Jesus-Karate and Humility of the Body
(Prologue)
As I wrote earlier, Steph and I joined a martial arts school about 25 minutes down the hill. The sensei became a Christian three years ago, converted from drinking brawler to Jesus-lover (based on his account and others), and his sincerity does impress:
Students getting ready before class, stretching on the mats...
Sensei: Hey Troy
Troy: Hi Sensei
Sensei: How was your week?
Troy: Oh, good
Sensei: How were services Sunday?
Troy: Oh, yeah, good, we went
Sensei: What was the message on?
Like that. Of course, I never remember what the message was on, or rarely, but he's only asked me once so far. He did approach me a couple weeks ago and ask me a very sincere question I wished I had answered differently:
Sitting on chairs before class begins
Sensei: So, what's the Lord working on in your life right now?
Troy: Uh, well, I don't know. I think the nature of the Bible.
Sensei: What do you mean?
Troy: You know, I see the a mix of the divine and the human when I read it; I'm not sure how those things interact.
Sensei: Do you know I Timothy 3:16?
Troy: Yeah, I know that book
Sensei: What about fulfilled prophecies?
Troy: Well, some were, some weren't, for example, the northern tribes never did return....
Like that. I regret that last conversation because what he was asking me, in simple and transparent terms for a man who doesn't know me and who teaches martial arts for a living, was really very personal. I responded with a theological puzzle; I thought I was being equally sincere. The fact is sensei knows more than I do. My real answer (which I have yet to give him): I want to be a better husband and father.
I'll tell you, it's something, after a karate class, sparring with some guy, to stand there catching my breath listening to praise songs while the sensei talks about right thinking, about peaceful living, about loving action...truthfully, I feel I've hit a jackpot. My other martial arts teachers were all very human, very secular, even when I loved them and they loved me.
***
And now for the humility part. This is mostly inblog. I begin with a sparsely told martial arts resume.
This is the forth time in my life I've attended a martial arts school.
The first was when I was twenty (ah, twenty, limber-muscle-speed-breath). This was the IMB Academy when Dan Inosanto taught there in the afternoons. Bruce Lee had been dead just over ten years. We used to bow to an original oil painting of him. His famous 300 pound bag (or whatever the poundage) hung in a back room, along with his wing chun dummy (which us beginners never touched). It was starstruck training for me. I became quickly, deeply dedicated. Some of my crusade friends asked me 'is this affecting your Christianity?' No. It was helping my mental health. Estella, my ex, was noticeably bothered; she thought it was making me 'more angry.' Jeez. Actually, it was giving me a channel for the anger I had denied all my life. As I said, I was only there a short while, less than a year, going to classes in the afternoons taught by Inosanto, sometimes Vunak and Grody and those guys. At night I began attending a more advanced class taught by Rich Bustillo until he kicked me out (nicely) for being in over my head and slowing other people down. I only stopped going (have I said I loved every minute of it) when Estella announced she was leaving on summer project the next year, and my anxiety got so bad I dropped out of everything, school, my job as a truck driver delivering fabric, and the Academy. She never liked my going, and I knew it, but it was too damned bad I left.
A decade later, as I was leaving Robert and divorcing Estella, I decided I'd like to train again, in my old group if possible. Surpisingly, I found a little studio about two miles from my house that had all the right logos in the yellow pages ad. The sifu there started about the same time at the IMB as I did, but he had kept going and now had his own school! There were about twenty students total; we trained on a concrete floor in a sketchy part of Long Beach. Again, I knew I had found something. It was much more social than my long conversations with the stairmasters at the gym. Eventually, the sifu Daniel moved to Costa Mesa and got a bigger and better school, though it didn't really grow until around the time I left. For a long time, there were thirty of us or less! I was there three years, training hard hours every week, but on the books one more year before I moved north. I quit going that last year because I felt exasperated with my martial arts training, what do I do with this now?; also, I got very busy at work. But Daniel (whose last name I withhold here) was a true brother to me and always will be. My love to him. When my depression was turning bloody bad he'd take me home after class, give me clothes to wear because all I had was my work out stuff (including underwear and shoes sometimes) and take me out for a beer or food or dancing...anything to get my head out of what I was going through. We must have eaten together two hundred times. I'm deeply loyal and wish I saw him more. Sometimes Inosanto would come down and do a class, or Paulson, or one of the other senior students from Inosanto's school in Marina Del Rey. For three years, Daniel's school was my social circle; the martial arts my prime hobby. Now he's big time; big school, lots of students, lots of bucks, good for him. He got what he wanted, 'one succesful school,' and I got what I wanted: 'tenure and a house in the woods!'
