as a gift when I left there in 1987. It held the image of a man in a dobok standing with his hands in one of the initial positions within the taekwondo black-belt form known as Koryo. As I studied it for a few moments, I recalled that dedicated student, and it brought back to me the value of learning and teaching in a school environment.

6.2    A Challenge of a New Style

Talking, planning, reviewing, and observing constitute critical elements of making a good decision, and they helped me avoid launching into a self-defense approach that was a misfit for my current position in life. But at some point, one has to act to avoid “paralysis by analysis.” I decided that Tony Massengill’s Wing Chun school, Mass Martial Arts, in nearby Newport News, VA, offered the best approach to continuing my training. I chose this direct attack, no nonsense approach not only because I had been drawn to it previously in the early 1980’s (when I had no consistent instruction), but also because at 58 years of age my body could assimilate the techniques better than a style that required head kicks, splits and the gymnastic moves of a 30 yr old. The series of movies on the life of Ip Man (Figure 6.2.1) had not yet hit the market to widely inform the public about the art, but research showed me that Sifu Tony Massengill certainly had the credentials desired by anyone seriously searching for good self-defense instruction.

Ip Man

He had studied a number of different styles over the years, settling at last on Wing Chun. Massengill’s instructor, Samuel Kwok, ran a premier Ip Man Wing Chun school in the United Kingdom. As did Sifu Kwok, Massengill had traveled to China and trained under both of Ip Man’s sons, Ip Ching and Ip Chun, as well as several of Ip Man’s direct students.

 I was attracted to that indisputable lineage of quality instruction and expertise. Sifu Massengill had been a police officer and a fireman, and his real-world experience offered him insights that many have never had the chance to gain. And as a writer myself, I respected the fact that Massengill’s book, Mastering Wing Chun, was inducted into the Ip Man Museum in Foshan, China in 2007.

Right from my initial Wing Chun classes I sensed that I had made a good choice. It was great to get back within that “fellowship of like minds” I described previously, and the students welcomed me. I found it very odd, and not a little bit humbling, to discover for the first time in my martial arts journey, I was often the oldest person in class. Before, wherever I trained, there were one or two “old guys” training in a given school, but now I found that the “old guy” was me! Still, I launched into Ip Man Wing Chun to absorb as much as I could. I soon realized I had some un-learning to do first. The training stances were different, and it took a while to adjust. The physiology of the basic punching was different from Taekwondo or the Japanese styles I had learned in the past. Gone were the corkscrew punches that develop power from hip twist and the push-pull action of the opposite arm. They were replaced by straight, vertical-fist punches that drew power from body and bone structure. It reminded me of the Isshin-ryu punching I had witnessed at our school in Colorado. I also discovered the similarities between the Wing Chun straight punches and the techniques that heavyweight champion, Jack Dempsey, taught in Championship Fighting.

“While we’re considering ranges and their blows, let me stress one extremely important fundamental: A STRAIGHT LINE IS THE SHORTEST DISTANCE BETWEEN TWO POINTS. Either fist, in its normal punching position, has less distance to travel on a straight line to its target than on the curve of a hook or an uppercut. Consequently, a straight punch always should be used when (a) it has just as much chance of nailing the target as either of the others, and (b) when it will be just as explosive as either of the others. In other words, don’t be taking long steps with hooks or uppercuts when you should be sharpshooting with straight punches.” (Dempsey)

Studying Dempsey’s work helped me to realize that many different approaches to punching could be fused into a personal style of fighting adaptable to the situation. There is certainly a time and place for a well-delivered classical, karate corkscrew punch. My encounter with Clarence back in basic training proved that. But that should not be my only choice. Neither should everything taught in Wing Chun be taken at face value. Dempsey also says, “if you’re in so close to an opponent that you’re almost in a clinch, it would be silly for you to be rearing back and trying to stab your opponent’s face with straight punches-when you could be exploding hooks or uppercuts on his chin, or digging them into his body.”

But beyond the differences in punching, my biggest challenge in learning Wing Chun seemed to be relaxing enough within the techniques to gain the speed needed for the direct attack/intercepting blocks characteristic of this Chinese style. I had spent three decades delivering hard blocks, withdrawing the punching arm simultaneously, and countering with a fast, focused, classical, hard-style, karate corkscrew punch. Now I found myself having to learn principles of controlling the centerline, palm blocks (tan sao), elbow blocks (bong sao), sticking hands (chi sao), subtle weight shifting and a shuffle-style distance closing and advance to combat. I made this note to myself one evening after class.

