Lessons from My Masters 33: Observations - The Grandmaster Chronicles Part V

“Without Knowledge, Skill cannot be focused. Without Skill, Strength cannot be brought to bear and without Strength, Knowledge may not be applied.”

• Alexander the Great

Umm… more coffee…

It is the single most practiced exercise within Guided Chaos, the movement, the contact, the feel. The ability to be able to move with another human being and to sense not only where they are in relation to your body within time and space but to also feel where they are going and where you want to be all at the same time. It is the essence of how we as human experience “time” and at times that dimensional feel where we seem to be able to almost fold space and time within our movement to move in a way that alters the perceptions of another person for the brief moment in a fight between “this” and “that” enter their space and utterly crush them.

“Just a little clarification on Contact Flow, I created contact flow as a bridge between what we as humans do which is look for and create patterns in our dealings with movement of any sort to moving in unreadable ways in order to react to what is or may happen in split seconds of time.  By developing yourself within the parameters of moving with the four basic principles along with working with a partner or partners of all different physical and mental presentations along with unlimited imagined or actual movements a practitioner of GC will eventually develop the ability to eclipse the measurable neuro-physical boundaries and not only adapt to but predict movement as it occurs in time...”

                      - Grandmaster John C. Perkins

Folks… it doesn’t get any better than that…

In this Blog Post, I’m going to begin the process of peeling back the onion on arguably the greatest training modality ever created and I’m not too humble to toot my Master's horn on this. This is sheer brilliance at its finest. It is literally the single greatest training tool we have at our disposal that allows us to develop an almost unlimited range of movements and possibilities within the bodies we have.

I’ve studied and observed a lot of fighting arts throughout my lifetime and I have yet to find a fighting system that can honestly say it can train virtually anyone to fight at a high level within the body they already have regardless of physical condition, age, sex, etc. it doesn’t matter. Proper Contact Flow is the Holy Grail to developing almost superhero-like or as students here me call them our “Sith Like Powers”. I’m all about it.

Now as I talk out of the other side of my mouth so to speak, while it is the most widely practiced exercise within Guided Chaos and offers a wide range of possibilities even beyond the martial arts it also has of any exercise we do the most potential if done incorrectly or taught incorrectly, to sabotage one’s training. This is because we are actually delving into ways of how the human body actually moves and develops movement. So you can actually mess a person’s body up in ways where, as I’ve seen, if not corrected can mess them up beyond repair.

Understand that Contact Flow is sort of the “sacred cow” of Guided Chaos and for every practitioner, there is a different interpretation in what it is and how they perceive it. Part of this is because we are all different so to some degree we all experience certain aspects of it differently. I get it.

My only issue with Contact Flow is obviously not with the exercise but with how it is presented and framed when taught (I’ll touch on some of that later). Here’s the deal, Instructors need to ensure they always present it on a fundamental level with an emphasis on fighting for your life consistent with the principles and framed in the right context. Folks, I’m not going to get much into the “teaching aspects” per se but trust me when I tell you, “that” in and of itself could be the subject of a book spanning hundreds of pages.

What I’m going to offer in this post are my insights and impressions on some things based on my own “observations” and “experiences” once again these are my observations and experiences and mine alone, so if you disagree with me then so be it. I really don’t care… that is your choice.

Once again, of all of the exercises within the art of Guided Chaos, Contact Flow probably the greatest training exercise we have. In my view, the Contact Flow exercise is probably the single most important exercise that we do because it allows for a total fusing of the principles in one place and when done right offers unlimited opportunity for growth and the development of virtually any skill you wish to develop within the art.

Through proper training, we are able to develop the attributes of total freedom of action and creativity.  Now, the other one based off of Contact flow is Combat Flow and are two of the most critical exercises toward developing your skills to the deepest levels.  Both are very similar in terms of movement but slightly differ in practice in that one is totally dedicated toward developing free-flowing spontaneous movement while the other is more combative in nature in terms of striking as well as other tools we insert into the movement at various speeds and levels of striking intensity.

