Options for Survival:
One thing you should know about me is that from my extensive background in law enforcement and from the Martial Arts, I look at criminal acts from both of those perspectives. I then craft options for survival based on those two fields.
Coming face to face with violent criminal who have no reservations about causing you and yours’ personal harm needs to be in the back of your mind. For this, I consider the self-defense Golden Rule: Do unto criminals, before they do onto you! You must first recognize the situation you are in. Whether you are there though no fault of your own, or you have inadvertently and carelessly stumbled into a situation – regardless you are now there!
The question is what do you do about it? What should your reactions towards this criminal act be? Now that you have some Martial Arts experience, should you violently resist? Or, should you submit to their criminal request?
The answer to those questions and more largely depends on several factors: What is your level of competency in the Martial Arts. Are you prepared to physically, mentally and spiritually defend yourself? Are you prepared for the outcome of the physical harm you may be forced to inflict on the violent criminal? If the criminal has one or more accomplices with him/her, are you competent enough to take them all on? Is the criminal armed with a deadly weapon (knife or firearm)? Does the criminal want just your personal property, or do they want to personally harm you? So now that we have provided you so many factors to consider, let’s break those down.
• Your level of competency in the Martial Arts is important. If your physical techniques are not at the level where your “street techniques” where they should be, you may be risking more by physical resisting. If it is a property crime where they just want what you have, it might be best to surrender your property. No physical property is worth dying for!
• If you have prepared yourself physically and mentally for a violent physical altercation, you are in a better frame of mind for the violent response to an attack. But, you must also consider the spiritual aspect of your preparation. You may need to respond to the violence about to be thrust upon you and use the force necessary to stop the attack and the result of that force my be deadly force. People can say, oh, that’s no problem if they were forced to go there, but in reality the taking of another person’s life is a significant issue – perhaps one of the most significant things you may be forced to face. So, don’t take this issue too lightly.
• When it comes to defending yourself against one or more violent offenders, if you are not prepared to physically defend yourself, does the situation lend itself to attempt to run away and live to fight another day? Only choose the option to run if you are in shape and can outrun and outdistance your attacker. From my law enforcement days, I have personally never seen an offender run for more than a quarter mile and keep going. After a quarter mile sprint, they will usually go to ground (hiding from the police), or they will start walking.
• Therefore, if you choose to run, you must outrun your attacker or all of your attackers. If one of the attackers is able to catch up to you, do you have the competency to use a technique that will quickly incapacitate him/her and continue your sprint away from the group. This is not a Bruce Lee movie where you can stand in a circle and defend yourself against a group of people who want to hurt you. In the “movies” most of the group of bad guys will attack the good guy one or two at a time. Remember, this is not a scripted Hollywood movie and they can and will attack from all angles and several may come at the same time.
• If the bad guy(s) are armed with weapons, are you skilled at weapons disarming techniques and have practiced them so the technique comes automatically? Whether the weapon is a knife, firearm or club/baseball bat, you should know how to defend yourself against any and all of them. When using a defense against an armed offender who is threatening you with knife or firearm, or you are defending yourself from a two or more attackers you can use deadly force to stop the attack. If you were to disarm an attacker, you can use that weapon on all those attackers as long as you feel that without using that weapon to save your life, your life could and would have been taken.
• If the criminal or criminals want your personal property – surrender the property. No property is worth dying for! Live to report the crime and be reunited with those who love you. Criminals may start the intent of committing a property crime, and escalate to kidnap or a sexual attack. In those situations, this is where you violently resist and implement the self-defense Golden Rule: Do unto the criminal before he/she does onto you! Males and female criminals alike have been known to violently sexually attack others. In the case of a male offender, they have been known to sexually attack other men. During my cop days, I have seen cases where one man sexually attacks another man. If a women is the offender to a woman suspect, they too may sexually attack a female – or abduct her to bring her home to her male partner in crime.
So, your study of Martial Arts should be inclusive to consider attacks emanating from just about any source. Remember, criminals have been as young as their early teens attending Elementary and Middle school, and elderly men and women as well. Once you leave the safety of your Martial Arts school and your home – Always and everywhere, be ready!
What does the Martial Arts Belt Really Mean?
I have often explained to people that when they ask what system I study, I give them an analogy. I tell them that Martial Arts systems are like automobiles. There are cars, pickup trucks, vans, etc. Each manufacturer has many models in which to chose from. The type of vehicle and model is specific to their owners. If one is given an automobile, they may not have a choice as the type of vehicle. If they are purchasing their own vehicle, several factors be at play: their finances, they personal preference as to the bells and whistles the vehicle comes equipped with, the trendy vehicle with the best television commercial, or just a reliable mode of transportation.