RELAX! Move with the opponent’s flow; bend but don’t break. Trunk like iron. Torso like bamboo, head like glass. Don’t anticipate or mentally “plan” a response; rather, let contact and sensitivity lead you to an effective strike (Brewer “Wing Chun” 4)

Parts of Wing Chun I picked up rapidly, while other aspects seemed to elude me. As I shared with Sifu Massengill (Figure 6.2.3) in various conversations through my first six months of training, I found it fascinating that I had come independently – through thirty years of trial and error — to many fighting principles fundamental to Wing Chun. I had determined over the past three decades that my most natural, effective “fighting stance” was fundamentally a Wing Chun stance, both in foot position and partially in balance and hand position. Throughout my taekwondo career I had, of course, conducted floor exercises and forms employing what was basically a side-facing fighting stance. However, the minute sparring began I would abandon that side-facing, traditional fighting stance to assume a more forward-facing fighting position with my hands to the front and my body slightly bladed. I came to realize as I continued training that the closing steps I had used when sparring my fellow Taekwondo practitioners back in Kentucky very closely mirrored the shuffle-step taught both in classic Wing Chun and within Jack Dempsey’s Championship Fighting. My own style already favored low kicks, quick groin snap kicks, leg trapping and direct vertical punches to create the shortest distance to the target. Wing Chun training sharpened what I was already doing. I felt some validation that I had independently arrived at a set of fundamental principles that conjoined with a venerated system of Kung Fu and the work of a famous heavyweight fighter. So, I learned the first form, Si Lum Tau (little idea) that contains all the basic, elemental blocks and strikes that comprise Wing Chun. Next, I began to approach the second form, Chum Kiu, (searching for the bridge) which teaches movement and body-shifting within the context of economy-of-motion techniques. I also found working with the wooden dummy, Mook Jong, very useful in blending my new techniques with the old.

Mook Jong (wooden dummy)

I had not at this point determined to seek rank in Wing Chun, nor did I harbor any fantasies of training five days a week for the next 8 years and getting certification or starting a school. From the start I made it clear with Sifu Massengill that I wanted to learn as much as I could about Wing Chun and how I might employ its efficient techniques within the context of my own fighting style. I was not turning my back on my previous training, nor judging it as right, wrong, better, or worse than. I was simply seeking to follow Bruce Lee’s advice to “absorb what is useful, and discard what is not.”  Even though I approached Wing Chun hungry to learn, I applied a mental filter to evaluate the techniques and fighting approach within the context of what I had previously learned from many other venerable instructors. Sifu Massengill agreed, and he states on his website that he doesn’t “treat any method as if it was handed down on stone tablets from God himself” (“Ip Man Wing Chun”). I went into this training neither to drink the Kool-Aid® nor to indiscriminately spit it out without tasting it. Instead of rank or testing, I was interested in learning and applying. The quick, low “no-shadow” kicks impressed me, but not to the exclusion of strong, classic, taekwondo roundkicks or sidekicks with a tightly chambered knee and some devastating hip drive. Because I had been combat/street self-defense oriented for the past 30 years, I had long since gotten over the urge to flit around like a Broadway dancer and kick people in the head. I found myself still delivering groin strikes (no, not to the extreme of “Master Ken” in Ameri-do-te[i]) during my training, which my new Wing Chun comrades found surprising, given they spent so much of their time working above the waist. I found that executing such techniques to vulnerable parts of the body fit right in with the finger strikes (bil gee) to the eyes that are part of this system. I kept a class logbook – a small notebook in which immediately after class I would write notes on the instruction. Figure 6.2.4 below is an extract of one of the pages from that logbook. I always noted the date of the class and tried to outline some of the key principles or important drills from that night’s work.

I found this logbook to be particularly helpful as I practiced on my own, and it has proved of great value in my training in the years since. I only wish I had done it throughout my entire martial arts career, rather than waiting so late in life to adopt the practice.

  • Lesson Learned:  Consider keeping a martial arts logbook or notebook, where you record important concepts in your given discipline. Get in the habit of writing something in your notebook immediately after each class.

[i] “Ameri-do-te” is the fictional martial art taught by dysfunctional “Master Ken” in the hilarious Enter the Dojo videos found on YouTube. Several seasons of these short videos highlight many of the stereotypical, absurd behaviors exhibited by some martial arts instructors. They say that good comedy in rooted in some aspect of the truth, and I can personally attest to having encountered sensei and instructors with some of Master Ken’s characteristics.

