So once upon a time I wanted to know Martial Arts.

I scrambled for every bit of knowledge I could get, how to train when, where, who was who and what teacher(s) they had learned from, the influences they had. I searched through the internet which led me to books which pointed me towards people I then wanted to meet.

I trained until my body was hard my hands tough and thought I was on the top of my game.

I generally accepted most of the far fetched stories I heard from other artists, I had seen some things that most people would call bullshit on after all.

One day I called bullshit on something, I maybe wished I hadn’t that day but forever since then I’m glad I did.

My instructor’s friend had come down with some of his students and they kept babbling on about internal strikes and how to cause internal damage. Well I knew as well as anyone else I had bones in the way and had skin that was kind of rather used to taking blows from shin bones. I had taken fall’s from feet in the air powered down by the thrower and my organs were just fine thank you very much.

So after a couple drinks after the first day of the weekend, the liquid courage had gotten to me enough I called bullshit on it to their highest student. After their whole group’s laughter subsided they realized I was serious. So, someone went and got the greater Orlando phone book, back when they still put out a single edition greater Orlando phone book. Being 3.5+ inches thick to prove a point that not only was it solid it was also not tightly packed, much like flesh, it had some give to it but would compact and become hard. I was holding it against the right of my chest with my left arm. He rests his palm against the phone book and then moves. I wasn’t braced just standing normally and I was barely moved back a couple inches, however it felt like someone had reached into my chest and grabbed my lung. I let the phone book down to see a perfect outline of his palm in red on my chest. The next day the horse shue portion of the palm bruised and it hurt to breath from that part of my chest. I was a believer. Just afterward he poked his arm as say’s ‘Squishy, its not steel, its body mass, flesh.

<blown>mind</blown>

As simple as that is, it forever changed my approach to the arts.

At what age should someone be faced with the sick twisted evils of the world?

Some people grow up around war and death see their parents killed in front of them by age 12 and are out helping save their village by 14. Other people may come from a farm in Iowa but enlist in the army, test well and get upgraded to the Berets where they end up doing the dirty work of their nation out in other countries. Which was more hardened?

I find it necessary for people to be at the ready to strike back when something happens. What I wonder though is who, and how many. At times it can be hard to be around people who have not seen death. Their idealistic black and white views of what someone should do when faced with a mortal decision. It can be quite difficult not to show them there on the spot the level of pain a body can feel, and how long the body can keep it up before finally blacking or passing out.

At great end I decide its ok for some people to never have to face the dark side of the world. That those of us who’ve seen more of it should appreciate the virginic beauty of innocence and not spoil it for those who don’t need it spoiled. The world does enough of that on its own.