Martial Arts schools are pretty much the same. Some people are influenced by what I call he “Flavor of the Month.” When I began my study of the Martial Arts, the prevalent styles in my area were Karate or Tae kwon Do. Once the Bruce Lee craze hit the United States (between the late 1960’s and early 1970’s) many people wanted to learn Gung-Fu or Kung-Fu). I personally knew of one guy who attained his Brown belt in Judo, and his Orange belt in Karate opened his own Kung-Fu school and students flocked to join his school. Not that he was all that proficient, it just happened to be the popular thing that people wanted.
Once the Olympics included Tae Kwon Do as a sport, students flocked in numbers to join their local Tae Kwon Do studio. Tae Kwon Do schools sprung up almost like McDonald’s fast food restaurants. No more training in Kung-Fu, Tae Kwon Do was the style to learn.
In the mid to late 1980’s, Kick Boxing became the next craze and Flavor of the Month. Not only did people open up Kick boxing facilities, if they had a Martial Arts school they also included Kick Boxing to appeal to the people who wanted an aerobic workout. Traditional gyms hired Kick Boxing Instructors who could put a routine together with music and increased their clientele by offering these classes. Most of these kick boxing classed were only geared towards a cardio workout. During that era, I met many women who have expressed in their conversations with me they did not need to attend a self-defense class because they were taking kick boxing at their gym.
And then Mixed Martial Arts became a thing, first being advertised as the Ultimate Fighting Championship. You would see the early pioneers of this sport where a person weighing in at 175 pounds was paired with person nearly twice their size. The Ju-Jitsu techniques employed by the smaller man allowed him to place their much heavier opponent into a submission hold and force him to tap out to submit to their opponent, or be forced to have a limb broken or rendered unconscious by being knocked out by a choke hold.
These shows were at first not widely televised but soon became very popular to customers in sports bars and other places who realized the money to be made by allowing the fights to be shown in their businesses. So now, in many commercial Martial Arts schools they proudly advertise they have included Mixed Martial Arts component into their curriculum. So there you have it, in these times the Flavor of the Month is the Mixed Martial Arts component of a Martial Arts school.
Commercial Martial Arts schools must always weigh the quality versus quantity issue. A significant amount of their students these days are children from 5 through 12. Their curriculum must include items to hold the short attention spans of those students. This is to say that their classes and times must reflect what will allow them to hold their student’s attention. These days, I have seen 45 minute classes with 15 minutes of that 45 minutes (at least) devoted to a warm up and approximately 30 minutes of actual instruction.
Rapid and regular Belt progression is a must in order to keep their particular business afloat. Remember, the kids in their Martial Arts school attend Public school and probably have friends that attend other Martial Arts schools. These kids talk and compare their belt progression with their friend’s Martial Arts school. If little Johnnie attends one school and has attained their pink belt with a stripe, but their kid only has a white belt, they will either challenge the instructor their kids attends or remove their kid and enroll them into the school that advances or awards their students at a quicker pace. Sometimes it’s the parents of these kids who may be attending a different sports (like Soccer, T-ball or Football and talk amongst themselves and compare their child’s progression and promotion with that of a different school.
If they don’t feel their child is advancing fast enough, they will either challenge the Instructor, or remove their child and enroll them into a school who does rapidly advance their students. I have met parents who have told me their child of 10 already had their Black belt. While I completely understand the need for a Commercial Martial Arts school to generate sufficient revenue to keep their doors open, never sacrifice quality for quantity. Once you do, the system can and will be viewed by others as selling out. You may have a successful business, but how competent are these students? The bottom line is that advanced students should be capable of defending themselves. If they unable to defend themselves in a street altercation (in a one on one situation, with no weapons involved) they will quickly come to realize they have wasted not only money but time learning something that does not serve them well.
I have literally seen Martial Arts students in other systems that promote their young students to advanced belt rankings without the benefit of the knowledge on how to apply the knowledge they should possess. Sometimes these students are aware of their own inadequacies but prefer to stay in their school. Deep down they know they are not as proficient as they should be (based on the belt they are wearing), but they continue to train in those schools for (pick a reason):
• In their school, they are the big fish in the small pond;
• They have already invested time and money into their program and feel obligated to stay there;
• They are loyal to their Instructor;
• Their Instructor has explicitly told them they are not allowed to train anywhere else or they will be kick out and never allowed to return;
• Going to a new and different school is too scary and they may have to take off their advanced belt and start wearing a comparable belt (possibly a white belt) and that would be too much for their ego to withstand;
• Rumors and false allegations are made about another school;
• The new school is too far to commute to;
• They don’t know anybody at the new school;
• Any one or more of the above may apply.
