When I was nine years old I got my first sword. It was a 350 year old straight double-edged sword that Dad had brought back from China at the end of WW2. It had been stored in the smokehouse at Grandpa’s. I picked up the sword, drew it from its sheath, and I was transformed. After Grandpa and Dad had both gone back into the house I took a giant vertical swing at a cedar fence post, splitting it almost to the ground. I was so proud of myself. But then I had to get help because the sword was still stuck and I couldn’t get it loose. Grandpa was upset because he had to replace the fencepost.
I also started training in boxing when I was nine. For my first punching bag, Dad filled a blue jean pants leg with sand. My school offered gymnastics and I dedicated myself to that wholeheartedly. To improve my co-ordination and agility, Mom got me started in ballet that same year. (It was rather cool being pretty much the only guy with all those girls. [And I still love dancing.]) I was a small kid and had to work hard to be tough enough so that the bigger kids would hopefully find me too much to handle. I didn’t always win, but few came back for more. After a couple of years my speed was such that no one messed with me.
From about age ten, I did lawn work and brush clearing to make a little $$. By fourteen I was pretty much supporting myself (clothes, cars, tuition, gas, and DATING) in this way. My favorite tool was the machete, though I also did a lot of work with a brush hook. Those years of cutting gave me a good basis for understanding the sword training which came later. While others would wave a sword around I would make a CUT.
From my high school years, I only recall one fight. One particular guy had been trying to pick a fight for weeks. Finally he caught me alone in the backroom at the grocery store where we both worked. There he started pushing, called me a “god damned liar”, and spit in my face. I had been taught that when a fight became unavoidable to strike first, and obviously the fight was going to be right then. I started to turn away in feigned cowardice, then whipped back around and slugged him at the top of the jaw. He was immediately airborne, slinging blood, and thrown across the room from the punch. He suffered a bloody nose, broken jaw, cracked skull, and two black eyes from that one punch. His head swelled to double normal size and he was in critical condition for three days. One of the powers suggested that it was time for me to start learning another way to fight; I haven’t found it necessary to hit anyone with that kind of full intent since then.
There was some wrestling in college, UT El Paso, but I never got very serious about it.
During my early twenties there were numerous adventures, lots of traveling in Mexico and Guatemala, some of which may have gotten a little far across the legal borders as well.
There were times that my buddies and I were the first white men that the locals had ever seen. I carried a large (20”OAL) camp knife/bowie/shortsword upside down off my left shoulder so that it could be drawn and the cut made with a single move. In one village in Chiapas we were greeted by a group of men closing the street with drawn machetes. Backing up might have been worse than going forward. Passing a table full of fruit I made several extremely rapid chops through a cantaloupe, skewered a section on the tip on my knife and flashed it right into the face of the guy I took to be headman. “Melon?” By their tradition eating together was a token of friendship and he had the choice before him. Melon or blade? We ate melon. They cut trail for me all the next day.
From the early seventies I trained in Kung Fu and Tai Chi Chuan with various teachers, and was eventually certified as an instructor in Shaolin Kung Fu by Grandmaster Fu Leung (Leung Lee Fu).
http://www.sit.wisc.edu/~eagleclaw/longhostory.html In the mid seventies I spent some time traveling around Mexico in a VW van, frequently camping off the side of the road. Early one morning Jan and I were surprised by three banditos. Two were armed with pistols and one with a machete. I was motioned out of the van. The bandits wanted to tie my hands behind my back, but I put them behind my head instead, and they tied my wrists in that position. They weren’t thinking fast enough to realize that I could still lift my arms up and over to have them in front of me, but I left my hands behind my neck for the moment. Two of the thugs started trying to lead me away, but each time they would push I would play the dunce and just turn in a circle (classic Tai Chi). About that time one of the guys with a gun started to get into the back of the van with Jan and close the door. She screamed, and I grabbed the gun that was pointed at me with both hands and twisted. The gunman almost certainly got a broken or dislocated finger but he held on as well. There were several seconds of a mad dance, my opponent and I both holding onto the gun, with me trying to keep him between the swinging machete and myself. Ducking, I felt the machete pass over me through the tips of my hair. As the machete wielder aimed another strike at me, I dropped to one knee and swung the gunman into the machete’s path. During those seconds there had been a moment when I was looking down the barrel of the gun and was watching the trigger being squeezed. The pistol never fired. Simultaneously with her mighty scream Jan had jumped onto her assailant and taken the other gun away. Suddenly it was over with the enemy forces in retreat. Jan had messed her pants, but my ass was so puckered I couldn’t crap for three days. We found out later that there had been numerous murders and car thefts on that small section of highway.
