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“Don't think. FEEL. It's like a finger pointing at the moon.
Do not concentrate on the finger or you will miss all of the heavenly glory!” – Bruce Lee
I am once again running Krav Maga classes. I currently have two students both of whom are security professionals; one works in a casino, the other at an airport. Being a former doorman I find that I have a lot in common when discussing ways to restrain and remove someone off the premises with my students. It reminds me of the days on the doors when we would practice restraining and removing each other from the club. A lot of people’s reasons for getting into reality based martial arts, myself included, are to be able to apply martial arts skills to security work and I am lucky to have had experience of a real-life approach to defence situations.
This week I have been on TVNZ breakfast as well as interviewed on national radio with regards to an incident last year whilst working as an IT analyst at Rotorua Hospital where I was fired for taking one blank DVD to record some martial arts footage which I was using to facilitate the training of the hospital security staff in self defence. I am glad that the case has generated national attention as I think it sets a scary precedence where employers can fire someone for taking a low value item like stationery.
Working with schools whilst running my self-defence programme I was looking at the Maori weaving patterns adorning the reception walls. Noho Taniwha, the teeth of Taniwha; to the European perception they look a bit like the teeth of a dragon. Taniwha have been sighted by some Maori and even some pakeha; it seems that the metaphysical nature of the Maori culture is able to awaken the spirituality that the European has conditioned to ignore over the ages.
Sometimes people tell me that I am a person of contradiction being a martial artist and self defence instructor as well as an IT professional. I don’t see the big contrast as to me both martial arts and IT are two areas which reward individual drive, learning and commitment and both provide abstract concepts as solutions to real-life problems. Just as I challenge myself and grow as a martial artist I am also constantly updating my IT professional certifications and knowledge as new products and operating systems are released. This is what excites me about both martial arts and the IT field; the fact that to succeed you have to be committed to being a life-time learner.
I have always found it amusing how many Polynesians would walk around Rotorua wearing a shirt that is unbuttoned at the bottom. Like Mexicans in East L.A so they could quickly draw a handgun without ripping the shirt open. It is unlikely that these ‘Mexicans’ have ever fired a handgun and most definitely never experienced US style racial profiling where you could get stopped and searched for a concealed weapon simply for looking like a Hispanic gang member. I find myself laughing when I recall how quickly the officer patting me down left once he discovered he was dealing with a foreign national.
Korean terminology flows naturally off my tongue after hearing the same words for years from a Korean master. My school’s Taekwondo programme is pretty much based on that of my master. A lot of care went into breaking the art down into easy to learn hand-techniques, one-step sparring, basic forms and kicking exercises making it a winning school formula. From the syllabus down to the design of our school brochures I have used much of my master’s style and methods in running my school.
Recently I read a book and also watched a movie called “127 Hours”. The storyline is a harrowing account of Aron Ralston, a mountaineer who got his right arm trapped under a boulder in a remote canyon in Utah. This is a story of a man who was trapped and frightened. He was frightened to stay where he was, knowing the chances of any rescue finding him alive to be slim; he was frightened to free himself by cutting through his own trapped limb with a dull blade of his multi-tool.
Watching my students go over their patterns in my Taekwondo class one would give me a tentative glance another would let out a cursory ‘err... ’ as they would perform the exercise. I advised my students that martial arts are not a team sport, to never worry about what anybody else thinks but focus purely on the execution of their flow. Glancing at a judge in a patterns competition is almost always an indication of uncertainty; likewise when facing an adversary in sparring the winner is the one who focuses on his own attacking strategy and dictates the pace of the bout. Martial arts are one of those activities which are all about you, where the focus of the training is on enhancement of the self.
Three weeks have pasted and this is my last week with Capoeira Mandinga Aotearoa and I have to figure out what it is I want to take away from my training. At the moment I am leaning toward the instruments of capoeira and here is why.
“It is not because things are difficult that we dare not. It is because we do not dare that they are difficult.” – Seneca