What is Contact Flow?

“Each time you touch someone there is information going back and forth between you and that person--sort of a subconscious communication. When you train you must work on becoming so sensitive that even in shades of gray you can distinguish between the specks of black and white. You must learn to ‘feel everything’ with every part of your body and not just your hands and understand what it means. This, in turn, will drive your actions and your Body Unity…”

                      - Grandmaster John C. Perkins

As I said, Contact Flow is the single greatest exercise we do because it allows us to be able as John has said to “bridge the gap”. One mistake and I’ll just point this out that folks make including Instructors are not taking into consideration what John says in the quote above. This information going back and forth between you and another person influences how you both move. In other words, we’re always playing off of each other’s movement and even position within time and space. The point is anyone who is at the Instructor level needs to be aware of this if they are to properly train people in order to help them develop their bodies in an appropriate manner. If not they either need to be taught how to listen more to the student’s body, learn how to do it, or get off the dance floor altogether. It’s just too important to mess up. But it’s much more than just physical contact that is developed because there is a mental aspect to it that in my opinion is equally important toward developing the level of skill you desire.

What Contact Flow is Not!

Because it needs to be said…

Contact Flow is not “magic” but because people frame it that way it hurts a person’s ability to properly train it and develop the skills they need. This is one of those things that I just don’t think some folks get. The notion that you can just move for the sake of moving and think that you’re going to develop some real skill from it through osmosis or as if it’s going to come to you out of "the ether" of the universe in my view is utter and complete nonsense. Again the better you are at applying the principles when doing Contact Flow, the more efficient and proficient you become at it. 

“Presumably, as a Martial artist, I do not fight for gain or loss, am not concerned with strength or weakness, and neither advance a step nor retreat a step. The enemy does not see me. I do not see the enemy. Penetrating to a place where heaven and earth have not yet divided, where yin and yang have not yet arrived, I quickly and necessarily gain effect.”

• Takuan Soho

Those who understand the subtle differences and how to use their physical attributes within their own bodies [Body Unity] will have an advantage over a more physically developed adversary. Contact Flow in my view is the “perfect” training modality if done right since it allows us to do the one thing that counts most in a real fight where we have to lay hands with another person and that is. To deal with their motion in a way where we negate the effects of their movement through our movement and crush them if possible in one fell swoop. It is the thing that is the most sought after quality in the martial arts and that is the ability to arrive at the point of attack first and take the other guy out before he has a chance to get his stuff off. Yet for various reasons when practicing it there are those who continue to screw it up and themselves.

Why Proper Contact Flow Critical

“Courage is knowing what not to fear.”

                ― Plato

One of the things I’m always asked is because I guess it can’t be helped is, “What would a do with a guy like this or a guy like that?

Usually, the question is framed around a person with either well above average athleticism or they’re some outlier in terms of physical size, etc. This question alone may be the single most important reason why proper Contact Flow is critical to your skill development.  I understand the question and I could spend an entire Blog Post explaining all of the psychology behind it so I’ll offer you this as I frequently tell students when they ask me this because it relates directly to our discussion. I usually tell them,

“It doesn’t matter, they better kill me if they don’t they’re probably not going to make it. I don’t worry so much about the bad guys as far as I’m concerned in my mind they had better worry about me and what I’m going to do to them.”

As Sun Tzu once stated with the Five Essentials to Victory,

“Thus we may know that there are five essentials for victory:

1 He will win who knows when to fight and when not to fight.

2 He will win who knows how to handle both superior and inferior forces.

3 He will win whose army is animated by the same spirit throughout all its ranks.

4 He will win who, prepared himself, waits to take the enemy unprepared.

5 He will win who has military capacity and is not interfered with by the sovereign.”

           ― Sun Tzu, The Art of War

Usually, the conversation then veers to some unrealistic scenario about “prison trained monsters” and other nonsense or some guy who looks like he could play defensive line for the NY Giants. This is just fear talking pure and simple. Part of the reason I bring this up, I recently had this conversation with a student so I told him,

