Newton is my Shihan
If you don't know who "Newton" is, think physics. If you don't know what "Shihan" means, think Japanese. And put all of that within the context of learning and training martial arts.
Get it yet?
Anyway, like I mentioned in the last thought dump, Rory is an extremely cool guy to talk to. Some of us students stayed after class to get dinner with him. Just very chill. Unpretentious. But very sharp. He knows his stuff. If for whatever (stupid) reason you're trying to fool him on something, you're gonna get fooled. That's my impression of him.
And as last time, there was a lot of things he covered. Much of it is discussed in his book Facing Violence. But he threw out a lot of little tidbits here and there. Also part of the fun today; we got to do one-step "geometry" drills, not "fighting" drills, but "geometry". Basically, in a two-person drill, one partner very slowly throws out a "problem" (punch, kick, knee, headbutt, elbow, choke, strangle, etc). The other person counters the problem with their own problem. I'm guessing Rory calls this "geometry" (and I could be wrong) because, like the Wikipedia definition of geometry: "...concerned with questions of shape, size, relative position of figures, and the properties of space...", you are seeking to understand how your body can position and move itself in relation to another moving and attacking body. And you'd think going slow would be kinda easy right? All I'll say is, I worked up a pretty good sweat doing it.
I'm gonna go out on a limb and say this: I truly believe that if any of the Okinawan karate masters from "back in the day" were alive today (such as Choki Motobu, Itosu Anko, Sokon Matsumura, etc), I definitely think they would approve of Rory. I think what Rory is teaching is as close to the true origins and spirit of Okinawan karate as you can get. I mean, yes it's not "martial arts", but if you really read about the history of Okinawan karate, if you read about what the kata are designed to teach, if you read the philosophy and codes of conduct that some of these masters laid down, I think you will begin to see that if we want a "living karate" (as Motobu says in Tales of Okinawa's Great Masters) then we need to update our training to reflect the times we are living in with respect to the attitudes, laws and other conditions of that society. That's why we go over legal issues; that's why we go over the aftermath of an assault; that's why we go over avoidance/escape-evasion/de-escalation, etc. To me, Rory is more of a real Okinawan master than some of these actual so-called "Okinawan masters" out there. Okay, so maybe that's gonna sound insulting for some people? Fine. I'm just thinking about what it means to have a "living" art as opposed to one in which the students merely "preserve the ashes". And being of Okinawan ancestry, is that the kind of art I want to pass along and be a part of? No. So what is a 21st century karateka supposed to do?
I'm gonna leave this post with a few good quotes from Rory. Hope you like 'em:
"...A mechanic that knows every tool in the tool box but doesn't know what an engine looks like...this is endemic to martial arts..."--
"If you're practicing against things that don't happen, you're wasting your time."
"You have to tell your students it's okay not to fight."
"There is more skill at talking people down than there is in fighting."
"When you fight, you will not be the you that trains."
"You know you're adrenalized when you're yelling, WHAT'S THE NUMBER FOR 911?!"
"He can be the engine, I'll be the steering wheel." (referring to being attacked by a bigger, stronger person)
"Safety doesn't exist. The world has a 100% mortality rate."
"Never run half-ass. Never fight half-ass."
"A hunter will beat a fighter every time. I want you to be a more efficient hunter than they are."
Elbow SMASH!
- Hiji Até
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