Lessons from My Masters 39: Observations - The Grandmaster Chronicles - Part XI

First of all, I want to say that it’s good to be back in the saddle. As most of you know I was in Brazil for the first ever Guided Chaos seminar and I spent the 10 of the most amazing days in Sao Paulo, Brazil training with the folks from our Guided Chaos affiliate school Academia Imoto.

Lots of fun, good people and an insane amount of great food. I was even coerced into eating “chocolate pizza” (of course I took a shower afterward). Most important of all I want thank Flavia and Luciano Imoto my hosts for showing me a great time and taking great care of me.

Śūnya

śūnya meanings; "zero," "nothing," "empty" or "void", and derives from the root śvi, meaning "hollow".

If you’re a fan of some of the Jason Bourne books and movies, then you may be familiar with one of the authors of the series of books out there, Eric Van Lustbader. But what most don’t know is that he has also written a number of entertaining books on the martial arts over the years. The most famous are his Ninja Series of books such as “White Ninja”, “The Miko”, etc. but one of the best, in my opinion, is the book “Zero”

“Zero” focuses on the character Michael Doss an American painter who has been schooled in the ancient ways of the warrior, he leads a quiet life until the typical tragic death of his father ignites the warrior spirit in his blood where,

“He journeys into the dangerous underworld, where he finds himself in lethal combat with a sinister Japanese organization that is bent on destroying the United States through global economic chaos. Doss is trapped. His only chance for survival is a final confrontation, face to face, with the vile assassin behind it all, Zero.”

The main thing about Zero was his ability to use techniques where no matter what you know or who you are, “…the way has no power”.

While a work of fiction in truth if you understand movement and the principles that govern how humans move and function within the universe. You come to realize that there is much truth in what he wrote. The key is your mind and spirit have to be open to it otherwise it is not accessible to you. 

This is what I want to focus on.

Neutralizing Movement - Where the Way Has No Power

 “Zero... Where the way has no power.”

• Eric Van Lustbader, Zero

When I first started to train in Guided Chaos one of the things that always amazed me with Grandmasters Perkins and Carron was their ability to “neutralize people” and cut their momentum off before they ever got started. The lesson was obvious to me if they could cut you off before you got started the could have killed you just as easily. Simply put, if they get there first there is no fight. I was all about it.

"It is better to create than to learn! Creating is the essence of life."

• Julius Caesar

Even more impressive was John’s ability to cut off the movement of people nearly twice his size and far stronger than him with what looked like some of the BS Kung Fu trick videos that pollute YouTube. At first, I always thought it was all about dropping and in truth, there’s some dropping for sure but it wasn’t until once while working with him under The Wisdom Tree that he did something that made no sense. He says,

“Just move with this I want to show you something don’t try to do anything specific just move with it. Relax, be free.”

So after of few minutes of this and me having that look on my face like he owed me money he says, “Okay just do whatever you want.”   

Rut-row!

Bam!

And like that, he stops me cold in my tracks however, that was not the interesting part. You see John has stopped me before by just dropping but this was “totally different” you see there was no pressure on my body not like what you would think in order to stop me as fast as he did. I just couldn’t move. So I’m like, “What!?!”

 He then starts to laugh and says,

“So if you watch what I’m doing here, I’m not pushing you, sure there’s a little drop in there but what I’m doing is I’m feeling where your balance is and I feel where you want to go and I don’t let you get there. I don’t have to use a lot of force I just need to disrupt your balance enough and not let you move your body the way you want… Remember I’m always throwing the monkey wrench into your movement.”

Folks this was way cool Kung Fu stuff right out of the movie “The 36 Chambers of Shaolin”. Later on, when describing this feeling to Master Martarano I said,

“You know it’s weird but it’s like he jumped on my back where my legs felt like they’re going to buckle where they’re crushed, and I’m about to fall over yet there is no weight. It’s like he’s there but he’s not there. There’s pressure but yet at the point where he’s touching there’s no pressure just a touch. I know that’s as clear as mud but that’s what it feels like.”  

Tim used to do this to me as well where he would lay hands with me and my legs would immediately feel an overbearing weight. Yet there was never any indication as if he was exerting force or at least force proportional to what I was experiencing. John would, later on, explain it to me,

“When you’re doing this in order to get good you have to learn to listen to another person’s body. Too many people want to focus on pushing but that’s not how I’m doing it. I listen to their body and I feel where they want to go and I’m catching them sometimes at the point where they have to change their body position or I sink at the right moment and break their balance. Where they are right on the edge of balance and I don’t really need more than a touch… It’s more of a feel than anything. Now when I do this if you’ll watch right here, it’s a sink, not a push because if they fall I don’t go with them. I’m always sinking on this stuff even if you can’t see it because it’s all internalized... In order to learn how to do this you have to go slow, you got to build it in and it takes time to develop. You have to be patient because you have to feel all of the subtle nuances of what they’re doing and where their balance is and know how to hide your balance from them. The other thing is I’m not really trying to control their movement so much as I’m letting them go to where they want to go and then I don’t let them change their body. When you get good at it it’s just something you can do.”

