I Went Flying!

No long lines at the airport. No TSA, no baggage fees. I went flying! No seat assignment. No getting up at 3 am to make a six-thirty-flight. I went flying! Not a private plane at the local airport. Not another skydive (530 were plenty for me). I went flying…

I used to explain to anyone who would listen the benefits of an arduous life in the martial arts. It’s not about winning a fight. No one ever wins a fight. It’s sometimes about the self confidence you gain when out in public – you can see trouble coming a mile away (actually about 30 yards away). It’s the crumbs, not the cake. I have lived on those crumbs my whole life.

I studied Judo as a teenager, then a smattering of Japanese martial arts in high school. That was my key inside a door of not-so-secret events and training that I still use today. The most important skill I acquired was quicker reaction times. I truly can’t count the number of times I saved my own life when some mindless idiot in a car decided to try and devalue The Law of Impenetrability: Two Objects Cannot Occupy the Same Space At The Same time. Me on my motorcycle, them in their car. Them wanting my space, right now.

Watch how long it takes cars to start moving at a traffic light once it turns green. To me, it feels like an hour or more – and that’s the people not trying to drive their phones at the same time they are driving their cars.

On the dojo floor, you either learn to react quickly – or you become a punching bag, a kicking bag, and the head of a broom used to sweep the dojo clean. While I was not the fastest guy in the dojo, I managed to avoid becoming a punching bag so often.

The other really important skill was learning to see trouble coming around the corner. If you can see it coming, you can avoid it. The best fight is the one that never happens.

The most important skill -- the one that carried me forward successfully for the last 40 years -- was learning how to control my center of gravity. The Japanese believe that the center of gravity in a person lies at a spot 2 inches below the navel. They call that the Tanden. The importance of this spot and the ability to relocate it, mostly downward, is a crucial skill, and learning to protect yourself from events small and large beyond your grasp, beyond your ability to control depend on mastering it.

We used to demonstrate this small point by arranging our feet in a semi circular position, meditating slightly for one or two seconds, taking a deep breath, and exhaling vigorously. This basically made us part of the floor, in a good sense. We were as hard as a rock and nearly impossible to move. I know this may sound like a tall story, it may sound like some form of fiction. I assure you it is not. I demonstrated it regularly in the karate class I used to teach here in the desert -- and I had to dig it up after 40 years of letting it slip to the back of my mind.

Phyllis and I had made a quick trip out to our local postal store to send Sasha a package of goodies. There was a concrete block off center on the ground to help cars locate their forward position and keep them from encroaching on the sidewalk. As I got out of the passenger side and worked my way around I did not look to see where this block was and it tripped me up solidly.

If you are from our generation or even the generation after us you may have had a class called physics your senior year of high school. One of the topics covered was forward momentum, which is usually defined by this equation:

F = MA²

Force equals mass (my body weight) times my acceleration squared. My acceleration forward was defined by how hard I tripped on the concrete block. I was wedged between two cars and actually began to bounce back and forth like a pinball between the two of them; unfortunately using my hands and arms as buffers to prevent injury to the mass of my body. Each time I got slammed forward at about a 30° angle, my acceleration slowed but I saw that eventually I was going to make contact with Phyllis and I had to try to minimize that. Even though this entire “flight” took less than about 3 seconds, I weighed my options.

If Phyllis had not been there I was prepared to do a forward body roll, unfortunately, into traffic. This would have permitted me to not only eliminate the rest of my forward momentum but give me the opportunity to absorb any further shock to my body. The forward roll would have had me back up on my feet in two shakes of a lamb's tail.

While that option was not viable, Phyllis did catch me and told me she was astounded by the fact that I never lost my balance during this nerve wracking flight. She said my feet were planted firmly on the ground and I did not waver out of control outside of my pinball like experience.