I was taught by my Instructors to have an open mind and learn what I could from anything I felt was practical and effective. Although I lived in Reno, Nevada I regularly traveled to Northern and Southern California to lean from other systems. I then incorporated those movements into our system and into my own repertoire, thereby increasing a wider variety of techniques to draw from not only in competition, but in a street altercation.
I have with my own eyes seen Instructors literally gloss over essential material that is germane to each and every one of my students, even at their beginning stages of training. Information they all should know such as which knuckles to strike with when executing a punch, or the proper delivery of a side kick and which portion of the foot should make contact with the opponent. Although this material may seem trivial, it is imperative that each student develop the correct movements before they learn the movements wrong and the improper technique becomes muscle memory. Failure to execute a punch or a kick with the proper position of the hand or a foot could result in once contact is made, the defender may sustain broken bones in their hand or foot. Sometimes it’s the little things that truly do count. But because their class is only a half an hour per class, Instructors may not have the time to instill that critical information that may save the student from having to either lose a fight or wear a cast for months.
My Instructors taught me to never fight the belt, fight the person. I have seen a competent 16 -year-old youth fight in the Men’s Blackbelt division and handily beat their opponent. I have also seen a different 16-year-old youth compete in a tournament in the Men’s sparring division and get sent out of the competition ring crying because the contact force of the technique struck them hard and they still fought with the mentality of a child.
I have always told my students that if they were in a huge hurry to get their Black belt, they should not spend any more time on training and immediately drive to the nearest Martial Arts supply store and spend the $10 to buy their black belt. And in these days, they can do their shopping on line and have their belt delivered to them, never to leave the confines of their residence. Otherwise, if they were not after the belt but the knowledge, it was about the knowledge and the journey – not the destination.
Commercial schools may need to use belt promotions as a method of generating revenue. Students are allowed to practice for and attend belt testing on a consistent and regular basis. Whether the students feels they are ready or not, they are allowed and often times encouraged to prepare for and take the next belt test. In reality, the Instructor should know (before any test day) if that particular student is fully prepared to be promoted to the belt they are wishing to attain.
This is one method of belt progression, but I prefer the method of the student putting in training without seeking their belt progression as their primary motivating factor. Rather, students should seek the goal of proficiency.
Once the paradigm has been shifted to proficiency and away from merely attaining the next notch (belt color), the student will feel a greater sense of achievement knowing they were promoted on the basis of their actual accomplishments and not based on studio generated revenue.
My development in Tournament Karate:
I began my tournament attendance as an Orange belt. I had a limited amount of knowledge of sparring and knew at least two katas. Traveling to Las Vegas, Nevada with a couple of my peers and my Instructor, we entered the sparring division and did as best we could. Neither me nor my peers faired well at first.
When I was promoted to Purple belt, there was only one other person from our school (Wayne) was the same belt level. He was a much smaller framed person and a couple of years older than me. My immediate Instructor (Alexander Archie) suggested that we should fight up a belt (Brown belt) and split up so we were not in the same weight division. Being the larger of the two (at about 135 pounds) I would fight in the heavyweight brown belt division while my peer fought in the lightweight brown belt division. I have to admit, I was so intimidated that I performed horribly. My peer Wayne on the other hand fought superbly and won the Grand Champion brown belt.
I gained more confidence once I was actually promoted to brown belt and I was able to face and defeat the same guy (Bob Boozer) that I lost to during my first exposure to fighting in the brown belt division. Although I did not win a placement in the weight division, I was asked to fight on one of the brown belt teams.
The team Capitan (Eddie Newman) was a very experienced brown belt out of Los Angeles, California who had fought and defeated every brown belt I had ever seem him come up against. I remember commenting to my Master Instructor (Stanford McNeal) that I had no idea why the team Captain wanted me to fight on his team. Mac told me I was better than I gave myself credit for and that the team Captain could see it.