6.3   The Challenge of Effective Training and Achieving Mushin

If there was one concept within the Wing Chun that helped to crystallize my thoughts about effective martial arts training and the validity of a given technique, it was what I call “training on what you will actually use.” In a standard Wing Chun class of an hour or two, almost every minute was spent working on blocks, strikes, interceptions, Chi-Na (grappling), etc. The Chi-Na was particularly interesting to me as it shared similarities with some aspects of Hapkido. Our sifu made an interesting comment one evening as we worked on techniques for manipulating and turning an opponent during the in-close combat so characteristic of this style “Just because you can hit a man doesn’t mean you can control him. But if you can control him, you can hit any time you want (Brewer “Wing Chun” 9).” You hear similar thoughts in much of the reality-based self-defense training popular today. In our school, the training was done from the “fighting stance” or natural position one is likely to find himself in when the trouble starts. 

Timing and blocking drills were conducted from distances compatible with actual combat encounters. Sure, there were some artificial positions or drills employed to teach a specific principle, but they were the exception rather than the rule. Unlike a classical, hard-style karate, taekwondo, or kenpo class, Wing Chun students in our class did not spend half an hour marching up and down the floor alternately in deep back stances, front stances, horse stances, etc. Hence, we did not achieve the cardiovascular workout characteristic of many traditional, hard-style martial arts. The instruction was centered around technique. And if there was a weakness to my training during this time, I would have to say that we might have maintained our focus on technique and still have managed a bit stronger cardiovascular challenge by perhaps employing some timed circuit-training drills. But technique was our sifu’s focus and he made no apology for that. I have made my appreciation of traditional training clear, and I do not question the benefits of building a solid base, strengthening leg muscles, developing good balance, etc. In fact, I fall right in and do those drills when I return to train with my friends and colleagues back in Kentucky. But is it always the best use of one’s limited training time? In other words, should we spend so much of our training time in physical positions from which few people, if any, actually fight?

The first half-hour of many traditional martial arts classes have students doing floor exercises (down block-reverse punch, high block-spear hand, etc.) from a series of stances reflected in their katas or forms. They all look sharp as they move in unison, maintaining nice straight lines and turning on cue. Then they may do bag drills, focus mitts, or some one-step sparring. And then, if there is any class time left, they move on to free sparring (some schools only spar one night a week). Yet the minute the first sparring match begins, not a single student can be found in a deep front stance. No one is settling back in a deep back stance with a classic, kata-like block against an opponent delivering a series of rapid-fire techniques. When an opponent is actually attacking them during sparring, no one conducts classic high-blocks from deep, low front stances. What do they do? They stay light on their feet, moving in and out of “stances” that are barely recognizable from the first half of class. So, it is fair to argue that they have spent more than 50% of their training time working on stances and movements that go right out the window when the first punch or kick arrives in a free-flowing environment.

So how will we react to an actual attack? None of us can say for sure. Unless you have had the unfortunate circumstance of having to react to a violent attack or fight for your life, I don’t think you really know. And how you reacted the first time will likely be completely different than how you react the second time, because the circumstances will probably have changed. If that is true, then upon what do we rely? Is it purely “instinct?” If so, why train at all? Is it rote “stimulus/response?” If so, what happens when the stimulus is different from that for which you trained? Over the years I have learned from multiple sources, and I have personally experienced, four phases of training. During my work in Wing Chun, I dug even deeper into these “four stages of competence” or learning (Adams). Here are some examples of the principle applied to both self-defense training and another one of my endeavors — learning to play the fiddle[i].

