Page 30 - Martial Science Magazine Dec/2014 #6
P. 30
WHAT WAS TRAINING LIKE IN THE My first instructor, Mr. King had learned in
EARLY YEARS OF YOUR PRACTICE? the military and my main teacher, “Griff” had
been an Army Ranger. He thought, in part, he
Many people have spoken about the harshness was preparing us, not only for general self-de-
and intensity of martial arts training in the fense but also possibly for Vietnam. I believed
‘50s, 60’s, and to some degree, the early ‘70s, it was virtually certain that I would go, as did
although by then things had changed quite a most everyone in our classes, even though we
lot. It’s important remember that virtually all were children at the time. Fortunately for me,
martial arts teachers from that era were for- the conflict was ending by the time I was of age.
mer military personnel. Most had learned du-
ring or very close to wartime and under very In addition to this, no one ever dreamed of
tough conditions. any sort of legal recourse regarding our treat-
ment and training. Those ideas simply didn’t
In my case, not only did we live in a tough nei- exist for us. It was all about whether or not you
ghborhood, but there had also been a war in could take the training. Either you could or you
every generation prior to ours and nearly ever- couldn’t. There was no option to punish the ins-
yone thought they would, at some point, have tructors for being too hard. Truthfully, people
to go to war. My father and uncle had both from our kind of neighborhood thought martial
been in the Korean conflict, my grandparents arts was supposed to be like that. If it wasn’t
in WWII and so on. In my generation it was super hard, if the techniques didn’t really hurt,
Vietnam. My cousins and most of my friends if there wasn’t an element of real danger, how
had gone and I thought I would as well. could they work in the real world that we saw
every day?
30