Our team fought and I did great! The guy I fought was so much bigger than me that when he attacked and I used a defensive side kick, when I made contact with the kick I was propelled backwards even when the kick hit it’s mark. I even remember executing a jump kick to which one of my Las Vegas Instructors (Larry SirMoins) strongly admonished me to stay on the ground. I saw Eddie Newman many times over the next few years, especially when I attended tournaments held in Las Vegas, Nevada. My Instructor Archie had all of his more advanced students continue to compete in tournaments. Ross, Wayne and I traveled with Archie to tournaments in Northern California to compete. I still was not that proficient, but I gave it my all. In the Reno area, Wayne and I were the hottest brown belts and defeated all takers. I had developed a pretty good defensive side kick, that is until I met Chip Steen.
Chip was a direct student of Steve Saunders (now Steve Muhammad) of the Black Karate Federation. I had seen some of the B.K.F. fighters during our Tournaments in Northern California and known their fighters to have excellent reputations. Chip was also an successful Entertainer who traveled with a band named The Checkmates Unlimited. I was under the mistaken impression that entertainers would be horrible Martial Artists because they would never have the proper time to train. Boy was I wrong.
Archie would invite any and all takers over to our school (the YWCA) and one day Chip came over to train there. On that particular day I was not in class. When I came back to class the following session, all I heard about was how awesome Chip was. I was able to contact Chip and convince him to come over to work out with me one on one. I figured I would see first hand how good Chip was or if I would be able to best him. That first sparring session not only did Chip hit me with everything he wanted to hit me with, but my defensive sidekick was completely and effectively blocked each and ever time I attempted to use it. After that initial session, Chip explained to me how and why he blocked my best moves and he became one of my tutors. Every time Chip’s group came to play the Northern Nevada area, we got together and sparred for countless minutes. Chip ultimately met my Master Instructor McNeal and became a fixture in our school. I moved down to Las Vegas for three months and trained numerous times a week.
When I moved back to Reno, I was ultimately promoted to Black belt and continued my tournament experience but still not doing as well as I wanted to do.
While I was in Las Vegas, there was a Martial Arts Exposition that was held in Reno. The Exposition had the top Martial Arts Masters of the day and I missed it because I was in Las Vegas. One of the Masters I missed was Donnie Williams of the B.K.F. I asked Archie how I might contact Donnie Williams and he gave me his telephone number and told me to call him. I called Donnie and told him I was a black belt student under Alexander Archie in Reno and asked if I could come to visit and train with him for about a week. Donnie told me to come on down to Los Angeles, CA and I could stay with him. My mother loaned me her credit card and I got a plane ticket and traveled to Los Angeles.
I trained at Donnie’s School in Monrovia, CA that week and met people who helped shape my tournament advancement. I have referred to my Instructors as Archie and McNeal gave me one side of the equation and Donnie Williams and Steve Saunders (Muhammad) gave me the other.
Every time I could afford it, I traveled either to Las Vegas or Los Angeles to train with my Instructors. I continued to compete in tournaments in the Reno and Las Vegas areas, but did not do so well in most California tournaments.
There were a couple of turning points that significantly changed me from a losing fighter to that of a Champion. The first was a competition held in Lake Tahoe, California where I fought for the Grand Championship against Alvin Prouder who was at that time the Kick boxing Welterweight Champion of the World. We were tied during the end of the regulation rounds and went into sudden death overtime. As Alvin launched an offensive backfist strike to my head, I leaned back away from his right hand punch and threw a right roundhouse kick to his groin. Alvin lowered his left hand to block that kick to which I doubled my kick and executed a right round house kick to his face. That kick struck pay dirt! I had scored what I thought was the winning point against the Welterweight Kickboxing Champion of the World. Much to my despair, the judges said I made contact to his face and disqualified me, giving Alvin the Championship. Not only did I know, but everyone in attendance knew who really won that fight.
The next turning point was when Donnie finally encouraged me to come to Long Beach, CA and compete in the largest Tournament on the West Coast – The Ed Parker Internationals. I begrudgingly went and fought in the Black belt teams the night prior to the individual competition. I fought horribly and vowed never to repeat that lack luster performance. The next day, my division was at least over 100 black belts. Competing in the tournaments I routinely fought in only had perhaps 15 competitors, but now this division said I had moved up into the big time. It took about 30 minutes just for my name to be added to the sheet where I was paired with another fighter. Feeling rather anxious, nervous (and any other feeling of general angst) I tried to patiently wait for my name to be called and pass the time watching the other fighter during their matches, but nothing seemed to help me to relax. This time frame was the early 1980’s and some guy (true to form at that time) had a large boom box, blasting the latest R&B tunes from Southern California. I started listening to the music and was so transfixed that I was almost dancing to stay limbered up and relaxed. By the time they did call my name, I was more than ready. I not only fought well, but I took first place. This warm up/relaxation routine worked so well for me that it became a staple of all future tournament warm up/relaxation regiments. I never went to another tournament without my music. I even had a National Karate magazine snap a photo of me during some tournament showing me with my music machine strapped to my chest and deeply involved in my routine.