I was hired at my current college; I moved north, got married, bought a house in a small town in the snow country of the sierra nevada. I sit here at my laptop and type in that same beautiful setting. My wife had a little martial arts background also and she found a school right, surprisingly, here in our little town. I went one hot August day four years ago to a cardio kickboxing class. This was my first cardio kickboxing class, and let me say they should be called cardio kick your butt class because the workout was very tough. The sensei there, Dave, saw my form on the heavy bag, saw I knew how to kickbox (somewhat), and immediately took me in as a student and friend. I didn't want to do traditional karate for a long time, so I'd go to the cardio classes, work on my form, spar with Dave and his senior students (there were only about four and two were teenage girls). It was a fun and family-oriented place; another social circle for Steph and I both. Eventually I began doing the traditional karate classes, got a couple belts. Even entered a few tournaments! It was point sparring, yes, but my first fight was when I was a white belt and I went against a brown belt and smoked him. He didn't know, of course, that I had past experience, but that was just the way it went. I even attended a large tournament near San Francisco. I never took first, but I often competed against brown and black belts. It was good fun.
The dark side was that Dave and I, and others, partied. I did the sparring portion of my blue belt test pretty drunk, actually. It was my idea: hey, let's see how alcohol affects my sparring skills. It diminishes them considerably, let me say. Dave could be a bit rough, also; I had a few black eyes there. And he and I were sparring every Friday for a while. Or actually, he was killing me. I don't know if I learned a ton there, but I was working out and having fun. Steph and I were there about 2.5 years I guess, before Dave got into much deeper trouble than alcohol (well, he did get a couple DUI's before his deeper trouble) fled the state and ended up in jail. I hear he's out, and hope he's well.
I knew about the larger school down the hill, the one we just joined, but never went because Dave had trained there from white belt to black (even now, he and the sensei have the same gestures, expressions) and Dave had left on bad terms. It took me two years, no training at all except weights really, before Steph talked me into going in and meeting the guy.
Enter Jesus-karate.
The most amazing thing about this school is its curriculum is quite good, especially considering where it is. He has a very good grappling coach (more on that class in a moment) a good boxing coach, and the sensei himself is committed to martial arts in all forms. True, he teaches traditional karate, but his school serves many other needs. Needs of guys like me: I'll always be on the jkd path. They incorporate thai boxing (not like Daniel, of course, whose form was near-perfect and who had learned under one of the top thai men in the usa) and the whole mixed martial arts thing. Steph and I signed up where we can take as many different classes as we want for three months to see what we like.
I am trying grappling.
Daniel, my old sifu, to be fair, is a very good grappler now and has had Brazilians in his school since about the time I left. But when I was there we didn't really grapple. A few techniques were tossed out; there wasn't much actual mat time. My new school...oh man, that's where this post began in my head for me somewhere a few thousand words back. Two nights a week I grapple with guys all younger than me, all. Most in their early twenties. Most high school wrestlers. Many with grappling experience. The class is taught by sensei or a thirty something woman who grappled (not wrestled) in college and whose legs are as strong and hard as oak limbs.
As a younger guy I always stood out a bit in my martial arts school. At Inosanto's I did (as a rank newbie), and then later I did because I had already had some training. But here, now, turning 42 in September...the Humility of the Body. Especially with grappling. I can't imagine a sport more grueling, unless it's the Mojave Desert Summer Ultra-marathon Plus Weights. I keep ending up with this 230 pound monster, a guy waiting to enter the sheriff's academy (if he passes background) who is helpful and nice during class but fierce during our matches (every class ends with each student in one or two matches). So far, after five classes, I'm just glad I have no injuries! I'm grateful every time I don't tweak something! It's amazing conditioning, sure, and I actually find it fun (below the pain, fear, and near-dread I feel before each match) but there is no doubt that it's not about looking great anymore, or winning. It's about surviving the class. Getting to the end. Without puking. Leaving knowing I've grown as a person, exercised my entire body as hard as I can (literally) and learned a little martial arts in the process, even if everyone knows I'm a novice.