  1. Unconscious Incompetence –
    1. Self-defense: having received little or no training, a person when attacked will flail, swing, grab, bite, trip, wrestle or otherwise attack his opponent while trying to defend himself. There is no conscious, deliberate thought that “I should be delivering an elbow to his ribcage …” When you fight like this you will occasionally prevail, particularly against an untrained, unskilled opponent.
    1. The Fiddle: When I first unpacked the instrument, I struggled to tune it, had no idea of right-hand bowing technique, and couldn’t make the left-hand notations cleanly. When I played, it usually sounded scratchy and bad. I occasionally hit a couple of decent notes. I, and only I, enjoyed it. I practiced alone out of courtesy to others.
  2. Conscious Incompetence –
    1. Self-defense: having received some limited training, a person when attacked will consciously attempt to block, strike or grapple using techniques he or she has learned in class. He or she may be consciously thinking left hook coming, better execute a middle block, but the effort will probably not be particularly effective – primarily because the defensive techniques are new and are not ‘second nature’ — and the person may fare only slightly better than the unconscious incompetent. When you fight like this sometimes you prevail, particularly against an untrained or poorly trained opponent.
    1. The Fiddle:  Using some books, internet videos and locking myself in a room so I didn’t drive my wife crazy, I began to consciously attempt to string together (no pun intended) the correct notes to play “Oh, Susannah.”  I was consciously hitting the proper notes, but the intonation was poor, the timing was off, and my right-hand bowing technique caused me to often squeak on the strings. I knew what I was supposed to be doing, but my muscle motor memory wasn’t there yet. I did not play along, or jam, with other musicians at this level.
  3. Conscious Competence –
    1. Self-defense:  having received extensive training, a person when attacked will consciously block, strike or grapple using techniques he or she has learned in class. He or she may be consciously thinking left hook coming, better execute a middle block, but this time the effort may stop the punch, particularly if the attack closely resembles what the individual has been training to defeat. The defensive techniques are no longer new, and they are becoming ‘second nature’ — and the person will likely fare better than the conscious incompetent. When you fight like this you will often prevail, particularly against an untrained or poorly trained opponent who is attacking you in a manner similar to that which you trained to defeat.
    1. The Fiddle:  after learning notation positions, and practicing the right-hand bowing action, I could play a complete song, with proper rhythm and timing, as long as I closely concentrated on fingerboard placement and right-hand bowing. I could play in more than one key, and given time, I could transpose and play the same song in two or three different keys. I could play a few simple songs along with others in a jam session, or play a simple background riff behind our band for a slow-to-medium-speed song. But I still had to look at my left-hand positioning, and I had to constantly focus on my mechanics.
  4. Unconscious Competence –
    1. Self-defense:  having received extensive, varied, and realistic training, a person when attacked will unconsciously block, strike or grapple using techniques he or she has learned in class. He or she may will not be consciously thinking left hook coming, better execute a middle block; rather, the defender will “see” the whole attacker because his mind will be empty, and he will react based upon a new set of “instincts” that have been honed to reply to a threat. His efforts will likely stop, or at least interdict, the punch (or other attack) whether the attack resembles what the individual has been training for or not. The defensive techniques have become ‘second nature’ — and the person will likely fare better than the conscious incompetent or the conscious competent. When you fight like this you have the greatest chance to prevail against an adversary. That doesn’t mean you won’t ever lose. But your chance of survival just went up exponentially.
    1. The Fiddle: This is where I want to be, but I am not there yet. I want to be able to play fiddle like I do the guitar, the banjo and the mandolin – effortlessly and without thinking about it. I want my left-hand notations to be clean and precise without having to look at the fingerboard. I want to be able to move smoothly between rhythms and styles of bowing, and I want to be able to play fiddle reels fast when needed. I want to move smoothly between keys by intuition only, without the help of music or performance sheets. I want to play confidently in a jam session and pick-up on fiddle lines behind music I don’t even know. I want to reach a level of “otherness” when I’m in the groove.

Realistic, repetitive training of fundamental techniques allows the individual to eventually react without having to consciously think, I’m going to use a #7 counter to that fist coming at my face.  One ideally reaches what the Japanese call mushin, or “mind-no-mind,” which is acting/reacting without conscious thought of the action itself.


“Mushin … is the principal source of the traditional warrior’s quick reactions, extrasensory perception, and steely calm…thinking interferes with fighting. Crazy as it seems, thinking gets in the way. Of course, we all have to think to learn. Whether it be a new stance, an advanced kick, or a new kata, we all have to think it through to internalize the correct form and function of the movement as we practice it the hundreds of times it takes to learn it. But there comes a point when conscious thinking interferes with our ability to do the technique and slows down reaction time.” (Morgan 122).

Christopher Caile, on the website fightingarts.com, describes Mushin as,

 “… a state of mental clarity, awareness and enhanced perception (sensory and intuitive) known as pure mind, produced by the absence of conscious thought, ideas, judgments, emotion (fear and anxiety), pre-conception, or self-consciousness. It is a state of total awareness and reaction not impeded by higher mental function or emotion, a mind more open and reactive to subtle sensory input, intuition and spontaneous action. It is a mind that is totally calm — a mind not influenced or caught up in events or others emotion, thus a mind [better] able to freely perceive and respond.”  

