“No Fear, No Hesitation, No Surprise, No Doubt.”
— Miyamoto Musashi, The Book of Five
Rings
As I discussed in the last installment of “Lessons from My Masters 4”,
Grandmaster Perkins taught me how to move at what I referred to as
“Supernatural Speed”. In this installment of “Lessons from My
Masters” I’m going to delve a little into another aspect of this because
after thinking about it I realized it’s not enough to be able to move at Supernatural
Speed but also how do you get in on an attacker while being unavailable
yet unavoidable? And what you do when you get there? Once you’re there, you’re
there and that’s generally not the time to figure out what to do in a real
fight for your life. As always I’ll describe this as best I can because like a
lot of things Grandmaster Perkins does, this has to be felt and seen up close
to be believed.
Okay here we go…
Phase I: The Slam Bag
Pai Mei: [punches through a block of wood from three inches away] “Since
your arm now belongs to me, I want it strong. Can you do that?”
The Bride: “I can, but not that close.”
Pai Mei: “Then you can’t do it! What if your enemy is three inches in front
of you, what do you do then? Curl into a ball? Or do you put your fist through
him?”
–Scene from Kill Bill Vol 2: The Cruel Master Pai Mei and The Bride
This is like one of my favorite scenes in the “Kill Bill” Movies because it
is so dead on. Let’s face: it the enemy gets a vote and is probably not going
to wait for you to channel all of your energy into one all-powerful kill shot
like “Dragon Ball Z” or some nonsense. So if you have to “layeth of wood’ on
someone there can be no hesitation or doubt in your ability to penetrate them
at whatever range you find yourself at.
So anyway, I say I’ve probably been doing Guided Chaos for about two years
or so and I’m hanging out near the end of class one evening talking with
Grandmaster Perkins. So I was discussing how Grandmaster Carron had the unusual
ability to not only strike with authority but when he struck you with the open
hand it was like getting hit with a frying pan.
John starts laughing so now I have that “Scooby Doo” look on my face like,
“Ruuuut?”
So he goes on to explain and says something along the lines of:
“You know it’s interesting when I first started training Tim he actually had
relatively soft hands especially for a guy who worked with his hands all of the
time. I had to actually firm his hands up so he could slap people in half”.
Now for anyone who never had the pleasure (if you want to call it that), if
Tim hit you let’s just say you “stayed hit”. Tim had a “different touch” and
when I mean “touch” I literally mean like the “Vulcan Death Touch”. If he
“slapped” you on the back, you could almost feel your soul leaving the body. He
could hit you where it looked as if there was no exertion of effort whatsoever
yet bring you to the edge of unconsciousness and then snatch you back from “the
light”.
I remember once during a multiple attacker drill where Tim was being
attacked and one of our instructors jumped into the fray at John’s command when
Tim had his back to him. Tim literally turned to his right looking over his
shoulder with that look you have when you’re watching the ball game and your
wife asks you some question like, “So which dress should I wear?” and you say,
“That one”, and she says “Yeah but which one?” and you say, “Oh did you say
something?” For the married guys, you know the kind of questions. (For those
who’ve been married for any length of time you know these are not good words on
your part…)
Anyway…
He looks over the shoulder and turning his right hand upside down almost
cupping his hand “thumps” him in the ribs. The sound was pronounced and stopped
him cold in his tracks.
Well… The next class when that instructor showed up he showed everyone the
bruise Tim gave him. It looked like someone hit him with a baseball bat. It was
a huge bruise almost resembling a small volcano. Of course we all thought it
was funny especially since it wasn’t us. My point is, he could hit like that.
So knowing how Tim could hit I was all ears. John said,
“I used to use a bag made of leather filled with steel shot or beans and I
would have Tim ‘drop’ every time he struck the bag”.
So I said something like, “Oh you mean like an Iron Palm Bag?”
He said, “Similar, but I use leather because the canvas messes your hands up
and I teach people to drop on the bag while in midair.”
So I said, “You know I think I have an old Iron Palm Bag a friend gave me
years ago”.
So John says, “Bring it to class next time and I’ll show you”.