He then had me practice it a little on him where he would move and pocket his body teaching me how to stay with what he was doing to learn how to listen to his body and get ahead of how he was changing his body. Now obviously he was letting me do this because he was trying to teach me how to do this otherwise I wouldn’t learn. He would then say, “Okay now just drop here, just sink on this.”

He would then say,

“That’s it now, don’t worry your timing will get come but you have to practice and sink on this until you develop the touch. It’s not a push as it’s more of a sink on their body. Now watch this.”

He then touches me on the chest with two fingers and I shit you not “roots” me to the ground in an instant my legs were crushed. Oh yeah and he starts to laugh. And he’s like,

“So watch what I’m doing here, just as I can uproot you and take your balance with little to no force because it’s all in the timing. What I’m doing here is I’m sinking and breaking your balance on a downward angle. You feel that in your legs don’t you?”

I’m like, “Yeah…”

He’s like,

“That’s because I’m breaking your balance in the direction where you have to step to recover your balance so your body is resisting because you don’t want to fall.”

Brilliant…

So he continues,

“So when I’m working with people I’m playing this 'touch' game but if it's for real what you want to do is to learn how to break a person’s balance as you strike them.”

Right there… an “Atom Bomb”.

When he said that to me my head turned into a mushroom cloud.

Of course…

Why not?

"I will either find a way or make one."

• Hannibal

If you can touch them and stop their motion before they get going why not break their balance and some other stuff they probably need at the same time. So, why not?

Makes sense to me.

Folks I have to tell you the notion of striking a person and breaking their balance at the same time if you have never experienced it is like getting hit by a car. I can remember Tim hitting me like this on the back where you feel like you’re going to cough up a lung. I’ve been hit like this by John where he does these seemingly harmless little chops right across your diaphragm and you feel like you received an electric shock.

Listening to John's Body

“Experience is a truer guide than the words of others.”

• Leonardo da Vinci

Folks as I say all of the time when you have the privilege to work with John, don’t be a jerk. Like no shit! Don’t be a jerk because if you put him in a position where he feels he has to protect himself he will. John is human and like anyone else, if he thinks you’re trying to hurt him you’re going to be the first to know it. I’m no different if I think you’re trying to hurt me it’s going to be a problem… for you! In other words, learn to move with John and “listen to his body” so you can learn. John moves in a way to allow you the opportunity to have an experience where you can learn and feel things that are not easily and in my opinion possible to explain because they happen on a level of thought outside of our conscious awareness.

“We keep you alive to serve this ship so row well… and live.”

• Ben-Hur, 1959

When I move with John I try to just move and work within what he’s doing, now it doesn’t mean I don’t try to hit but I’m trying to move in a way that allows me to experience things that he’s doing in the body where I can have those “aha moments”. There is no winning or losing it’s just an experience. I try to listen to what I think his body is doing as much as possible to learn how to deal with his motion in order to increase my level of sensitivity and overall body unity. So as a word to the wise when you train with my Master should you have the chance to do so, just move with him at whatever speed he chooses and remember,

“He moves in a way for you to have an experience so move well… and learn!”

Just Some Philosophical Stuff on Training Folks

"Men, in general, are quick to believe that which they wish to be true."

• Julius Caesar

Anyway...

Because I’m always asked about this sort of thing I’m just going to wax philosophically on this because these type of things are always the most asked questions by instructors. Understand what I offer here is just my opinion on these matters.  But I'll say this I've seen a lot of stuff that, to put it bluntly only serve to fuck our students up in their development.

So, I’ll offer some comments to help guide your focus when training based on 30-years of training and teaching Guided Chaos but more importantly from the things that I’ve learned from my Masters. I'll quote liberally from one of my favorite people from history,  Julius Caesar. When it came to war, training for combat or whatever, I think it's fair to say as the former Commander of the 13th Legion Caesar knew what the hell he was talking about. 

This is for some going to be some "deep stuff" because this is the sort of "inside baseball" stuff that if you do not know nor understand you will not be an effective instructor. 

Okay, here we go...

Your students are not you -

"My students, well... They, not me."