It was somewhere in this time period that John White and I started having a few adventures together, “treasure hunting and such”. John might be described as a “gentleman of adventure” though it was widely rumored that he continued as one of the top “Company” men in Mexico. “Breakout” (1975) was a Charles Bronson movie based on a true event.
http://www.theprisonfilmproject.com/film.php?txtID=185 The article in Playboy was better.
During ’77 and/or ’78, I had the opportunity to study Spanish rapier and dagger in Mexico City with a private instructor that I met through friends at UNAM (University of Mexico). He explained that this was true swordsmanship and had nothing to do with sport.
In ’78 or ’79 I started teaching Kung Fu and TCC in Cuernavaca.
At that time martial arts teachers would still go to each other’s school to check each other out and determined who was “actually qualified” to teach. This had nothing to do with style and everything to do function. Karate, Kung Fu, Judo, it didn’t matter what anyone practiced; this was interdisciplinary. If you couldn’t take care of yourself, you were shut down or “paid a tribute”.
At our gymnasium, all swords and other weapons were kept in a rack near the door. One day a stranger in a kung fu uniform comes strolling through the door grabs a katana out of the rack and starts yelling and swinging it around viciously. At first I thought that he was just trying to show off. Then I realized that he was doing his best to threaten and intimidate even though he had not cut anyone yet. I grabbed a 6 ft. staff and moved in. As he swung and cut the staff I let the staff drop, closed with him from just outside the arc of his cut, and took him to the floor twisting his sword arm up, around, and to the outside. As he ran out he yelled that “El Gato” (Mexico City Kung Fu teacher notorious for his shakedown of other schools) would be back to deal with me. Well those weren’t exactly the words that he used, “El Gato te va a chingar.” “The Cat is going to fuck you up,” would be a better translation.
A couple of weeks later El Gato did show up, as I was alone in the gym, mopping the floor. (A teacher’s work is never done.) And there were a couple of pistol toters with him. He began politely and formally to explain that he needed to see if my Tai Chi (spoken with a sneer) had any validity, but that 15% of the gross should cover his efforts to teach me a more effective system. As he was talking I went to the wall rack and picked out two swords, put one on the floor there and went across the room with the other. “Pick it up.” I said, indicating the sword on the floor. “This school is my life. You are threatening my life. So you can put your life on the scales too.” Gato picked up the sword, spun it a couple of times, and held it out in a guard position. I moved in fast with a small hard flat beat continuing as a thrust to the face. Startled, he backstepped rapidly and dropped the sword. Then he started apologizing that he was only here for some friendly sparring and maybe to see if he could help out with my training. With my continued silence, after a couple of minutes he left. I didn’t see him again.
In the early eighties, I again expanded my martial arts horizons and was certified as an instructor in Filipino martial arts and knife combat by Leo Gaje.
http://www.wekaf.com/profiles/leo_gaje.htm. Amongst additional signatories was Dan Inosanto.
When Tuhon Gaje stepped into the room for my final exam for combat knife instructor, I didn’t realize how much of a final he had in mind. As he came into the virtually empty room where he had asked me to wait, he double locked the door behind him, and set an egg timer for 5 minutes. Drawing a knife from behind his back, he stated, “Either you will pass the exam or go to the hospital.” Sometimes times goes slowly; sometimes time goes fast; during those few minutes I lost the existence of time. Whether everything was fast or slow I couldn’t tell. There was only the pure instant.
That experience permanently shifted my perceptions; since then I haven’t felt too much concern when facing physical confrontation. I’ve stood toe to toe with one of the best knifefighters in the world… and lived.
