“When
I have people do an exercise I’m always watching what people are doing with
their body, to make sure they’re moving right.”
-Grandmaster Tim Carron The above statement was based on a question I once asked Grandmaster Carron
when he corrected me on an exercise that I wasn’t doing correctly. From my
experiences working with Grandmaster Carron one of the things about his
teaching style was he was very meticulous about how my body moved, especially
when performing or teaching an exercise.
Believe it or not, he was less concerned with the “form” or how something
looked, than he was with how my body functioned while doing an exercise because
he always understood that things didn’t have look or be “exact” to be
effective. This is important because all too often, even in Guided Chaos,
people get caught up in the form of something rather than the substance of what
they are trying to achieve.
My point is, while perfection is a nice goal to strive for–and I’m all about
it–in truth it’s nearly impossible to achieve because it is unknowable. As you improve what seemed
impossible yesterday becomes just “a thing” the next day after you develop it.
None of us knows how good we can get and none of us knows what we are truly
capable of because until you’ve been pushed to that point you don’t truly know
what you may have in you until you have to do something outside your wheel
house. It’s sort of like building strength, until you reach a certain
physical limitation you really don’t know how strong you can get. You get the
idea.
Don’t get me wrong: he didn’t accept any old half-assed thing–it’s that
Tim’s attitude was often “function over form” when it came to
doing an exercise so whether it was the Ninja Walk, the Vacuum Walk or Contact
Flow his main concern was focusing on the end result. Rather than performing
what amounted to just some type of “go through the motions” dance or ritual
that was all shadow and no substance.
It was a strange dichotomy that would take me years to reconcile until I
understood what he meant. He just knew what was right and what wasn’t so when
it came to the functionality of something he was very exacting and
demanding that you moved correctly but at the same time he was less
concerned as to how it looked. That’s all.
Anyway, based on the positive response I received from the last installment
(thanks for all the support btw), in this installment of “Lessons from
My Masters” I’m going to delve a little deeper and relate some of my
earlier experiences and a few specific exercises on how he went about training
just to provide some insight into both his, and a little bit of Grandmaster
Perkins’ methodology of “getting your body right” as he would
call it at times.
Okay, here we go. Some of this is too funny! Even now looking back I have to
laugh about it but what I’m sharing here is some profound stuff right from my “Sith
Lord’s” bag of tricks, and trust me the bag is deep.
Sooo…
The Chair
So, I’m working out with my Master (Tim) one evening and he is, let’s just
say, “displeased” with how I’m using my arms. Not a good place to be with
Tim. He says I’m trying to push with too much muscle and I’m not using my body
enough. He also says,
“I notice when you’re working with people you’re trying to rest your
arms way too much on top of people’s arms. When you do that your giving up your
arms.”
He then says, “Here let me show you something: put your arms on top
of mine and rest them there a little I want you to see something.” So
I place my arms on top and he says, “Now watch this”, he then
takes his arms out from under mine, not fast and my arms drop about an inch or
two before I recover them and he says, “You see that? You see how you
had to catch your arms?” I was like, “Yeah” he said, “That’s
because you gave up control of your arms.” He went on to say, “When
you rest your arms on top of the other person’s arms you’re giving up control
of your arms. You want to always be neutral with your body.”
At this point I’m scratching my head with that “what-chu-talkin-bout”
look on my face because I had never heard of such a thing. So I asked, “What
do you mean by being neutral?” At this point Tim kind of sighs and drops
his head and says,
“You know neutral, not committed, when you place your hands on top
like that you’re committed and it’s easy for people to counter your movement
because you first have to recover your arms before you do anything.”
So then I said, “Oh okay” (like I really knew what he was talking
about…I didn’t know). So he says, “Place your hands on top again,”
after a few moments he then takes his hands away and says, “Okay now
first things first, stop moving! You’re moving for no reason and I haven’t even
started.” Next he says, “Here now, let me do something with
you. Place your hands on top of mine and stay with my hands and stay as light
as possible and just move with me.”