• Grandmaster BM Kim

I see this all of the time instructors trying to do the right thing by their students and meaning well but they forget something fundamental. Their students are not them, if they were then they wouldn't need them as an instructor. They get frustrated when their students are not performing something as they would and they forget they are not you. I remember once having a conversation with Grandmaster BM Kim, who was once the head of the US Olympic Tae Kwon Do Team and I remember him telling me,

"My students see the kind of things that I can do and they want to be like me but they are not me. You see ever since I was a little body I've always been able to do things like jump in the air and break boards doing a split. My students, well... They, not me."

Your students, well... They, not you. Don't forget it! 

Above all else remember to develop their body - Sounds like common sense but I see this all of the time as well, folks get good at teaching what I call "things"  but all too often fail to focus on developing "the body". Listen, the thing about Guided Chaos is that in order to get people to do the things they want to do you have to develop their body. There's no way around it. You do that and 90% percent of what you need to do is done. I can teach anyone how to hit. Usually, it takes me about 15 minutes, (20 if I'm drinking coffee). But folks focus on strikes or other technique orientated aspects of the art because it's easier to teach how to chop that it is to teach the mechanism that makes it work under duress. They teach people tools, they give them the hammer but they don't really show them how to use it. You can have the best hammer in the world as I like to say but it doesn't make you a carpenter. You need as an instructor to make people carpenters. Tradesmen in the craft of War! Where they could take a rubber band a paperclip and that scrubby thing for the toilet and make a weapon out of it. They need to become the weapon and anything they put in their hands but a mere extension of it. 

Your students come to you for help -

"No music is so charming to my ear as the requests of my friends, and the supplications of those in want of my assistance."

• Julius Caesar

Please, please, please do not take for granted what students know or don't know. Focus on training them as best you can as if their lives depend on it because someday it may. Focus on their development and nothing else. They want your assistance so you need to give it to them to the best of your abilities. 

You must provide them with moral certainty -

"Cowards die many times before their actual deaths."

• Julius Caesar

What I mean by "moral certainty" is just that. They need to have a clear understanding in their minds that should they have to give battle. That they are capable of standing in that space and can handle their business. In order, though to teach this you as an instructor need to be capable yourself of standing in that space. You as an instructor need to become that thing which you want your students to be, what you want to be. You really can't teach what you don't know and when it comes to this sort of thing you cannot teach what you are not. Students will see through this, you will become persona non-grata to them and they will seek training elsewhere. Trust me on this. The Cubs want to run with the Wolves, the Young Pups with the Big Dogs, the Plebes with the Warriors! Your students want, no correction, expect and "demand" that in mind and spirit you be a Warrior... or be nothing. You cannot be both. If your mind and spirit are not there you need to either get there or be gone. 

You must train them to overcome fear and not reinforce it in them - Ditto to my comments above. In the martial arts world, there are a number of people who go around teaching people through the spirit of fear. tales of prison trained monsters and on and on as if the bad guys are imbued with the power of the gods. Nonsense! The bad guys are human and put their pants on the same way as everyone else and don't want to die any more than you do. Just because a person has the capacity to be cruel doesn't make them brave or tough.

"The sufferings that fate inflicts on us should be borne with patience, what enemies inflict with manly courage."

• Thucydides

The truth is these folks, deep down, are afraid and they want others to be afraid like them and nothing pleases them more than to project their fear onto others. If you do this as an instructor you are worse than the bad guys. Because your students trust you and if you behave in this manner you are a curse to them.  For your sins, God, the gods, fate, whatever you believe in will punish you, but the blood of your student's for their failure in battle will be one your hands forever.  If you as an instructor fall into this category you need to either get a handle on your own fears and get over yourself or find something else to do. 

Your students are not your training partners - I see this all of the time. Instructors working with students as if they are their training partners. Understand, they are not your training partners and if they get to the level where they are comparable in skill to you then they are something else and you need to make them instructors or encourage them to build their own school. But most important of all they are not there for your development you are there for theirs. 

Don’t make it about you, because it’s not -

"What we wish, we readily believe, and what we ourselves think, we imagine others think also."

• Julius Caesar

This is pretty self-explanatory so I'll make it simple get the fuck over yourself and just teach. 

They must be taught that in all things there is an acceptable level of risk -

"Until you spread your wings, you'll have no idea how far you can fly."

• Napoleon Bonaparte

I've been on enough combat operations to know what I'm talking about here and I can tell you. The old adage that if you try to protect everywhere you will be strong nowhere is true. Sometimes you just have to accept that there is a risk to what you do and that's all there is to it. As an instructor, train your students to the edge and not beyond it, but also with the understanding that there are no easy answers and there is no one size fits all. Meaning that in all you do no matter what there is always an acceptable level of risk. Sometimes, folks, I'm sorry but, "sometimes you just have to kick that ass" and that's all there is to it. Let me just say here as well, that being a Warrior is not just about being trained, or having skill, being fit, etc. No doubt those things are important and I would never denigrate them but one thing I think that many people miss mostly because people who know better don't either tell them or know how to teach them. Being a Warrior regardless of your level of skill, knowledge, and experience it is "a leap of faith"! Franky for a variety of reason that I won't get into here, some folks will never get to the promised land because they have no faith in anything. No faith in God, the afterlife or whatever. They've never just trusted something that was beyond themselves so because they can't envision it in their minds they are not capable of envisioning it in their lives, in their skills, in their abilities. Grandmaster Carron use to always say,

"If you don't believe you can do it then you can't. You have to trust your abilities."