“Listen and I want to ask you, do you really think some guy who’s well over 6’0” ft. tall and over 300-lbs looking like some character from some post-apocalyptic sci-fi flick, can enter into my space and I’m not aware of their presence? Do you think if I saw a guy like that walking down the street that I would not be even remotely aware of their presence? What the Hell kind of Master would I be if I weren’t even a little curious? The truth is I don’t care who you are, old lady, little kid or a kitty cat, if I think you’re a threat to me you had better be on your game otherwise this does not end well… for you! If my awareness is that poor as far as I’m concerned I deserve to get killed for being stupid! You see, you’ve got it all wrong and this is one of the problems some folks around here have.”

I continued,

“One thing I learned from John and Tim is this idea that anyone can kill anyone and if you can be touched you can be killed. This is why John is always talking about being unavailable. If you can’t get purchase on his body you have nothing but if he can get purchase on yours? You’re not coming back from it. Too many folks have the wrong attitude about this stuff. They literally look at it as if Contact Flow as an exercise instead of it being a developmental tool is the real fight. Trust me when I tell you there are some folks who think that if they can push you around in Contact Flow they can beat you in a real fight to the death. Me personally? I have bad news for them. If it was real as far as I’m concerned it already happened to you. On the bright side though the good news is you won’t even see it coming even if you’re looking me right in the face because that’s how I train.”

So he’s like, “What do you mean?”

So I said,

“Here’s the deal, everything that I do, everything I teach is designed to take the bad guys out. If I have to go there and I have you on my radar as far as I’m concerned it already happened. It was already over for you. There is no fight I’m going to put you down and put you down hard and fast. My mind is clear on this issue and if your mind ain’t there then you need to it get there!”

You know folks, I’m glad I had this conversation with this student because it dovetails nicely with this Blog Post when discussing Contact Flow. It is pure genius as to what John has created and in my opinion, it is the greatest training modality for fighting ever created because it can take a person regardless of physical ability and train them to fight in the body they have because it is not predicated on the size or physical ability.

“Thus it is that in war the victorious strategist only seeks battle after the victory has been won, whereas he who is destined to defeat first fights and afterwards looks for victory.”

• Sun Tzu, The Art of War

It should be obvious for folks but apparently, it’s not. Like I said, one of the problems and I want to address it before I continue is that for some folks instead of viewing Contact Flow as an exercise to train you in the body and mind for a real life and death fight.

“Without training, they lacked knowledge. Without knowledge, they lacked confidence. Without confidence, they lacked victory.”

• Julius Caesar

They in their warped sense of reality view it as a “real fight” and not training. As Caesar states in the quote above, “…they lacked knowledge. Without knowledge, they lacked confidence. Without confidence, they lacked victory.” As a result, they deceive their own souls.

This is not “Fight Club” as we jokingly refer to those who think this way, this is training for your life. Truth be told it is this fight club mentality that looks at what they do as some sort of a duel which is why many of those who think this way haven’t advanced in skill “in years” and in some cases “decades”. When I tell students that there are folks who have been doing this art almost as long as I have and yet struggle to move properly with folks who’ve only trained in this art maybe five years at most, they can’t believe it, but then I tell them,

“As Thucydides’ stated all men are basically the same, it’s not how long you do something but what you actually do and how you train with the time you have. Do you train the right way? Or are you just moving for the sake of moving? Do you understand what you’re doing or are you just mimicking movement? Is your mind when you train in the right place or is this just a game? Do you have the Ruthless Intent; do you mean it when you strike?”

Folks, stay with me here,

It is “unconscionable” to me that you have people who have direct access to the Masters and the Grandmaster yet do not seek out the knowledge.

It is “unconscionable” to me that you have people who have access to our training materials and are still confused as to how they should be training when doing Contact Flow.

It is “unconscionable” to me that you have people who have been training for decades and are still doing things that normally I only have to I correct with beginners.