But training to inculcate mushin is only fully effective if it is accurate training and distance is a big factor. I found the distances reflected in Wing Chun training to be more realistic than those of many other systems I had studied. Learning to counter punches from close-range more closely resembled that which occurs in a real-world self-defense situation.

Will we really fight as we train? I realize there is disagreement within the martial arts community on this subject. During my entire military career, I was taught that you will fight as you train — from assembly/disassembly of my personal weapon, to the “if you can be seen, you can be killed” admonitions in scout/recon training — I was taught this in all areas. From communications security, to maintaining hull defilade prior to engaging with 156mm main gun, to properly gripping a 50-caliber machinegun and employing the butterfly trigger so it doesn’t rock back and hit you in the face – we trained in the details that most closely represented what we would face in combat. What we practice and learn in training is what we will do in the stress of combat unless we freeze and do nothing at all. I believe that is true. There are stories of police officers and soldiers finding empty brass in their pockets after a shoot-out or firefight. How did it get there? Why, they policed it up during the battle, and often did not even remember doing so! That is what they did on the training range, thus that is what some still did in the middle of a fire-fight. That is an example of negative training outcome or teaching some of the wrong things. But teach and train we must.

            Not everyone in the martial arts community agrees with the idea that we will fight as we train. “You will fight as you train is one of the biggest lies we tell,” Sergeant Rory Miller says. He gives a thoughtful argument about conditioning vs training and the stimulus-response-reward paradigm. Citing Air Force studies of air-battle aces, he says the aces (combat pilots with at least five confirmed kills) achieved their first two kills, by their own admission, as a function of “instinct and luck” rather than relying upon their training. After the first two kills, training began to affect performance (“Tony Preston’s”). Miller makes some good points. He says that fighting as you train is only “sort of true.”  “You will fight in this weird mix of the way you trained, your ethics, your instincts, and all of that in a hormone stew.” While he calls for the need for realistic situational training, he adds, “Under attack, you will not have either the mind or the body that you have trained. You will have an impaired, partially deaf and blind, clumsy beginner who isn’t that bright” (Miller Facing 142). Sergeant Miller may be right in many cases, but not in all cases. I have seen soldiers rely on their training to effectively react to combat threats smoothly and proficiently, with no sign of being impaired, blind, deaf, clumsy or stupid. But I will say this, and I suspect most of us who live or work in the field of self-defense will agree. You are certainly not going to fight any better than you train. In fact, in a combat situation you will sink to the level of your training. In a street encounter your kicks won’t magically get more accurate, nor your take-downs smoother, nor will you reload your weapon any faster than your best training performance. You have probably heard people dismiss a poor performance by declaring, “Well, if this had been the real thing, I would have done better.” Yet Lieutenant Colonel Dave Grossman argues in On Combat that one cannot “expect the combat fairy to bonk you with the combat wand and suddenly make you capable of doing things that you never rehearsed before.” If anything, you may be impaired by the chemical cocktail of adrenaline and endorphins in the blood. Grossman quotes an old Gunnery Sergeant: “In combat you don’t rise to the occasion, you sink to the level of your training (77).”

Back in 2011 it was my job to evaluate a new virtual reality shooting simulation down at Fort Bragg. A talented warrant officer was running the simulation for Special Forces, so as an Army training requirements officer, I drove down to go through the course. The walls of the building were made of shredded vehicle tires to absorb the fired rounds, and the inside had a series of scenarios projected on the walls of the rooms. One of the scenarios I ran was a living area from a middle eastern home, with several virtual characters moving into and about the room, sitting at tables or in chairs, lounging or talking, etc. I was loaded with several clips of live 9mm ball ammunition. As I moved into and through the rooms, images of bad guys, civilians, children and others would emerge. Some were armed and engaging me (in simulation) and I was firing into the images on the rubber wall. The sensors in the wall scored my hits and misses. The advantages of the drill were varied target presentation, the demand upon me to shoot accurately, shoot legal targets within the rules of engagement, and rapidly reload. The disadvantages of the simulation were that no one was shooting back at me, and there was no way for me to use cover and concealment within the rooms. Now you can fault the simulation for not shooting back, but you must admit that having the simulation in the first place, even with its faults, at least allowed you to practice rapid reload and target acquisition. The key here is to recognize the faults (flaws) in the training and find ways to supplement or compliment the training that makes up for the flaws.