So after a few minutes of this where I just can’t for the life of me stop resting
my arms on top of his he says, “Okay wait here.” Now as an
aside if Tim tells you to “wait here” only pain can follow so for
those who train with me regularly you’re going to recognize the next statement
Tim made to me when he came back. He said, “This… is going to suck…”
He then hands me a folding chair and he says, “Grab it by the top,
now bend your arms and hold it out in front of you about the height of your
eyes, okay? Good.”
And then he walks away…
He then walks outside just outside of the door because “The Peoples
Republic of New York” already started cracking down on indoor smoking and
then he stands there and watches me while he enjoys a smoke.
The nerve!
Well after about five minutes of that nonsense the chair is practically on
the floor, I’m basically only holding it up in my mind. He then walks over to
me and grabs the chair while still in my hands, raises the chair back up to the
height of my eyes and walks away again!
WTF!?!
At this point my shoulders and traps and the middle of my back are on fire.
Sweat pouring off my brow as I retreat to that happy place in my mind. Screw
deep breathing and meditation I’m beyond that now–I’m in pain! But I’m watching
him watch me the whole time and I’m like, “WTF? Is this some kind of hazing
ritual? A cruel hoax? What the…? Now he’s drinking coffee!?! Wait a minute? Did
he just light another cigarette?”
This is sort of like when you have to use a public rest room really bad and the person in there ahead
of you is like blow drying their hands and taking their sweet time, and all you
want to do is kick the door in and slam their head into the toilet. Yeah it’s
like that.
So while this seemed like an hour of this nonsense it was probably just a
few more minutes. He then walks over to me takes the chair from my hands and
says, “Place your hands on top of mine and stay with me.”
“Pure genius” that’s all I can say…
My hands and arms felt so light they almost felt as if they weren’t attached
to my body. Later on he would tell me,
“You need to practice that. You don’t have to use a chair…you can use
anything that has a little weight to it but you need to practice it. I like to
use chairs because they’re not only available in class but they’re awkward to
hold.”
Later on we would modify this drill and use weighted balls but the principle
is the same. I generally recommend that people use no more than 3 lb balls
otherwise if they’re too heavy people really don’t get the benefit of the
prolonged resistance. You need to do it just long enough to feel the burn
in the muscles and you’re done. This is a great exercise to develop lightness
and that neutral feeling in the arms.
When I work with Grandmaster Perkins, afterward people ask me “What was
he doing?” and I’m like, “I don’t know I can’t really feel what he was
doing with his arms they’re there but they’re not there, there’s nothing.” That
is of course unless he’s guiding me then there is a sensation or some sort of
direction but that’s a different thing and a whole different level of skill
John’s developed for the purposes of teaching. Other than that he’s always neutral
in his arms and movement in general which allows him to change
direction seemingly in the blink of an eye without any excessive or preparatory
movement.
Two Bricks
So one evening I’m working with Tim and I ask him, “I notice you really
don’t step and when you do, you barely step at all.” He says, “Yeah
I really don’t like to move more than I need to if I have to step to go after
someone I’m going to just cut them in half.” So I start with the “what
if?” questions and I ask him well say I’m this far away how would you deal
with someone who’s trying to keep their distance. He then kind of smiles and
says “Watch, now when I move I want you to try to get out of the way
just step wherever you want.”
Mind you we’re probably a good 10 ft to 12 ft away, as soon as he moved I
tried to step off line and I would say with no more than two steps tops, he had
closed the distance, broken my balance and caught me before I fell over
backwards in what seemed like one fluid movement. To say I was impressed was an
understatement so naturally of course I want to know how he did it. He says,
“You know the Long Stepping exercise? You have to do that but if you
want to really learn how to do what I did with power you need to do it with weight.”
