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Karate In My Life

by Joseph Palermo

 

The Start

        I went through my childhood in the 1960's ... and I was a little guy.

        On the elementary school play ground, bullies are always drawn to who they perceive as the weakest.  There was this kid named Skip, whose appearance could have cast him as a bully in an updated version of the Hal Roach "Our Gang" comedies, who suddenly one day decided that I was the target.  It was a Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday that he came up behind me, as we all got in line at the end of recess to be led inside, and put me in a headlock and knuckled the top of my head and said mean things to me.

        Thursday night, as was always my habit, I watched part two of the Batman TV series episode.  To my amazement and interest, Robin was grabbed into a sort of headlock.  I thought "Wow, just like Skip does to me."  I watched intently and witnessed as Robin grabbed the arm of the bad guy that was grabbing him with both hands.  Robin leaned over hard, taking the guy over his back to the front, laying him out on his back.  A flip!

        I smiled.

        The next day at school, like clockwork, Skip came up behind me.  Predictably, his arm came around.  With anticipation and fast reflexes, I did the "grab and bend over."  I could feel Skip's body on my back for a moment as his legs went out and over me and then he crashed to the asphalt in front of me.  I heard a "uuhhhfff" and he was still for a few seconds.  He then rolled to his side and gradually got up.  He looked at me and I think I did some kind of super-hero stance or something.  He never bothered me again.  He never looked my way again.  Hell, he never got NEAR me again.

 

        I would come to understand that the term "karate" means "empty hand" or "empty fist."  In other words, fighting without a weapon.  Thus, my experience on the playground was my first lesson in Karate.

 

        My father had grown up during the depression and got into probably more than his fair share of fights ... and the stories I heard!  Being second generation Italian/Sicilian "off the boat", my dad made it very clear to me to "never take anything from anyone."  This takes me to my next self-defense adventure.

        Darrell and "Big" Joe ("Big" being a way to distinguish between he and I) ... you know, you can say "boys will be boys," but being on the receiving end of the stick all the time ... it gets old after a while.

        So, here we all are, Joe, Darrell and myself at Joe's house in the basement.  I forget exactly what we were doing but what I DO remember is this.... I look at my watch and it's time for me to go home.  It's winter, it's getting dark and when my dad told me to be home at a certain time, he expected that I would be home at that time (especially since he had bought be a watch and I knew how to tell time!).  I announce that I need to leave.  I go get my coat on and there's a quick flash of Joe's hand as he snatches my pullover face garment and grins mischievously.   I roll my eyes knowing what this is going to be about.  I ask Joe for my head piece back.  He holds it out at me then tosses it over my head to Darrell, who is standing by the basement steps.  I turn to Darrell and plead with him for the head piece, which he tosses back to Joe.  This goes on several times, and I look at my watch.  I'm going to be in trouble.  Darrell has the Head piece.  I tell him that my dad is going to be really mad if I'm late and to give me my head piece!  Darrell tosses the piece back to Joe and daringly says "What are you gonna do about it?"

My memory immediately calls on a Batman episode.  I see Robin jab his opponent in the

stomach and then right cross him in the jaw.  And that's exactly what I did to Darrell.  He

dropped back to a sitting position on the stairs.  I then turned to Joe.

Oh, my God....the look on his face.  He was stunned and then wary and then moved into a wrestling stance.  I knew he thought I was out of control and I also gave up my power "knowing I couldn't do the same thing to him."  Joe grabbed me, wrestled me to the ground, and sat on me.  He told me to clam down.  After a few seconds and me not trying to resist he asked me if I was "cool" and I said I was.  He let me up, I grabbed my head piece and moved past Darrell (still on the steps and whimpering a bit) and went home.  I told mom what happened and she said I did the right thing.  Dad was asleep, so he never knew I was late.

        That was the second time in my life that watching a self defense move from television paid off.