I was on temporary duty down at Fort Benning in September 2011 working on some training ideas for some of the Army’s futuristic systems. While there, I watched a senior non-commissioned officer administering a crew-drill for loading and firing an artillery piece. He kept repeating something that reminded me of a concept I had learned many years before, but it had faded in my memory. As he was teaching a young trainee how to handle a live round and load it into the breech of the weapon system, he kept saying, “Slow is smooth, and smooth is fast. Slow is smooth, and smooth is fast.” This concept also rings true in teaching self-defense. Learning techniques slowly, in as close to a combat situation as one can replicate, teaches smoothness. And smoothness, performed repeatedly, leads to speed. My Wing Chun training reinforced this idea, and it helped me to understand that ruthless repetition of tasks in a realistic, accurate environment creates proficiency.

  • Lesson Learned:  Ruthless repetition of tasks in a realistic, accurate environment creates proficiency.

[i] A “fiddle” is the same instrument as a violin. However, those who play fiddle may define it differently. A fiddle is a violin with “attitude” or spirit.

6.4     A Challenge to the Spirit

The period of 2008-2009 challenged my indomitable spirit as I lost two of the special people in my life. My mother, Nellie V. Brewer, died on Thanksgiving Day of 2008. She was 95 years old, and she was the greatest example of indomitable spirit I have ever encountered. Her dedication to her children, her years of hard work, her overcoming adversity, pain, loneliness, and suffering presented a model of strong, righteous behavior far beyond that of any martial artist or warrior I ever met. She believed in me, and she would never stand for me giving up, no matter what the challenge. When I was defeated, she demanded I stand up, dust myself off, and try again. When I was successful, she made sure I knew she was proud of me. She lifted my spirit. The sheer grit of this woman was unequalled. She never owned an automobile, never learned to drive, never owned a fur coat or fancy jewelry, and never had fame or wealth. She simply determined to grind it out, day by day, living paycheck-to-paycheck, and sacrificed to provide a life for me. Learning crafts, she made extra money for us, and later in life she learned to paint. All her life she enjoyed fishing, and she always appreciated the music I would play for her, inevitably requesting “You Are My Sunshine.” Now, I recognize that almost every boy loves his mother. So, I trust you will indulge my effervescence. Her hearing had been damaged when lightning struck the switchboard at her work in the 1970’s, and her eyesight became impaired in the 1990’s. My dear sister, a righteous and dedicated woman, cared for her over the last years of her life, as dementia, or “sundowner’s syndrome,” robbed her of some recognition and understanding. There were trips home to visit her when I had to remind her who I was, and even then, sometimes in mid-conversation, she would forget and think me to be someone else. But even when she forgot, I remembered. Even when she was unsure who I was, I was quite sure who she was. And even within the cloud of aging and infirmity, her indomitable spirit shined through. Losing her was a blow to my spirit that year, but she would have said to me in my sadness, “Son, get up and move on down the road.” To this day I try to apply what I call “the Mama Rule.” I ask myself the question, “If I engage in this action or behavior, what would Mama think about it?” Folks, you could do a lot worse than to apply the Mama Rule.

The very next year, my life-long friend, Richard Burley, died on Valentine Day of 2009 after a 17-month battle with multiple myeloma (cancer). Richard and I met back in college in the late 60’s, where we double-dated, attended classes and played basketball together. That 6’4” rascal spent a lot of time blocking my shots! I had to develop a decent three-pointer just to keep the games interesting. We had been in each other’s wedding, and through the years we raised our families in constant communication. Over the years we took camping vacations together, went on cruises, spent hours stomping through the woods and fields searching for Civil War relics, and we enjoyed each other’s company and contribution to our lives. Richard and his wife, Judi, had three children, one of whom, Kevin, was born with cerebral palsy and was severely handicapped. Through the years I watched with tremendous respect as this gentle-spirited, kind man, together with his wife, cared for and ministered to Kevin for the 21 years that the boy lived.  Richard was not a martial artist, and he only occasionally showed interest in my training or experience. We did not speak of it often. But the way Richard cared for his family, and how he handled himself through his fatal illness, taught me as much about indomitable spirit as any sensei or martial arts practitioner I have met in my life. Richard received his cancer diagnosis in the Fall of 2007, and my wife and I stayed in touch with him during his illness and treatment. We would go to Franklin, TN to visit with him and Judi during our trips back from Virginia to Kentucky to see our children, grandchildren and extended family. But despite aggressive treatments, Richard’s decline came far too quickly, and ultimately we were summoned by his wife a couple of days before he died.