***
This is a strange biography, a martial arts bio. Told in sparse prose no less. But for those of us who have the bug, just like any other thing (baseball, auto racing, running, whatever) it simply is the thing. For someone with wounds from the past, it's a great way to release energy, anger and hurt, and now I feel like I have a constructive, safe place to do this; certainly safer than Dave's school, as much as I know he cared for me. A place where I will also learn new technology. Sure I grow older every year, but it feels awfully good to be doing something so young. I treasure it now more than I did at twenty-something (or thirty-something). I don't take it for granted. May God help me enjoy it as long as I can, when I can, hopefully for many years to come.
As they say at the end of each class...'honor, hope, truth, temple.'
***
(Afterword)
Why have I started with the toughest class, the one where I have the least background, the most physically demanding? You know, that is a good question. I guess, because, as always, I absolutely love the challenge of learning. I'll never be the best; I'll never compete (unless they have an old guys league...even then) but I put my heart into it, try to learn humbly, and am friendly with everyone. No attitudes. It's hard to hold an attitude, no matter who you are, after ten minutes of sucking wind on the mats. Plus the Jesus-love lecture and the Michael W. Smith music at the end.
I find this new sport, this new branch of martial arts (and the place traditional jkd was always weakest...long remedied as many, including Inosanto, now have black belts in jiu-jitsu) pretty darn edgy. Fun, tactile, the good kind of draining. I hope to try the boxing class also, even do some traditional karate (nothing like shouting your way through a good kata) but no matter what, I've found a new martial arts home. My eyes actually mist. Steph and I are considering moving down the hill (we'd be in beautiful oak woodland, foothill country) to be closer to the new gym (and Mikey's new high school, and my job, and civilization). I kinda hope we do. Cedars are great, but they are no substitute for human company.
As I wrote earlier, Steph and I joined a martial arts school about 25 minutes down the hill. The sensei became a Christian three years ago, converted from drinking brawler to Jesus-lover (based on his account and others), and his sincerity does impress:
Students getting ready before class, stretching on the mats...
Sensei: Hey Troy
Troy: Hi Sensei
Sensei: How was your week?
Troy: Oh, good
Sensei: How were services Sunday?
Troy: Oh, yeah, good, we went
Sensei: What was the message on?
Like that. Of course, I never remember what the message was on, or rarely, but he's only asked me once so far. He did approach me a couple weeks ago and ask me a very sincere question I wished I had answered differently:
Sitting on chairs before class begins
Sensei: So, what's the Lord working on in your life right now?
Troy: Uh, well, I don't know. I think the nature of the Bible.
Sensei: What do you mean?
Troy: You know, I see the a mix of the divine and the human when I read it; I'm not sure how those things interact.
Sensei: Do you know I Timothy 3:16?
Troy: Yeah, I know that book
Sensei: What about fulfilled prophecies?
Troy: Well, some were, some weren't, for example, the northern tribes never did return....
Like that. I regret that last conversation because what he was asking me, in simple and transparent terms for a man who doesn't know me and who teaches martial arts for a living, was really very personal. I responded with a theological puzzle; I thought I was being equally sincere. The fact is sensei knows more than I do. My real answer (which I have yet to give him): I want to be a better husband and father.
I'll tell you, it's something, after a karate class, sparring with some guy, to stand there catching my breath listening to praise songs while the sensei talks about right thinking, about peaceful living, about loving action...truthfully, I feel I've hit a jackpot. My other martial arts teachers were all very human, very secular, even when I loved them and they loved me.
***
And now for the humility part. This is mostly inblog. I begin with a sparsely told martial arts resume.
This is the forth time in my life I've attended a martial arts school.