The next significant event took place when I competed in what was supposed to be a local tournament in Lake Tahoe, CA. When I got there, I saw a fighter from New York by the name of Billy Blanks. Billy was at that time the National Champion in Semi Contact point fighting and fighting as a heavyweight.
It was evident that the judges preferred Blanks and nothing I did could get noticed. Although I blitzed him and hit him with the first two hand strikes, they called his reverse punch with was way after my first two punches. I then jumped in the air with a jump hook kick skimming off the top of his head. When I landed, he countered with a punch and they gave him the point. (Strike two?)
Somewhat befuddled, I must have physically portrayed that and the next exchange Blanks punched me in the chin, very hard. This punch split my chin open. Instead of noticing the blood (which is automatic disqualification), they gave Blanks the point. (Strike three) In protest, I stopped the match, bowed out and commented they obviously were not judging fairly and walked off. My student and friend Ron Davis took me to the closest hospital where I got my chin stitched up.
These significant matches and tournaments gave me the confidence I needed to continue to compete in other tournaments throughout Nevada, California, Missouri, Illinois, New York, and Washington.
There is one more tournament I would like to highlight. At this time, I was in Ft. Lewis Washington with the Nevada National Guard on our Summer Camp duty. There was a tournament during the middle weekend and I competed in the lightweight division. I first competed in the Kata Competition and performed our signature kata “Kifaru.” There was this Kung Fu guy who did his pattern and we tied. I personally thought the guy was a phony. Somehow, the judges had us tied and the rules stated we were to perform the same kata or pattern. I went first and performed my kata. The Kung Fu guy went next and you could tell he was making it up as he went, therefore making it impossible to do the same pattern. They gave the Kung Fu guy 1st place. Boy was I mad! The guy had the audacity to compete in the lightweight fighting division – my same division.
Back in those days I fought under the name Super J. I wore a yellow T shirt underneath my Gi top that had a big red Superman S on the chest. I had already scored two points on my opponent relatively easily. I remembered something my Grand Master Donald Baker had once told me of a distraction move (flipping the bird to the opponent over the top of my head).
Rather than use that distraction move, I chose a different move for the last point. Using both my hands, I grabbed the lapels of my Gi top, pulled the Gi wide open and exposed the big red Superman S on my chest. When my opponent looked down at my distraction move, I executed a reverse punch to his chest to score the third point and win the match.
I had to fight the heavyweight 1st place winner for the Grand Champion. This guy had an excellent reverse punch and I was mostly a kicker. I don’t know how, but I scored nearly everything I did and this guy could not touch me. It was then that I remembered a technique Donnie Williams had taught me prior to this tournament.
The move was to disregard all of the defensive moves of your opponent and to run in towards him and execute a ridge hand strike to the back of his head. I asked Donnie why the opponent not hit you with any number of effective counter attacks. Donnie told me to not worry about it. Well, I did just that. I ran towards this guy and he looked so surprised, he was trying to figure out what technique I was throwing but he did not see one. At the last second, I executed a right ridge hand strike to the back of this guy’s head and the crowd went wild! I won the Grand Championship and received a rather large trophy to bring back to Reno along with my experiences.
I continued fighting in Karate tournaments until approximately 1987. At that point, I was a 5th degree black belt. My Master Instructor McNeal told me that I had everything to lose and nothing to gain. If I fought in a competition and lost by whatever means, people would wonder what kind of system we had if they defeated a 5th degree. And if I won, people would say well you’re a 5th degree and you should have won. I was at the top of my game and felt I physically could continue. But, I am an obedient student and listened to my Master Instructor.
Tournaments were a fun and exciting time of my life and I would not change anything as each and every one of my experiences, every win and loss shaped my development, not only as a tournament fighter, but in many other aspects of life. I encourage students to compete in tournaments for several reasons. This is the closest thing they will have to a fight without being in an actual street fight. They will experience a person on the other side of the ring who will attach with a kick, punch and either fight cleanly or use dirty tricks. They will experience the adrenalin rush of the anticipation of the unknown physical altercation. Although there are judges or referee’s, they can never be completely counted on to either award the point to the person who should have the earned the point. Therefore, if they had a choice between winning the match or the fight – always win the fight.