So that Thursday I brought my bag to class and I hand it to John and so he
begins to demonstrate how to drop on the bag and he says,
“This is really not good…you really need leather. You can see how I drop on
this. You really can’t drop after a while with this, also it will eventually
mess your hands up. You really need leather or some kind of hide. Let me take
this to my leather guy and I’ll show you how to really use this and do it
right”.
So I guess about two weeks later John comes to class with this “Slam Bag” as
he referred to it since you have to slam it when you drop. So he says, “Okay
let me see you drop.” So after a few drops and a few corrections (you know–the
usual mistakes: hopping in the air before dropping, etc.), he then hands me
back my bag and says, “Feel this—it’s made with genuine buffalo hide. Notice
how thick it is, yet soft?” I say “Oh yeah”.
He then has me begin to drop on the bag focusing on penetrating or cutting
the bag in space then grabbing it on the downward drop. He then shows me how to
line my body up at different angles, teaching me how to drop on the bag from
the side and keeping the bag close so as to not torque my shoulders or elbow
joints. Later on, as I further developed this skill over some time, he would
actually throw the bag to me and first I had to drop and stop it as it came at
me. Then I would have to drop and clear the bag with one hand and then
immediately chop with the other hand. This drill by the way will put lightning
on your hand’s ability to clear people’s arms as you enter in on them.
He then explains the difference between how he trains people’s hands versus
how most people train to develop their hands for insane striking power. Most of
us, if we trained in the martial arts for any length of time (especially if we
trained in the traditional arts) have worked out with Makiwara boards and other
such training aids to develop our hands.
I can remember when I was on Okinawa and almost to a man you could see how
virtually all of the higher level karate instructors had hands that literally
looked like stone. Their knuckle’s white and ashen and calloused over, for many
their hands barely looked functional. Years of hard practice on the Makiwara.
Now of course if they hit you it was the real deal. But as Grandmaster Perkins
explained to me,
“You see these guys who have years of hard style karate or kung fu under
their belts from striking hard immoveable things all of the time, the problem
is I’ve seen over time their hands become ossified and arthritic. I know guys
whose hands are basically useless when it gets cold outside and they’re in
constant pain because of all the damage they’ve done to themselves. Sucks for
them if they have to manipulate a weapon in a real fight or what I call the
‘blood dance’. The other problem is they’re all striking objects that don’t
move so you know what? Sure they can hit hard but how does that work against an
attacker moving on you in berserker mode? It’s like breaking boards and
bricks—you’ve seen me do it but it has nothing to do with real fighting. People
are just different and can take more than people think. Now, the way I teach it
you have to learn to strike and penetrate objects in space. When you hit people
it’s a different thing. People are mostly water so when you strike you
generally have to ‘splash the tissue’ and you only want to penetrate about 3”
to 4” inches. You probably learned in karate to punch through the target but
what I found is people tend to push more than strike when they do this. This is
why when Tim was hitting you, you notice it felt like a wave going through
you.”
I said, “Absolutely!”.
John said,
“That’s how I trained him so even if you try to get out of the way if he
connects it just goes right through you. There’s also the timing of the drop.
When you learn to do it right even if they get loose most of the time they
can’t get loose fast enough because of the speed and penetration of the drop
strike. The main thing is you want to be able to penetrate a person even at
close range. The Slam Bag training along with the proper dropping lets you do
that.”
Even to this day as with the Wobble Board, the Slam Bag is a major tool in
my kit when developing people and it doesn’t take much to develop their hands.
Since it mostly works the muscles and tendons in the hand it gives you the
ability to maintain the structural integrity of your weapons when striking and
you are able to develop this in a relatively short period of time. Now it
does work the density of the bones to some degree (it’s called “micro
fractures” but it doesn’t damage your hands but makes them stronger, which is
what everyone else is trying to do but they have the wrong modality of training
to do it right).
I’ve seen on average it takes between three to four weeks a couple of times
a week to develop your hands to a base level, after that you only need to touch
it periodically to maintain your muscles and tendons and your timing. There’s a
little more to it than I’ve described here such as the use of horse shoes and
dynamic tension exercises like the old Charles Atlas stuff. Later as my own
skill at developing this ability grew I would teach it to students.