It is “unconscionable” to me that you have people doing things with students that can only serve to close their minds off from the level of freedom that is available to them. This to me is the “gravest sin” because they inadvertently are training folks in the body that may make them vulnerable in a real life and death situation because their body has been trained to respond in a faulty manner.

“The end and object of conquest is to avoid doing the same thing as the conquered.”

• Alexander the Great

There’s an expression we’ve all heard, “once taught twice learned”, well guess what? This cuts both ways…once taught wrong twice reinforced “in you” the wrong way… (There’s more I could say on this specific point but I’ll leave it at that).

I hear in their language all of the time when they present Contact Flow to people and then I have to walk over and correct them especially when they say things like,

“Well to me this is what it is… well, the way I see it… well, like to do it like this… now you always want to be in this position…”

I could go on… You have got to be kidding me, it is just unreal.

Here’s the deal, fuck what you think! No really, fuck your feelings and get over yourself. There are only the principles of the art and how humans move within time and space and that’s it. It’s not my thing or anyone else’s thing and that’s the way it is because that’s how the universe works.

Goes to show that you really can’t make a horse drink once he’s at the water…

My point is folks need to strive to, “…avoid doing the same thing as the conquered” so to speak.

While obviously a sport while boxers spar in practice or wrestlers grapple in practice or kickboxers spar they all know it is not the real thing but an “approximation” of it but without practice, you can’t develop the skills necessary to compete. Never in all the years when I did karate did I ever think our sparing sessions were anything but training. Sure we hit each other but we knew it wasn’t a real fight but a training session designed to teach us how to hit and move should we happen to get into one. The same is true in the military obviously when we train we don’t shoot at each other because well… people will get killed so we train to the edge but not beyond it.

However, for those who’ve actually boxed, spared, wrestled or been in combat it is not uncommon to feel that your training at times was much more difficult than the real thing. Well? No shit! That’s the whole point of training. Is it perfect? No, but if you don’t realistically train to it on some level you have no chance. Contact Flow is all about developing your body in ways to give you that chance and that’s it. That’s why it is so important to train with the proper mental focus and have your mind in the right place.

“Be extremely subtle even to the point of formlessness. Be extremely mysterious even to the point of soundlessness. Thereby you can be the director of the opponent's fate.”

            ― Sun Tzu, The Art of War

This concept of unavailable/unavoidable is, in my opinion, one of the most brilliant concepts to fighting in probably the last 500 years. If you really want to understand this from a purely logical and physical standpoint it is the essence of what you want to achieve in the body. There’s more than I could say but I’m going to leave that for another Blog Post.

Now don’t get me wrong it’s not like I go around looking for trouble. In fact, I train my myself in such a way not to necessarily avoid trouble but to fight only when I have to while at the same time I’m not going to be stupid by being in places where there’s no legitimate reason for me to be there. My point is if the battle comes to me it’s because there was no choice, either someone got stupid with me and my family or I’m protecting someone else from someone who got stupid with them. It really is that clear in my mind.  

Trust me if I have anything to say about it and I do, I’m going to move in a way where, you may think the way you moved was your idea, but it wasn’t. It was the way I influenced you to move but this is only available to you if you train in the Contact Flow exercise within the proper context and understanding otherwise you’re just doing some glorified form of sumo wrestling which is fine if you’re a 450-lbs sumo wrestler, if not? Then you need to figure something else out.

Where my mind is if someone enters my space regardless of size, once they’re already on my radar it’s already over for them. I’ve already developed it in the body so in the same way, I can make a thousand adjustments a second in my body through Contact Flow I can make the same calculations through my awareness in microseconds, which is kind of the point to the training. I’m sorry but this mindset of “what if you have to deal with this guy or that guy” is not only stupid but childish at the least. The first set of questions as I’ve said in other posts that should be asked are,

First of all, how does one even find themselves in that situation in the first place?

How does that even happen?

Where is your awareness?