 

My dad died when I was 12 but the things he told me stayed with me, like "If you can't get an entire meal, at least get a sandwich." (or ... if you can't be the winner, at least give the guy a run for his money).  Throughout my early teens, I encountered other situations where I didn't have the self-defense moves in my head to deal with it.  I tried studying from books at the library, but it was very cumbersome and without seeing the move actually demonstrated, you weren't sure if you were doing it right or not.  A smaller friend of mine (yes, I eventually ran into other kids actually smaller than me!) Roger, whose dad was a black belt in Judo, taught him a few moves but nothing substantial.  I remember watching Roger one time as he trades verbal barbs with this other kid, Bruce.  Bruce was easily a head and a half taller than Roger and was, unknown to Roger (and me), a student of karate.  Roger could have a smart mouth when he wanted to, but Bruce was smarter, so before you know it, Roger foolishly pulls his "my dad's a black belt in Judo." line.  Bruce laughs at him, Roger gets mad and tries to come at him.  Bruce manages to push him away and warns him to knock it off.  Roger takes the warning to mean that Bruce is scared and Roger foolishly goes into a stance and moves at Bruce.  He tags Bruce in the chest.  Bruce gets annoyed and tags Roger back right in the stomach, which takes the wind out of Roger's sails and brings tears to his eyes.  Bruce apologizes but also says he warned him (which he did).  Bruce tries to make sure Roger is okay but Roger rejects it and leaves.

Self defense is a tricky thing.

 

Actually Studying

Early in my senior year of high school, I was introduced to and started dating a girl named Kay.  Having met her through two martial arts friends of mine, and the fact that she was a brown belt, I began going to karate (Uechi-Ryu) class to observe the teachings.  I remember seeing a particular part of the second kata (Kan-shi-wa) where the karateka (student of karate) moves into what's termed a "horse" stance, performs a full circular block and then elbow strikes (horizontal) and kiai's (cry of spirit).  Picture three rows of 20 people executing that move all at the same time.  I almost went out of my chair!

After three months of observation, in January of 1976, I finally joined the class.  I excelled.  After only three months, the first class testing of two a year came up and I was told that I would test.  I did and earned the rank of 7th Kyu (white belt with three green stripes).  In fact, before the next testing came up, Sensei Jennings began teaching me the Brown Belt kata because I had mastered the others and he was afraid I would get bored.  Some of the brown belts in class were not happy with this, especially since they had just been passed over for Black Belt testing the month before.  Ahhh, the story behind the September 15th, 1976 testing....

During 1976, when someone found out I was studying karate, there would sometimes be a

"challenge."  Usually only the typical "What would you do if someone grabbed you?" There are so many variables to that basic question however such a question was an indicator of how little the average person understands about self defense.

 

How Much to Apply and When

Once, at a party, I was hanging out with a friend of mine and he was asking me about karate class.  His truck driving father, a real burly looking guy (but very, very nice guy) came over near us with his guitar and my friend says "Hey dad!  Joe's taking karate!"  Well, ... you know.  This burly truck driver decides to horse around and says "Yeah?" and he quickly grabs my wrists in both hands and says "Okay, now what do you do?"  "Well, ... you know..."  I began nodding that it was a pretty good predicament to be in (I was 120 pounds, he was 200) and then a simply did what I had done a hundred times in class.  I moved my feet slightly in to the Uechi stance, cocked my hands at the wrists in circular block fashion, pulled forward slightly (pulling him off balance), and performed a snap front kick at his solar plexus, juuuuust touching him (part of our training was control ... we should be able to come within a fraction of an inch of our target if we choose), and surprised the crap out of him ... all in one second.  He never saw it coming, and I never saw his eyes that big before!  With a nervous chuckle and nodded acknowledgment of my ability, he let me go and sat down to his guitar.

 

Tournament Competing

Then there were the competitions.  Now, let me say that I was never good a kumite (sparring). 

The idea behind kumite is to learn the basics of fighting ... learn your distance (how close do YOU need to be to actual make contact with your target?) timing (if you execute a technique and the target is no longer there, you loose!), movement (GOT to be able to move as needed).  Though we were trained to be able to execute technique with control, my first experience with sparring left me with busted glasses, a cut just above the left brow, a black eye and my opponent apologizing all over the place, even as he drove me to the nearby medical center.  In my head, what I did at the party was one thing.  The truck driving dad wasn't come back at me and certainly wasn't trying to hurt me.  But in a competition where the other guy is trying to score points, and after already getting wheel kicked in the face, I just wasn't sparring material.  Plus, my mindset was in DEFENDING myself, not ATTACKING.  I learned that no matter what I did, someone could get hurt (this is why in the controlled contact tournaments I entered, you couldn't strike above the neck and below the belt, JUST IN CASE.  The human body can sustain injury very easily.