The first was when I was twenty (ah, twenty, limber-muscle-speed-breath). This was the IMB Academy when Dan Inosanto taught there in the afternoons. Bruce Lee had been dead just over ten years. We used to bow to an original oil painting of him. His famous 300 pound bag (or whatever the poundage) hung in a back room, along with his wing chun dummy (which us beginners never touched). It was starstruck training for me. I became quickly, deeply dedicated. Some of my crusade friends asked me 'is this affecting your Christianity?' No. It was helping my mental health. Estella, my ex, was noticeably bothered; she thought it was making me 'more angry.' Jeez. Actually, it was giving me a channel for the anger I had denied all my life. As I said, I was only there a short while, less than a year, going to classes in the afternoons taught by Inosanto, sometimes Vunak and Grody and those guys. At night I began attending a more advanced class taught by Rich Bustillo until he kicked me out (nicely) for being in over my head and slowing other people down. I only stopped going (have I said I loved every minute of it) when Estella announced she was leaving on summer project the next year, and my anxiety got so bad I dropped out of everything, school, my job as a truck driver delivering fabric, and the Academy. She never liked my going, and I knew it, but it was too damned bad I left.
A decade later, as I was leaving Robert and divorcing Estella, I decided I'd like to train again, in my old group if possible. Surpisingly, I found a little studio about two miles from my house that had all the right logos in the yellow pages ad. The sifu there started about the same time at the IMB as I did, but he had kept going and now had his own school! There were about twenty students total; we trained on a concrete floor in a sketchy part of Long Beach. Again, I knew I had found something. It was much more social than my long conversations with the stairmasters at the gym. Eventually, the sifu Daniel moved to Costa Mesa and got a bigger and better school, though it didn't really grow until around the time I left. For a long time, there were thirty of us or less! I was there three years, training hard hours every week, but on the books one more year before I moved north. I quit going that last year because I felt exasperated with my martial arts training, what do I do with this now?; also, I got very busy at work. But Daniel (whose last name I withhold here) was a true brother to me and always will be. My love to him. When my depression was turning bloody bad he'd take me home after class, give me clothes to wear because all I had was my work out stuff (including underwear and shoes sometimes) and take me out for a beer or food or dancing...anything to get my head out of what I was going through. We must have eaten together two hundred times. I'm deeply loyal and wish I saw him more. Sometimes Inosanto would come down and do a class, or Paulson, or one of the other senior students from Inosanto's school in Marina Del Rey. For three years, Daniel's school was my social circle; the martial arts my prime hobby. Now he's big time; big school, lots of students, lots of bucks, good for him. He got what he wanted, 'one succesful school,' and I got what I wanted: 'tenure and a house in the woods!'
I was hired at my current college; I moved north, got married, bought a house in a small town in the snow country of the sierra nevada. I sit here at my laptop and type in that same beautiful setting. My wife had a little martial arts background also and she found a school right, surprisingly, here in our little town. I went one hot August day four years ago to a cardio kickboxing class. This was my first cardio kickboxing class, and let me say they should be called cardio kick your butt class because the workout was very tough. The sensei there, Dave, saw my form on the heavy bag, saw I knew how to kickbox (somewhat), and immediately took me in as a student and friend. I didn't want to do traditional karate for a long time, so I'd go to the cardio classes, work on my form, spar with Dave and his senior students (there were only about four and two were teenage girls). It was a fun and family-oriented place; another social circle for Steph and I both. Eventually I began doing the traditional karate classes, got a couple belts. Even entered a few tournaments! It was point sparring, yes, but my first fight was when I was a white belt and I went against a brown belt and smoked him. He didn't know, of course, that I had past experience, but that was just the way it went. I even attended a large tournament near San Francisco. I never took first, but I often competed against brown and black belts. It was good fun.
The dark side was that Dave and I, and others, partied. I did the sparring portion of my blue belt test pretty drunk, actually. It was my idea: hey, let's see how alcohol affects my sparring skills. It diminishes them considerably, let me say. Dave could be a bit rough, also; I had a few black eyes there. And he and I were sparring every Friday for a while. Or actually, he was killing me. I don't know if I learned a ton there, but I was working out and having fun. Steph and I were there about 2.5 years I guess, before Dave got into much deeper trouble than alcohol (well, he did get a couple DUI's before his deeper trouble) fled the state and ended up in jail. I hear he's out, and hope he's well.
I knew about the larger school down the hill, the one we just joined, but never went because Dave had trained there from white belt to black (even now, he and the sensei have the same gestures, expressions) and Dave had left on bad terms. It took me two years, no training at all except weights really, before Steph talked me into going in and meeting the guy.
Enter Jesus-karate.