I can tell you we have some students that if they hit you there’s a good
chance you’re not coming back from it. I shit you not! One of our 4th Degrees,
Joe Troy also known as the “Ink Ape” has hands and forearms of iron. His
ability to hit is insane, I mean it really makes no sense someone can hit that
hard with virtually no effort. I had to tell him to stop hitting people before
he ended up with a murder charge. Yet he makes his living designing awesome
tattoos. Think about that? A guy with probably some of the most developed hands
you’ll see anywhere earns his living doing something that requires some of the
highest fine motor skill of any profession (“oops” is not a good word in the
tattoo business).
That’s what I’m talking about!
Phase II: The String
“The true science of
martial arts means practicing them in such a way that they will be useful at
any time, and to teach them in such a way that they will be useful in all
things.”
― Miyamoto Musashi, The Book of Five Rings
So after driving Tim crazy asking 6,000 questions about how John is able to
just dive in on folks who are much larger and have longer reach than him. Tim
says,
“Well I shouldn’t say he’s just diving in. It only feels that way. He’s
actually feeling his way in”.
At this point this makes absolutely no sense. So I say yeah but how? So Tim
says, “When he comes later you should ask him”. So after my training with Tim,
John shows up and sometime during class I ask him about what Tim and I were
talking about and I told him what Tim said and that Tim told me to ask him
about it.
So John says, “Well if you watch what I’m doing here…” (here we go) He then
touches my hand… and just disappears. The next thing I know his elbow is at my
throat and his body is against mine but I can’t move.
WTF!?!
So he says, “Watch I’ll do it again”, so this time I tried to move on him
but met with the same result. So this happens about eight more times and you
have to know John at this point he’s having too much fun with me. He’s even got
me laughing. Then he explains,
“So, if you watch what I’m doing as Tim said I’m feeling my way in as I go
but I’m also isolating my body around what I feel on the way in just enough to
enter but I never stop moving in on you. If you change, I change. Notice
there’s no force from my hands, that gives it away.”
Then I say, “Yeah but how come I sometimes can feel force from you?” and he
says—and pay very close attention to his answer,
“No, no, no that’s not me pushing that’s you trying to stop me I’m just
giving you enough force to load my spring. The more you push the more you give
me to spring off of to strike with.”
Okay, at this point there’s smoke coming from my ears. By the way it would
take me years to fully appreciate what I was being shown. You have to
understand because I have long arms even with people who are taller than me I
generally don’t have to move much to slug people in the face with great force.
It is a gift from God to have the kind of reach I have. So it’s hard sometimes
to develop a skill where 99% of the time you really don’t have to do much to
make your stuff work and send people on an out of body experience.
Naturally at this point I want to know how it’s done.
First he has me doing this on the bushes lightly touching the leaves while
trying not to disturb them stepping in with my body touching random leaves as I
enter. Later he had me doing this with a string hanging from a tree branch. He
used a washer or nut from a screw set, I can’t remember exactly to give the
twine some weight and to straighten out the string to provide some rigidity to
it.
He then has me perform what we would later call a very basic “Isolation
Drill”. This drill is important because it teaches students how to move in
while “hiding their intention” as they enter. As you touch the string
with your hand usually starting with the back of your hands you attempt to step
in without disturbing the string if possible.
The idea is to remain as light as possible in the beginning to develop the
ability to isolate as you bend your arm and hide your intention as you enter by
collapsing in without disturbing the string.
Once you get the hang of it as you transition forward and move in you want
to perform “The Drac” while angling your head and body slightly off line using
the string as a guide. This simulates making contact with an attacker and then
folding on the way in moving behind the guard.
While obviously this does not take the place of proper Contact Flow
practicing this very simple and easy drill helps develop the ability to
Collapse Your Sphere as you enter to strike and hit at extreme close range or
what I like to refer to as “uncomfortable man distance”. As you improve
you want to learn to move in from every possible angle as well as “Answering
the Phone” as you enter etc.
Later on you can do this with weighted balls or just with your hand isolated
in space but to get the full effect. However, this is still something that has
to be practiced on a person during Contact Flow starting slow and then working
up to full speed to develop the proper feel and timing while another person is
moving.
Which brings me to the next thing…
Phase III: Collapsing Sphere
“When you decide to attack, keep calm and dash in quickly, forestalling
the enemy…attack with a feeling of constantly crushing the enemy, from first to
last.”