Tim would go on to tell me that at his job they had some old weights that
are used for garage doors laying around (I think he said they were about 20 lb
each) so during his lunch breaks on the backside of the building he would
basically do power walks with one in each hand Long Stepping from one end of
the parking lot to the other.
He says, “Here I’ll show you.” Now at the time the school we
used to train at was the old Church of North Yonkers and near the
parking lot they were doing some sort of maintenance and they had some bricks
out there so he hands me two bricks and has me proceed to Long Step back and
forth in the parking lot with those bricks in hand.
He says,
“Hold these with just enough strength to hold onto them, now as you
walk you’re going to feel the weight of the bricks throw your balance off a
little, you need to control that and not lean in any direction when you do
this. Try to keep your body upright and walk back and forth from one end to the
other. Do not bounce or let your shoulders rise up unnecessarily.”
So for the next ten minutes he has me walking back and forth in the parking
lot with these bricks in my hands critiquing my movement the whole time, “Stop
bouncing, you’re leaning, slow down, smoother, relax your upper body you’re too
tight,” and on it went. Every now and then he would stroke his beard
in approval like The Evil Pai Mei (okay I made that last part up
besides “Kill Bill” wasn’t even out then but it makes for a better
story).
Afterwards and quite frequently Tim would tell me little seemly “off the
record” things about John and his abilities. He would say things like,
“You see when John moves on people and really wants to get around
them, notice he always looks like he’s gliding. It looks like his feet barely
leave the ground yet there is no sound, I don’t care what surface he’s on he
never drags or slides his feet. Ever! That’s why you’ve got to do these
exercises. Next time John is doing a demo and he’s really moving on people pay
attention to that.”
Tim also went on to say something like,
“He (John) also does something else where he’ll take a step and be
balanced on one leg yet the toe of the other foot is on the ground but the heel
is raised up.”
So I’m like, “Yeah…” then Tim says,
“You’ll notice when he does that he’s never leaning in any direction,
that’s because the space he created with his heel is the distance that he’s
going to drop into when he hits you. The reason you don’t feel the movement
when he drops is because he’s already positioned himself where he needs to be
when he does it to make it work. You just get hit. It’s just amazing.”
Now it would take me years to
understand what he was describing because you just have to see it over and over
until you start to get it. Along those lines understand that many of these
things that my Masters taught me way back when in some cases took me years to
fully understand and appreciate the depth of what they were teaching me.
As one of my students Joe Riggio (a 2nd Degree in Guided Chaos) likes to say,
“You don’t know what you know until you know it.”
Master Martarano really nails it when he says, it’s not that there are
higher levels per se but a “deepening of your understanding of the
principles.” My point is some of this stuff just takes time to
absorb and that’s all there is too it, you can’t force it, but absorb it as I
did.
The Ax
After that session, I would say maybe a few weeks later, I was at our other
school over in Nyack and we were training outside that day and John had us
moving around each other a bit and I have to tell you when I wanted to move in
on people and take them off their feet it was effortless. I would later that
day speak with John about my training with Tim and he said what Tim did was
basically “unitize” my body and movement. John would go on to say, “You
still tend to use your arms too much because you have a lot of strength. You
have to learn to fight with your whole body.”
I’m like whaaaat?
So John says, “Here move with me.” As soon as I touched his
arms he breaks my balance, which made no sense because I touched his arms on
top and more importantly, I touched first. He then says,
“You still have too much structure and you’re trying to muscle it
with your arms. You’ve got to get your body behind your hands because if I
really go off on you I’ll break your arms on the way in.”
He then says, “Wait here.”
“Rut-row…”
Oh…you know where this is going…
So he goes to his car and he comes back with an ax. He says, “This
was my father’s ax. Tim just sharpened this for me so be careful.”
At this point I have no idea where this is going but the fact he had to tell
me to be careful didn’t put me at ease.
