THE EMPTY HAND
Stan Schmidt's Column
Text is taken from "Fighting Arts International" #62 (Vol 11, #2)
Mike Becker trains regularly. He is a Johannesburg property magnate in his late
fifties - a dynamic man with a winning smile. He holds a third degree black belt in karate and is
fitter than many men in their thirties.
Ten years ago, as an orange belt (about eight months' experience), he excitedly rushed up to
me and shouted: "It works."
Apparently he had surprised a man removing his car radio and given chase. As Mike caught up to
him the man turned suddenly and stabbed at Mike's head with a long screwdriver.
"In mid-stride I did an age-uke/gyaku-zuki combination (rising block and reverse punch).
I knocked him clean out - I couldn't believe it," he laughed.
Self-defence is as broad as life itself. It has many faces and sometimes doing nothing can be
an effective self-defence technique. Other times one may need to resort to severe measures.
Recently, I pulled into a filling station and became the object of a very strong verbal attack.
A purple-faced lady was shouting from her car. "Another one of those karate menaces -
fancy practising how to hit and kick people. There's enough violence in the world without the
likes of you adding to it."
She must have read the karate club sticker on my car window.
I asked her if she thought that hitting someone was always a bad thing.
"Most decidely," she replied.
Then I asked her what she would do if she was in deep water struggling to save a drowning
person and that person panicked and began dragging her under.
She said nothing, only listened, as I explained to her that the aim of karate was to re-channel
the destructive element in man and, like life-saving, to be used as a technique for enhancing man's
well being.
We parted friends.
Yes, I firmly believe that a blow, whether it comes from a fist or the tongue, can in certain
cases be a blow of benevolence, or a blow of enlightenment.
I once learned that a particular boy kept bullying a smaller child at my dojo after classes.
I spoke nicely to him a number of times but to no avail. After the next class I watched him from a
side window as the members left. Sure enough, the bully was at it... he kept tripping up his prey
and slapping his face with a flat hand. The smaller boy was crying.
I leapt into the yard and did to the bully what he had been doing to the other boy - only with a
little more zest. He cried rivers of tears, said he was sorry and to my knowledge never bullied
again.
At home he had been a spoilt brat and allowed to do what he liked, irrespective of who it hurt.
My belief is that irresponsible and uncaring children are candidates for becoming irresponsible
adults. It is better that a child learns early in life that if he tramples on people he may very
well be trampled upon.
If this cannot be instilled in the home, then the next stage is to learn it through face-to-face
encounters in a play situation. If he is not exposed to these tempering arenas when young, he may
become a very hard and brittle person - retarded in a human sense - unbending and thus breakable
should the big crunch suddenly come.
Norman Robinson and I often train and chat together. He comes from a long line of famous
martial artists. I was impressed with the way he once handled a very belligerent person at a party.
The man was growing increasingly aggressive. He had a few cronies around him and he made it
obvious that he packed a gun. He challenged us: "With all your fancy karate what would you do if
I had my .45 between your eyes."
Norman's reaction was quick and perfect. "I'd call you sir," he quipped.
Everybody laughed. He had artfully turned a threatening situation into a civilised one.
This is self-defence and much more.
(In addition to holding 6th dan rank in the Japan Karate Association, Norman Robinson was South African Judo Champion from 1953 to 1972)