I managed to hurt everything that was already hurting which caused a crescendo in my pain scale. The concept of zero to 10 (for describing to a doctor how bad your pain was) had now been tossed out the window and I was working with what any mathematician would have called  “imaginary numbers.” Phyllis could not conceive of how something I mastered 40 years ago would come back into my circle of awareness so quickly, so vividly, and so well defined. These are her words, not mine. I was wincing in pain from the experience and was more concerned about whether my hands and legs were going to fall off in the parking lot more than how efficiently I covered the ground and dealt with the problem at hand.

I still try to imbue in young people that I meet the importance of a background in martial arts, beginning as early as the fourth or fifth grade. The style you select is just as important and while I do not want it to appear that I am denigrating any particular culture, I would strongly advise all parents to avoid Taekwondo. Anyone who wants to know the reasons for this statement can contact me directly. I would prefer to see young people beginning their training in either Japanese or Chinese styles of martial arts. While there are many different forms of both of these cultures, most have positive benefits and can be used as a stepping stone for the future if the young person feels so inclined. Mixed martial arts (MMA) should be avoided at all costs. While this fighting style has obvious positive benefits, I consider it to be a tertiary form of study, not something you jump into at first. It is way too helter-skelter, poorly defined, and taught by mostly narcissistic young men whose primary goal is to inflict pain on new students.

While I did save myself a trip to the emergency room and the possibility of another hip replacement, the cost involved was high, but well worth the effort to see that I had not forgotten my most basic training. My instructor, Grandmaster Takayuki Kobota passed away several years ago, and is sorely missed by his students. Skills he passed along to me and my fellow students are immeasurable. Much of what I learned, much of what we learned, was taught in special, informal sessions. The reasons are quite obvious. We learned how to kill quickly, should that ever be required. Given the nature and philosophy behind our training, I would venture to say that would almost never be needed. But like any tool, it is better to have it and not need it rather than to need it and not have it.

To reiterate, what started out as a casual short trip with a couple of stops by me and Phyllis turned into a synchronized dance that almost ended up with both of us face down on the concrete (me on top of her).

Phyllis watched my flight first hand and told me I had amazed her with my ability to keep my feet firmly planted during my improvisational dance sans musica. I caught my right instep firmly on the concrete abutment, and literally went flying. I was able to fling myself into the side of the car on the right of me, and then back into our car on my left side as I desperately tried to bleed off the momentum.

The initial impact went from my left hand positioned in front of my body being crushed by my abdomen, to my right forearm jammed into the same spot on the car as I tried to rotate my body to keep myself somewhat positioned in a straight line. One more bounce off of the car on my right and I was face to face with Phyllis, having bled off 90% of my forward momentum.

My only other option had she not been standing directly in front of me during this pseudo dance marathon would have been a forward front roll, another technique taught to advanced students in the Dojo. I had practiced this for years at home and was grateful for my training -- for it enabled me to bleed off forward momentum in another manner that ended with me back up on my feet after having dived forward from a standing position. I have already described (in another blog post ==> https://www.gruberwrites.com/post/there-was-a-day-1) how I utilized this technique inside a New York City nightclub in a somewhat whimsical manner.

I enjoyed dancing in the 60’s and 70’s to the full 17 minute version of “In a Gadda Da Vida” by Iron Butterfly, successfully wearing out any young lady who dared accompany me.

This was different.

Phyllis’ initial comment was her amazement at my ability to keep my feet firmly planted on the ground and control my forward momentum the way I managed to. Unfortunately, I was wincing from the damage to my left hand and right forearm so the compliment went unnoticed. We stood there for what seemed like an eternity before moving forward with our package delivery. We canceled our second stop and she brought me home. I planted an ice pack on different parts of my body, moving it from injury to injury, until I passed out from exhaustion.

Three days later and I am still icing, but now am more than willing to hear her retell the story with the amazement she experienced watching me control my Tanden.

While many skills can disappear over time if they are not practiced diligently, I am grateful for having managed to maintain a very small percentage of my martial arts skills after such a long time. It is a testament not to me but to those who instructed me. It is a memory of their deeds that should be saluted and danced to, as I managed to a couple of days ago.

Now, back to those pesky ice bags…