The most amazing thing about this school is its curriculum is quite good, especially considering where it is. He has a very good grappling coach (more on that class in a moment) a good boxing coach, and the sensei himself is committed to martial arts in all forms. True, he teaches traditional karate, but his school serves many other needs. Needs of guys like me: I'll always be on the jkd path. They incorporate thai boxing (not like Daniel, of course, whose form was near-perfect and who had learned under one of the top thai men in the usa) and the whole mixed martial arts thing. Steph and I signed up where we can take as many different classes as we want for three months to see what we like.
I am trying grappling.
Daniel, my old sifu, to be fair, is a very good grappler now and has had Brazilians in his school since about the time I left. But when I was there we didn't really grapple. A few techniques were tossed out; there wasn't much actual mat time. My new school...oh man, that's where this post began in my head for me somewhere a few thousand words back. Two nights a week I grapple with guys all younger than me, all. Most in their early twenties. Most high school wrestlers. Many with grappling experience. The class is taught by sensei or a thirty something woman who grappled (not wrestled) in college and whose legs are as strong and hard as oak limbs.
As a younger guy I always stood out a bit in my martial arts school. At Inosanto's I did (as a rank newbie), and then later I did because I had already had some training. But here, now, turning 42 in September...the Humility of the Body. Especially with grappling. I can't imagine a sport more grueling, unless it's the Mojave Desert Summer Ultra-marathon Plus Weights. I keep ending up with this 230 pound monster, a guy waiting to enter the sheriff's academy (if he passes background) who is helpful and nice during class but fierce during our matches (every class ends with each student in one or two matches). So far, after five classes, I'm just glad I have no injuries! I'm grateful every time I don't tweak something! It's amazing conditioning, sure, and I actually find it fun (below the pain, fear, and near-dread I feel before each match) but there is no doubt that it's not about looking great anymore, or winning. It's about surviving the class. Getting to the end. Without puking. Leaving knowing I've grown as a person, exercised my entire body as hard as I can (literally) and learned a little martial arts in the process, even if everyone knows I'm a novice.
***
This is a strange biography, a martial arts bio. Told in sparse prose no less. But for those of us who have the bug, just like any other thing (baseball, auto racing, running, whatever) it simply is the thing. For someone with wounds from the past, it's a great way to release energy, anger and hurt, and now I feel like I have a constructive, safe place to do this; certainly safer than Dave's school, as much as I know he cared for me. A place where I will also learn new technology. Sure I grow older every year, but it feels awfully good to be doing something so young. I treasure it now more than I did at twenty-something (or thirty-something). I don't take it for granted. May God help me enjoy it as long as I can, when I can, hopefully for many years to come.
As they say at the end of each class...'honor, hope, truth, temple.'
***
(Afterword)
Why have I started with the toughest class, the one where I have the least background, the most physically demanding? You know, that is a good question. I guess, because, as always, I absolutely love the challenge of learning. I'll never be the best; I'll never compete (unless they have an old guys league...even then) but I put my heart into it, try to learn humbly, and am friendly with everyone. No attitudes. It's hard to hold an attitude, no matter who you are, after ten minutes of sucking wind on the mats. Plus the Jesus-love lecture and the Michael W. Smith music at the end.
I find this new sport, this new branch of martial arts (and the place traditional jkd was always weakest...long remedied as many, including Inosanto, now have black belts in jiu-jitsu) pretty darn edgy. Fun, tactile, the good kind of draining. I hope to try the boxing class also, even do some traditional karate (nothing like shouting your way through a good kata) but no matter what, I've found a new martial arts home. My eyes actually mist. Steph and I are considering moving down the hill (we'd be in beautiful oak woodland, foothill country) to be closer to the new gym (and Mikey's new high school, and my job, and civilization). I kinda hope we do. Cedars are great, but they are no substitute for human company.
Comments
Of course, I wouldn't spar with him if he was allowed to kick. His kicks were lethal. When he was allowed to kick he beat the black belts as easily as I beat him in grappling.
I still haven't decided whether or not I will try martial arts again. On the one hand, while I was doing it I loved it. I went to class as often as I was allowed to go without paying extra (membership dues got you three class per week, plus a private training session; extra classes cost extra money). It was also good for me, giving me an outlet for my anger. While I was going through the candidacy studies program for ordination in the United Methodist Church my District Commitee on Ministry observed that maybe all candidates should do some martial arts, just to help them process the stress.