― Miyamoto Musashi, A Book of Five Rings
Okay this is what I’ve been building towards.
At a slightly more advanced level you want to learn how to “Collapse Your
Sphere of Influence” onto another person’s Sphere, disrupting their movement.
[Note: as stated previously without the ability to Drop Strike at close range
it is very difficult to Collapse the Sphere and strike effectively if you can’t
deliver your strikes with crushing force when you arrive. It’s not
impossible, just difficult.]
Collapsing the Sphere can be accomplished by learning how to isolate your
body as you enter transferring your center of gravity as you move forward while
attacking the attacker. Understand, as you move no matter what direction
even as you collapse inward your sphere always moves with you.
As you enter on an attacker you are not just flowing in with your hands
working off of their arms or body, but feeling your way into the target areas
with your entire body while avoiding their strikes in the process (unavailable
yet unavoidable).
Okay I’m going to cut it off right here because there’s more that I need to
explain on this and I don’t want to get too much ahead of myself. Besides I
want to hold you in a little suspense for the next installment. But I leave you
with this:
Before I conclude, there’s one thing I want to clear up so people don’t go
off creating a whole art based on some of these things I write about. These
things I describe are real things within the art of Guided Chaos but at the end
of the day they are just that, “a thing”.
For example, while I speak about the Sphere of Influence, understand that
your Sphere of Influence is just a representation of what you are able to do
within the natural range of motion within your body as far as your arms and
legs can strike with power in every direction emanating from your center of
gravity. It is just a concept—the goal is not to “protect your Sphere” but to
learn what is the art of the possible within “your Sphere”.
These concepts or “Things” as I like to sometimes call them are nothing more
than a grain of sand on the beach. The point is sand is important to the beach,
it’s real and you can touch it but you need a whole lot of sand to make a
beach. This is not to diminish the importance of these concepts or techniques
but to merely keep you from creating in your mind a whole art or as we like to
say “rules that don’t exist”.
Remember, how you think of a thing influences how you move, act, behave etc.
These self limiting “contrived rules” based on your own idiosyncrasies about
fighting only serve to close off your mind and inhibit your creativity and
growth.
There’s thousands of techniques but only FIVE PRINCIPLES OF GUIDED
CHAOS, as far as I’m concerned, it’s only the principles and that’s it. Again,
this is something very, very important that was ingrained into my head by my
Masters. It’s way too easy to go off on a tangent away from what’s real. I’ve
seen it.
Remember, we’re training to fight for our lives, how creative would you want
to be to protect your family? Your own life? You have to ask yourself, how good
would I want to be if I had to fight in what Sun Tzu called “Death Ground”?
It’s the only question you really need to answer…
Everything else for the most part is all BS.
As Mr. Miyagi said in the Karate Kid, “Daniel-san, Miyagi no fight for
points, Miyagi fight for life!”
Damn straight!
Okay, final, final thought, after getting a little more feedback from
students on some other stuff that comes out of my mouth. I realize that
ultimately I’m trying to help orient your mind around a concept that I keep
alluding to called “The Quantum Sphere”. I call it that because it, a) sounds
really cool and I like sounding like Stephen Hawking; b) I got the
Grandmaster’s permission to call it that (John doesn’t get all wrapped up
around this stuff) and; c) I truly believe that after nearly 30 years of
studying this art that Grandmaster Perkins has created something that explains
so many of what I call “anomalies” in human movement (i.e., those things that
have that “dimensional feel” to them that seem to defy explanation yet they
exist).
So I leave you with this: The Quantum Sphere is a concept and nothing more,
it is not the whole art but a natural outgrowth of developing yourself through
the principles of the art. It is also, “I believe” the place where creativity
and virtually infinite possibilities originate from within all human movement.
As Musashi bluntly summed up…
“The only reason a warrior
is alive is to fight, and the only reason a warrior fights is to win”
― Miyamoto Musashi, A Book of Five Rings
These “Things” are just part of being a Warrior and nothing more, so be a
“Warrior”.
Learn and train to fight to win!
Until next time.
Thank you.
LtCol Al Ridenhour
Senior Master Instructor
——
WANT TO GO DEEPER?
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