MEEP MEEP !
By Andy Fisher
Tempting though it might be to award Hong Kong Phooey
the much coveted title of 'The Ultimate Cartoon Fighter', I suspect that
Roadrunner would pip him to the post. After all, for all his filing cabinet
fast changes and ingenious gadgets, Henry the Janitor, A.K.A. the kung fu
kicking crimefighter, still has to meter out martial retribution in every
episode wheras Roadrunner manages to sidestep trouble despite Wiley Coyote's
best efforts to destroy him.
It may well be that Roadrunner is a
gruesome grappler, a sumo supremo, maybe even a devastating doctor of dim mak
but of course we never find out because he outwits and outpaces his adversary
at every turn. Roadrunner realises that it is the avoidance of conflict that
reflects the pinnacle of martial skill and not how much destruction one can
deliver in a single sitting. A 100m sprint coach could teach many of us a thing
or two about self preservation!
Just a few months ago, I had forgotten
the invaluable lessons of Roadrunner-ryu and found myself on the receiving end
of a series of painful reminders. I was practising bunkai with a sempai in our
dojo but his speed and power were such that, despite trying to pre-empt his
attack, my block still failed to counter the blow. Even having occasionally
connected with his arm, my best efforts to deflect his fist failed and he
repeatedly drove through to connect with my solar plexus.
Old
anti-traditionalist excuses began bubbling away in the nether regions of my
mind. "This stuff doesn't work" bubble, bubble, "classical mess" bubble, hiss.
However, from the corner of my eye I caught the bemused face of my sensei,
watching on. He waited patiently in the hope that sooner or later, I would come
to realise the lesson my sempai was driving home so effectively but, sensing my
growing frustration, he called the practice to a halt and asked me to step
aside.
Stepping into the space I had occupied, he invited the brown
belt to attack him. No sooner had he uttered the command than a fist blurred
out towards his unprotected torso but my sensei responded in a way that I
simply had not anticipated. He just got out of the way! With a shift in weight,
he glided sideways and my sempai staggered forwards as his blow met nothing but
air. For all my muscle-straining efforts to block the superior force of the
brown belt, it hadn't occured to me that I needed to move my centre out of
danger before intercepting the attack; that the block was not so much the core
technique, as a means of securing the limb once it had missed it's intended
target. I had become hypnotised by the intricacies of technique and had
forgotten the practical demands of the situation. It was a mistake that no
beginner would ever have made. How easy it is to forget the journey and become
obsessed with the vehicle, polishing it endlessly as it sits, impotent in the
garage!
"It is as simple as A,B,C" my sensei later pointed out,
"Avoid, Block, Counter. If you forget A, you can forget about B and C". He was
right, it was simplicity itself and yet I had been blind to the truth. In my
mind there were two unavoidables. One - I was facing a conflict scenario, and
Two, I had to take proactive control to secure victory. I had to meet force
with force to secure my safety and dominate the situation. To out-aggress the
aggressor, albeit in the guise of a defensive movement! In short, my ego
required me to stop him.
In order to have embraced the concept of
avoidance, to have melted into space, I would have needed an entirely different
focus. It would have required an emptying of self; a softening of the body and
mind. It would have called upon me to embody the 'ju' (soft) principle as a
natural compliment to the 'go' (hard) attack I was facing. I would have to have
let go of the approaching fist which my mind had become so attached to and
saught instead for a more flexible response. Quite an irony when you think
about it. There I was, surrounded on all sides by unthreatening space which
offered the opportunity to restore harmony and instead I was fixated on the
source of my suffering.
How many other areas of conflict, I wondered,
had I drawn towards myself by obsessing over them? How many unnecessary
arguments, deadline bottle-necks and principle-based deadlocks could have been
avoided? How many times had I seen the shadow of the boulder, only to stand
there, looking up, mouth agape, indignant that gravity should be sending it my
way?
Stare at the boulder too long and there can only be one outcome;
after all, we are all co-creators of our reality. Unless we covet the fate of
the coyote, let's catch sight of the shadow, refocus on the road ahead and do
the only sensible thing...meep meep!
Andy Fisher
Treasurer, Jundokan United Kingdom
Andy.Fisher@jundokan.org.uk |