On the other hand, as I've mentioned here before, I wasn't comfortable with the level of violence. Our classes didn't mess around. While great strides were made to keep students from injuring each other, the techniques we were taught could cripple or kill anyone stupid enough to attack us outside of class. I for one wasn't comfortable knowing so many ways to critically injure someone. While I've never been in a real fight (just horsing around with family and friends), I wouldn't trust myself to hold back if attacked. For me, morally speaking, it might be best not to think about how I could cripple or kill a would-be-attacker with my bare hands.
Anyway, lately I've been playing tennis, which for me is even better exercise than I got from martial arts. Simply put, when I'm done playing a match, I'm beat. Absolutely whipped. But, when I'm done playing a match I haven't meditated on ways to injure someone. My thoughts center around how to set up a point - on court strategy - not how to snap a limb. I like thinking about tennis a great deal more than I did thinking about how to take out someone's knee.
But, reading your post, I missed going to class. I missed the social and spiritual element, and I missed the physical. I missed training my body to move in ways that I never thought it could move.
We'll see how it goes, but for the time being I like tennis.
as always, your comments are appreciated.
As I read the first couple paragraphs of your post I remember, even when Gracie jiu-jitsu was the howling new rage, my sifu saying, 'I'm convinved you have to be trained in every range, kicking, punching, standing, on the ground...' Of course, that was Bruce's contribution to formal (as in for a fee) American martial arts systems. For the record, my sifu told me the last time I had lunch with him, before I moved north: 'learn Brazilian jiu-jitsu, Troy.')
And look at the mixed martial arts revolution now! They should call it all jeet kune do and get on with it. Well, maybe not. But it does remind me of NT studies: Bruce has been dead about exactly as long as the time between the crucifixion and when most scholars date Mark. We can argue about what Bruce meant or did not mean, but look at what his followers are actually doing, including the millions who don't even know they owe the current mixed-martial arts curriculum (muay thai, western boxing, savate, judo, now grappling) in part to Bruce and Dan.
On the 'violence inherent in the system' (I think that's from Monty Python) there is always that part of me that thinks...I've never been in a real fight, I hope to heck I never am, but as I'm told Juan La Costa (sp?) used to say (he was one of Inosanto's key sources for Filipino material): 'you train your whole life for ten seconds.' Sure I hope to never have to hit anybody, but if that dark day comes and I can't talk my way out of a dangerous situation...I may have no chance whatsover (people who want to hurt others like the odds clearly in their favor, numbers, a weapons, surprise, etc.); I hope martial arts training gives me some chance.
But then La Costa met a violent end, perhaps in response to lethal violence on his part. Noting this is an ad homimen, of course, and the quote still stands.
Learning martial arts and keeping a peacful mind is a strange balance: everyone at this school is so friendly and helpful, but serious also; most of the guys in grappling class also kickbox and, for various insane youthful reasons, want to 'cage-fight'. It is possible to train and compete hard, even very hard, and end with a peaceful or at least companionable mind; the way boxers can beat the bloody snot out of each other and then hug, sincerely, after three rounds. But I do hear what you're saying. Martial arts, like learning any sport, takes brain time away from the gym floor.
I can say I've actually never been taught lethal or crippling techniques. Maybe one head throw in silat which looked wicked and which I don't recall, but while locks and submissions can result in breaks, I guess they don't have to. In a true self-defense situation, some probably would. I think jiu-jitsu might mean 'gentle way,' but I could be wrong. It was considered better at one time to lock or break an arm that chop somebody's arm, or head, off.
I believe Inosanto, who was the source for my sifu's curriculum, tried to teach less destructive techniques (though of course the blade was part of the curriculum). While Bruce loved to poke the eyes, kick the groin or knees, head butt (stuff you can't do in UFC, btw) nobody ever showed me how to pull an eye out (it sounds tough to accomplish, but then I don't know) or kill someone with my bare hands. I've never seen those techniques. If there are places to hit a person and kill him, I don't know them.
All the better, probably.
I do hear what you say about finishing tennis and not feeling the aggressive thinking which comes after martial arts. I've been having a hard time falling asleep, amazingly, after the class. I lay there and feel so charged up just thinking about the match I was in, the techniques we learned...
I only tried tennis once, and when someone told me I had to hit the serve into that little square I thought...forget this. I should try again someday.
Peace, in the Prince of Peace,
t