I’m not discounting that anything can happen I’m just calling bullshit on a mindset that assumes you’re walking around totally oblivious to your environment and reality. This is just stupid talk.

“Treat your men as you would your own beloved sons. And they will follow you into the deepest valley.”

             ― Sun Tzu, The Art of War

At some point in your life, I don’t care who you are you have to find that place that space where you choose to stand in the world. And if you choose to stand on that bridge and fend off the hordes then so be it. If you’re a student of mine one way or another I’m going to get your mind there so that you understand this in the proper context. Otherwise, I have failed you.

You see to me, as an instructor I have a moral obligation to anyone I train to help them the best way I know how to develop the skills necessary to save their lives. To me, it is the only objective measure of what I do, and how I train people. Everything else is nonsense in comparison to that awesome responsibility. It’s not about what can do I know for the most part what I can do if my moment of truth arrives, trust me it’s really not a place you want to go, my Masters trained me “too well”. It’s more important that they know what they can do if they have to face a thousand spears. As an instructor “I own it” their failure is my failure so if my name is on their certificate either their sword prevails in battle or they die a warrior’s death with the bodies of their slain enemies beneath them and on them. And while they will be remembered in song and prayer there will be “no guilt” on my conscience, because I will find solace in knowing I trained them the best I know how and gave them the best chance to win in combat.

If you’re a martial arts instructor of any kind and you can’t understand this, you probably need to find something else to do.

If you’re a martial arts instructor of any kind and your mind is not there, you probably need to find something else to do.

No really, you need to go away because you’re just a curse amongst your students and a disgrace to the combative arts in general.

As I said, at some point in your life, I don’t care who you are you have to find that place that space where you choose to stand in the world. And if you choose to stand on that bridge and fend off the hordes then so be it. Then stand! Die a warriors death if you have to and accept your fate. If you are to develop the ability to "bring it" your mind needs to get to this place ASAP!

Like Returning to the Scene of the Crime

In my last post if you will recall I discussed things that I do such as “Stopping Time” etc. now while I describe these things all of the time to folks when I’m teaching them in the hopes of helping others learn them. Well, believe it or not, there are a number of people who think it is a bunch of BS.

It was interesting about a week ago from the writing I was doing a demonstration with the Grandmaster and I just had to laugh so I’m moving with John and he says, “Now watch what I’m going to do with Al here.”

He makes one move almost unperceivable especially to the eye and right there the fight was already over. I just laughed it was so precise there was no way I could even begin to think I was getting out of the way of that fast enough, but he said something that I don’t think many folks at the time picked up on. He said,

“When I want to do that I just do it. Before he even gets started it already happened, I already did it." He said, "Watch”.

And then… he did it again right in front of several people who were watching what he was doing and he said, “It’s a very subtle thing”. All I could do was laugh because right there I got stuck. He then he started to move with a few people and he said to one person,

“You can feel that right? It’s not magic it’s just the byproduct of 63 years of development and moving like this”.

Now, this is an important point that John makes because he says stuff like this all of the time and I honestly believe while some hear the words in their mind they really don’t take him at his word when he says these things. I tell folks all of the time when he’s doing stuff like this with me and demonstrating in front of folks he also trying to open people’s minds to what is possible. But his point that some of what he does is a result of over six decades of training and development is an important point as well.

So the next day one of my private students was asking me about what he saw the previous day and he said something like,

“That demonstration John did the other day was amazing, it was just crazy to watch you working with him and move with him. To see him do the same thing to you that you do to us. It just makes no sense, he had to be about ten feet away when he started doing that to you. How is he able to do that?”

I was like, “Simple, he isn’t the Grandmaster for nothing!”

He then says, “But how is he able to do that to you like you do it to us?”

So I explained,

“Because he’s the one who taught me how to do it. I mean I have different names for some of the things that he does, he just calls it faking people out or what you heard him say in class that day ‘Slight of Mind’. It’s all the same but as you saw one thing is certain and I've sure left no doubt in your mind because you felt it and saw it for yourself. The shit is for real!”