“Richard wants to see you,” Judi told us. We rushed to Tennessee for our dear friend.

When we arrived on Friday night, Richard was bedridden and resting in the living room of their home. He was lucid and talkative, even joking with me about the Vanderbilt basketball season. We spent that first night talking with him, and it was clear from the nature of our conversation that he knew his time was near. All day Saturday we talked, but his condition deteriorated during the afternoon, and I could sense in his eyes and his words that he was ready to go. Judi seemed to believe he had just been holding on long enough for us to get there. Perhaps so. But as his body failed him, he remained strong in spirit. Late Saturday night he continued to decline. Jan and were playing a CD of soft music we had recorded with our band in Virginia as his final hours approached. He was drifting in and out of consciousness at this point, his breathing labored and increasingly slower. He would speak only occasionally but squeeze our hands to let us know that he knew we were there. My wife, Jan, sang the gospel song “Unclouded Day” in his final moments. In those last minutes, before life left his now-frail body, I was holding his hand. His lips moved as he appeared in conversation with someone or something unseen. My wife, a former Hospice nurse herself, explained that this was a common occurrence at the bedside of individuals on the cusp of death. As his breathing slowed even more and grew labored, his pulse grew weaker. He seemed incoherent at this point and we questioned if he still knew we were there. Then, in the seconds just before he died, he suddenly squeezed my hand, and spoke clearly and distinctly.

“Jimmy, help me!”  he called out.

“I here, Richard. I’ve got you, my friend,” I replied. “God loves you, my brother.”

And within a few seconds, my dear friend was gone — at least from this physical world.  Jan and I held Judi and we all cried. He had called for me in those final moments, and I shall never forget that. What an honor to be with someone in such an intimate and critical moment in life’s journey. To this day I miss Richard more than I can say. But he taught me courage and commitment by the way he lived his life and the dignity he showed in death.

  • Lesson Learned:  Look for and celebrate indomitable spirit in those you meet outside the martial arts and learn from them.

By January of 2014 I had completed over 30 years of service (active duty and civilian) to the US Army, and it was time to retire from federal service and begin a new phase of my life. The question was, “where would I go and what would I do?” My wife and I had dreams over the years of where we would like to end up and how we would like to spend our retirement years. I had continued teaching part-time as an adjunct professor at colleges in both Kentucky and Virginia over the years, and I figured that wherever we ended up I would continue, at least on a part-time basis, to stay involved in teaching. More than a few of my friends and colleagues thought that “teaching” might be in the form of martial arts. Some even thought I might open my own school. But that was not to be the case. I was at a point in my life where I had no intention of taking on what would become far more than another full-time job. I remember meeting with Sifu Massengill just before I retired. I knew I would be leaving Virginia in the coming months so I bought him lunch in a nearby Mexican restaurant to tell him of my decision, thank him for his instruction, and to pick his brain on all things Wing Chun. We had a long talk that day, ranging from our similar martial arts backgrounds to our viewpoints on training, to our philosophy of life, current politics, and where we were going in the future. I explained to him how his instruction had helped to shape my views on self-defense, and how I was blending what I learned from him with the taekwondo, hapkido, and other systems in which I had the privilege to train.

“I can’t go back to doing what I did,” I told him. My approaches to punching, blocking, and movement would be forever changed. That did not mean I was abandoning Hapkido, or Shorei-goju, or Taekwondo, or Judo. It meant I would add what I had learned in Wing Chun to make myself a more well-rounded warrior. At one point in our conversation, he asked me if I had considered going back to Kentucky and perhaps teaching Wing Chun. He suggested that I remain in Virginia with him for a time and get certified in level one instruction. He then offered that I might return to Kentucky to teach under his senior leadership. While I appreciated his confidence in me and his willingness to sponsor such an effort, I was determined not to re-enter full-time work under any auspices, even that of a martial art which I greatly appreciated. He graciously respected my decision and wished me well. So, as we had numerous times before, my wife and I said good-bye to friends and colleagues, and we left the Commonwealth of Virginia to start yet another new chapter in life.