Students have heard me say that repeatedly, "Trust your abilities... have faith in your abilities." But over the years I've come to understand that for some folks they just won't get there. It's not that they can't they won't allow themselves. They have faith in nothing, even themselves... It's really that simple. 

There are worse things than death - As with the previous comment, students need to develop a healthy dose of reality and an understanding that while no one wants to die, doing nothing in certain situations is not an answer. Sometimes you just have to fight and that's all there is to it. 

May all the blood be on the front of them -

"May all the blood be on the front of you." 

• Old Welsh Saying

Friend, even though I'm like 1/8th German, as you know I'm all about dying a Viking Warriors death. If it's my time, "it's my time", I've stood in that space before been there and done that and if I have to stand there again then so be it. Now I'm not going to do something stupid to hasten my death after all that's why I train to prolong life or that of others. But if I'm going to die when they find my body trust me if I have anything to say about it the majority of the blood will be on the front of me. 

Train their body as if everyone is stronger and faster than them and teach them to move sooner - "This" I feel is one of the most miss-taught aspects of the art. The idea of training as if everyone is stronger and faster than them. Grandmaster Carron used to always talk about this sort of thing and actually said to me that,

"I assume everyone is stronger and faster than me, it keeps me honest and teaches me to not do things I don't have to."

Grandmaster Perkins always uses the brilliant analogy of being like the matador in a bullfight but I think one thing that gets lost in the sauce is the fact that the matador isn't just out of the way but that he knows the right moment to move at the right time. In other words, it's not that he moves faster because he's not. It's that he moves, "soon enough" to avoid the bulls charge. Move too soon the bull has time to adjust, move too late and he'll be the first to know it. 

Teach them to move to hit strike to kill (don’t control people) -

"When I strike I do not strike hard, nor strike soft, I strike to kill."

• Miyamoto Musashi, A Book of Five Rings.

Musashi had it right. when you strike you strike to kill. In a real fight, it is not time to determine whether you should sandbag your abilities or go for it. You don't' know what the bad guy brings to the fight so you need to end the fight as quickly as possible. As I tell people all of the time I don't have an escalation of force philosophy if have a de-escalation of force philosophy. Meaning I start off with the mindset of crushing my opponent from first to last, as Musashi would say and go from there.  Also, I do not try to control people nor do I teach students this sinful practice. This is wasteful for self-defense and only has a place in sport or as in the case of law enforcement if you have to detain someone but outside of that this way of thinking has no place in any serious self-defense training. 

Everything is relative so don’t create absolutes in them outside of the principles -

"If we do not expect the unexpected we never find it."

• Heraclitus

I see this all-of-the-time. People when they teach things creating rules that don't exist. They teach certain things that are not principles of the art per se as if they are biblical canon. Usually, these characters are wrong in their own understanding of these matters and as a result through their incorrect teachings and dogmatic methods. They make their students twice as likely to burn in Hell so to speak as themselves. Folks, there are so many subtle nuances to how people can move it's not even funny. There are literally millions of ways people can move perhaps more. So why would you create limitations on this? Why would you close peoples minds off to what is possible? Why would you close your own mind off? As Master Martarano asked me once about the art,

"What is the most interesting thing you've discovered over the years you've trained in the art?"

I said., "The more I learn the more I realize how much I don't know." 

Folks, there's more that we don't know than what we know and it will probably remain that way so stop thinking you know it all or have learned all there is to know. 

Don’t teach what you don’t know - More students have been screwed up by people teaching what they don't know than pretty much anything else. Yes, I know there is a lot of variation to how the body can move and I know there are a million possibilities. What I'm talking about is what I call "stupid shit" that people say or makeup and call it good. Teaching people things that make them vulnerable to getting hit, teaching people things that restrict the freedom on their movement and on and on. Don't do it! Don't be that guy! Teach what you know for sure and if you're not sure just say so and find the answer out before making some stupid shit up. Your students in the long run with thank you as well as respect you more for it. 

Well, that's it for this installment I'll cover some other stuff on training in my next installment. 

As always, thanks. 

LtCol Al Ridenhour

Senior Master Instructor

GUIDED CHAOS

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