Will I Ever Be Invincible?

A conversation with my big brother went something like this (I was about 14 or 15 at the time):

• Me: Man, I don't know if I'm going to keep taking this taekwondo stuff.
• Brother: Why not?
• Me: Cuz, no matter how good I get, I'll never be able to beat everybody.
• Brother: Well, so. Come on now, can't nobody beat everybody up. There is ALWAYS gonna be somebody that can kick your a--.
• Me: Yeah, you're right. Besides, if it gets that bad, I could always carry a gun.
• Brother: Even if you carry a gun, you can still get your ass whipped. Besides, you ain't gonna have your gun on you ALL of the time. That's why if somebody's talking sh*t, I'd leave him standing there so I can go and GET mine. ESPECIALLY if I see his feet coming up off the ground like yours.

Around this time a friend of the family came up on us and chimed in:

• Friend: What y'all talking 'bout? Fighting? Yeah (Creative Brother), you're gonna be a big boy. You might as well keep taking up that karate because ain't NOBODY gonna fight YOU straight up once you get your size on you.
• Me: Why you say that?
• Friend: Man, when I was your age, I fought a guy as big as you, ONCE. I kept hittin' him and he wouldn't go down. I even kicked him and he wouldn't go down. So finally I got him talking, and I reached back, grab one of them cafeteria chairs and knocked the hell outta him. He went DOWN then!
• We all laughed.
• Friend: But seriously man, after a while, ain't nobody going to fight a big man unless they got a gun or a knife or something, or some help. I KNOW, I'm a small man, so I fight dirty. I ain't never lost a fight yet, not 'cause I'm all that bad (Editor's note: that's "bad" meaning "good" for all of you people who are Ebonically challenged), but because I fight DIRTY. I'm getting older now, so I can't afford to be fightin' them young boys. As a matter of fact, the next time I ever get in a fight, I'll fight DIRTY AGAIN. You got to use your head, man, your HEAD.

So years later, after a big break in training, many school hoppings due to moves, as I approach the upper ranks, I know I fight better than I used to, but I'm still not, nor will I ever be invincible. I read a forum a while back where someone was talking about carrying a gun and pointed out how even if you carry a gun, you must be able to get access to it or you can be beaten up or worse, beaten with your own weapon. The writer went further and gave examples of how cops had been stabbed or beaten before they could pull their gun from their holsters. All of this is definitely incentive for me to keep practicing my "empty hand" skills.

But will I ever be invincible?

I've heard plenty of stories of how people with little or no training have knocked out martial artists with sticks, chairs, and tire irons. I also heard a story of how a cop thought some "kung fu guy" was PUNCHING him in the stomach. The guy got scared when the cop didn't go down. He punched the guy in the head enough to make him bleed, and the guy ran off. The cop called for back up and didn't realize until he put away his communicator and walked into a McDonalds to get something to eat that he'd been STABBED. He said he didn't even notice it until the clerk told him he was bleeding. The cop was a Marine reservist I knew who was VERY strong for his size and had killer abdominal muscles. And yes, they eventually picked up the perpetrator, who was still surprised that his knife attack didn't work. I guess Sifu (teacher) didn't tell him that not everthing will work on everybody.

So here are these trained folks getting pummeled by ordinary people with grit and the will to live. Are these ordinary people invincible? I don't think so. But I do think they do what my Friend of the Family told me at a young age: they use their heads. I would submit to you that they also EXPECT TO SURVIVE. Since they don't have any preconceived notions like we martial artists do about how something is "supposed to go" they keep trying out different things in the spur of the moment until they get the results that they want. And, since they expect to live, they will stop at nothing to make sure that they DO keep on living. It's the same way that many musicians with little or know formal training can produce good music while many other players with degrees in music sound mediocre. Since the untrained musicians don't care about rules, they will do whatever they think will work without regard to conventions.

I still think that the best artists, be they martial or musical, are the ones that have a mix of both grit and training.

One of the masters I had a brief stint with before yet another move had been in his share of fights as a youth, and was a die-hard TangSooDo man. I can tell you that I have met very few people who could fight like him. He could put you to shame with the simplest of movements and the least amount of effort. He also manages somehow to bend time and space. The first time he hit me I didn't know I had been punched until I saw his hand moving backwards. My current teachers are EXCELLENT; they are good instructors, have years of training that is also mixed in with experience as bouncers in some of the local bars and their own encounters as young men and their innate will to live. I think it's that blend of training, practical experience, determination and interpretation that puts these and other teachers ahead of the crowd. Does it mean that you have to have at least five or six bar fights under your belt in order to be a good instructor? No. But what I think it does mean is that in order to be a good teacher, you have to teach your students that they have the right to defend themselves when necessary and that their lives are worth fighting for.

But are they invincible? No, and they know that they are not, and they know that they never will be. Yet, they keep training and learning and teaching despite the fact that they know they will never be supermen. They enjoy what they are doing, and in all likelihood will continue to participate in the martial arts until the day they die.