So he asked me, “Can other people do it?”

I asked, “You mean instructors?”

He said, “Yeah.”

I said as I shook my head side to side, “Not many. Most can’t.”

He asked, “Why?”

I stated to him very matter of fact,

“They don’t train it so they can’t do it. Here’s the deal a lot of folks in this art, too include some advanced folks and instructors, for various reasons, do not even believe these things even exist even though they see it performed on them all-of-the-time. Or they think it’s all ‘smoke and mirrors’, ‘tricks’ and so they put it in the category of just some bullshit that only works in class or what ‘I do’ whatever the fuck is going on in their head. Anything to deny the truth right before them. They can’t see it with their mind so their eyes miss it. It is the perfect example of the expression of not seeing the forest for the trees. This shit happens right in their faces all of the time, like really. I sometimes see John moving with them and I just laugh to myself and I say to myself, ‘they don’t even know’. You heard me quote Heraclitus the other day what did he say? ‘If we don’t expect the unexpected we never find it’. Like Dalton said in Road House, ‘always expect the unexpected’. They don’t think it exists so they don’t think it’s possible, they don’t expect the unexcited so they never find it and it always hits them in the face. Not my problem. As long as you continue to deny it exists and thinks it’s all bullshit the easier it is to hit you so I’ll just keep hitting you in the face, that works for me.”

So he asked,

“Why do they act like that when it’s obvious at least to me just from observing it that it’s real?”

So I said something like,

“Listen I’ll be very honest with you some people’s minds are not right or as right as I’d like them to be. Think of it like this if the Grandmaster does it and he’s doing this at times when he wants to just go at speed. Then it’s obvious it’s possible and if it’s not for real then why does he do it? That’s something I understood very early on when I use to train with Tim, the other Grandmaster. I’m not saying I can do it like them I don’t have to, to be able to make it work I just need to know it’s possible and that it can be done. I can figure out the rest for there. The other thing is there are some folks who do this art that have missed the point. Me personally, and this is just me, I train to kill the bad guys, fuck them! So anything that I can do that gives me my edge or throws their game off for even a second is valuable to me because I only need a microsecond to end it for you if you're close enough to me. You see I have a different attitude about this stuff, if I’m aware of you I don’t’ care who you are and I think you may have some hostile intent it’s already on as far as I’m concerned. I’m not so worried about the bad guys as they fucking better be worried about what I’ll do to them. If I move better than you and I mean it because I do. You, my friend, are going to have a problem and you have a microsecond to take me out because it’s going to be like that. Does that make sense?”

Oh… he got it. 

As I discussed in the last few posts where I discussed this adumbration or space between space or as John likes to call it being “malleable” in your movement. The malleability he has, to change within change, movement within a movement, is the byproduct of a lifetime of study and training to develop 63 years’ worth of neural pathways. The point is while we can develop these things if we’re willing to pay the price in terms of sweating through it we can achieve these things to varying degrees but within our own bodies.

My point is we’re not him because how he moves is personal to him and all of that influences his movement as well. It’s our job to develop this ability should we desire it as best we can within the body God gave us and nothing else. Only to those who don’t believe what I'm saying here are these things unattainable. They deny it even exists so they can’t see it with their minds so they can see it with their eyes even when it happens right in front of them. They’ve set up Contact Flow in the wrong context so they can’t improve because they’re not training to fight for their lives. They’re just playing a game…

Well, I’m going to end it right there I just wanted to begin the conversation on some of the things I’ve come to understand with regard to Contact Flow from my Masters. In my next installment, I’m going to delve a little deeper into the various way Grandmaster Perkins has taught me how to set up a variety of methods to develop a person’s body through different types of Contact Flow practice.

“With the right attitude, self-imposed limitations vanish.”

• Alexander the Great

Thank you.

LtCol Al Ridenhour

Senior Master Instructor

GUIDED CHAOS

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