He then says,
“I have to get you to use your body more, you’re moving well but
you’re still relying too much on your strength. Here’s what I want you to do, I
want you to hold the ax with both hands with the bottom of the handle up around
your face. I then want you to hold the ax straight up and down and touch the
leaves on this tree without disturbing the other leaves and branches on the
tree. Here’s the catch, you have to sink with every step lifting the ax as you
step to touch the leaves without it dropping below your face. Watch the roots
and try not to fall.”
Let’s just say after that and about 20 hours sleep the difference in my Body
Unity was night and day. Still not quite where he wanted it to be but it was a
marked improvement. More importantly and this is the point it was “a
difference that I could immediately feel” after that session.
Like I said “pure genius.”
A couple of points on all this. While these methods may seem unorthodox and
to some even silly (oh yeah we are well aware of some of the criticism and
comments people make about the exercises we teach, no matter), it has been my
experience that this type of paradoxical learning and teaching methods are far
more effective than much of the nonsense that passes for martial training that
I’ve seen over the years.
Too many folks focus on demonstrating "feats of
strength" than developing any real skill to take people off the
planet and send them to the afterlife. Don't get me wrong I'm all about staying
fit and as I get older I appreciate it's importance even more especially when
it comes to maintaining strength. As Tim once said to me when we
discussed this very subject, "strength is good."
But punching you in your face with full body unity and utter ruthlessness
with every intention of severing your brain stem and you from this plane of
existence is far different than just thinking because you’re strong you can
really punch.
As an aside because I don’t want people to get the wrong idea here, every
now and then I’ll have a student who is into lifting ask me about is it good to
still do strength training when doing Guided Chaos. Usually it’s after someone
told them not to lift because it makes you tight and stiff or some other
nonsense. Because that like never worked for guys who run track or are in the
NBA or NFL… right?
Pulleeeeze!
Here's the deal: while there are exercises we do to get you
loose, most of this in my experience is just as much a mental thing as a
physical thing. I've found that while some folks have a lot of natural
looseness the main thing that holds people back from getting loose in their
body is their mind won't let go of the idea of resisting. My
advice always has been as you get stronger learn how to apply the principles of
the art so that you are using your strength as efficiently as possible. No question strength helps and as I always tell folks, as
Tim stated, "strength is good," but it's even better if you really
know how to use it and that's what I'm talking about. But your body has to be
coordinated for you to apply it with maximum effect. The other aspect is your mental outlook when you train. I
was recently discussing this with a student and one of the things I said to him
based on a comment he made which was many years ago, before he started doing
Guided Chaos, even though he had a lot of skill in other arts he at times felt
like a "paper tiger." I explained to him that his feeling is
more common than he thinks.
One of the things I told him is that from time-to-time a question I ask
folks when I’m trying to get their minds right is, “Do you think you can
take me in a fight?” Now the vast majority like 99% say no, besides why would
they train with me if they knew they could kick my ass? Some will say things
like, “If I can get the drop on you or if I had a weapon etc.”
Then I correct them and tell them, “Listen–there’s only one right
answer to that question and that is: I better kill you! Got it?”
As I’ve said in other Blog Posts, when you train, even when having fun, in
the back of your mind you need to train as if your life depends on it because
some day it may.
As Tim used to say, “I don’t know if I can kick anybody’s ass…all
I know is if you mess with me you’re going to have to kill me. That’s all,
because it’s going to be like that. If I think you’re going to hurt me, fuck
that, I’m going to hurt you first.”
Whether you’re in the gym getting stronger, doing an exercise on your own or
in class, or working out with a partner, in the back of your mind you need to
stay focused and keep the main thing “the main thing” and
that’s training to ensure your sword prevails in battle.
By developing your mind and body to “go there” if you have to, as long as
you focus on doing just that it’s really the only question you have to answer…
Well that’s it for this installment. Hope you got something out of this.
Thanks. LtCol Al Ridenhour USMC (ret) Senior Master Instructor
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