 

Example:

I was in the dojo (place of training) working on the mak-a-wara, typically a 14 inch two by four with at least half inch thick rope wrapped around it designed to be struck with either the bare hand or foot for skin toughening.  I was minding my own business when I hear someone call out "Hey Joe!"  I start to look in the direction of the voice and all I see is a flurry of fists coming at my face in paddle boat fashion (forward circular motion).  Instinctively, I dropped to one knee (taught no where in Uechi-Ryu, by the way) ducked my head to the left and delivered a full fledged sho-kento (single knuckle fist) straight into the solar plexus of this guy who was only playing around.  I knocked the wind right out of him and had to help him sit and regain his breathing pattern.

Conversely, one time I was the one goofing around with some fellow students.  We would often make fun of the "chop sockey" martial arts movies.  I was stupid (because I knew better) and launched into a split, double front kick.  Both targets threw their arms up to block and cracked the toes on both of my feet.  With bruised toes, I had to go through the rest of class like that (dumb grass-hopper!).

 

Another example:

I was working on a scene in my student film "Let's Be Friends."  This scene was where the rapist of the story finally makes his move on the girl that my character is dating and I defend her.  Okay, we're setting up for the final moves ... he's supposed to throw a punch, I block and come in with two moves right out of my champion kata (Click to see me in action if you have Real Player).  We rehearse and he keeps wanting to let his head roll sideways and down like he's been knocked out.  I tell him (I was the director) he needs to just keep his head straight or I have to pull my punch from what I want to do with the shot.  We go over it eight times and he finally does it the way I need him to.  We go to shoot and he goes back to lowering his head.  On Super-8 film, you can hear the sickening crunch when I place my back-fist and it connects with his nose.  You can see his head whip backwards from the impact (and it was controlled!  God help him if we'd actually been in a fight and I was executing to hurt him!) And, you can also hear his "ohhhhhh!"

       

Now, back to the competitions...

 

The first competition I had entered kumite and kata (series of moves designed for memorization and expert execution).  Like I said before, I was not a kumite kind of guy and lost the round.  In kata however .... I took first place.  Oh, I didn't take first place?  I qualified?  Oh, okay.  I have to do this again tomorrow afternoon?  Oh, okay.

I went on to win the title of Midwest Lower Men's Kata Champion, Spring of 1976.  I also led us to victory in team kata.  I would go on to win two more first places, then earn my green belt with two brown stripes, earn second place, work out more, go back and regain my first place standing then retire.  All in about eight months time.

I entered college in the fall of 1977 and utilized my kata abilities in the musical Godspell in the scene regard-ing the Prodigal Sun.  After my performance, I had people wanting me to teach them.  Since I had not at-tained black belt level, I asked my Sensei's (teacher) permission.  He said "As long as you don't try to teach something you don't know, it's okay."  I went on to teach what I called "Beginning Uechi-Ryu."  I did this for several years and actually "gave" a black belt back to Uechi-Ryu in the person of Dean Klossner.  As of this writing he holds Ni-Dan (second degree black) rank and also teaches.

 

How Much to Apply and When - Part B

I bring this up again because of two incidents during my college years.  First, during winter, I had parked my car the best I could in the college parking lot covered with 5 inches of snow, and myself and my two actor buddies (one of them the guy who introduced me to Kay, and the other a boxing trained friend) got out of the car and slipped and slid our way to Jekyll Theatre for rehearsals of "A Christmas Carol."

After several hours, we came back to the car, some of the snow had actually melted away to where you could see the yellow lines.  I had inadvertently parked a little cockeyed and this fellow had man-aged parked next to me when he could drive up on the snow, but now that the snow was melted, it could have been tricky to maneuver his car out.  As we arrived at the car, the driver of the other car was there and started cussing me out for the way I parked, blocking him in.  I apologized, showed him the keys and proceeded to get us in the car.  The man kept on with cursing and giving insults as we started up and left.

My boxing/actor (and John Wayne/Audie Murphy minded) friend started getting huffy and ask me why I didn't "karate" the guys ass.  I told him that I had a responsibility with my training (remember, I knew how vulnerable the human body is).  You don't just beat someone's ass just because you can.  All the guy was doing was letting off steam because he believed he couldn't move his car so he felt trapped and wanted to blame someone.

Conversely....

One day I was anxiously awaiting a friend of mine in the Student Center at Lindenwood.  In was going back and forth from the billiards room to the open area.  A friend of hers, Ernie, was shooting pool and eventually asked me what I was doing.  I told him I was supposed to meet the girl and she was late.  He said something obnoxious to me and and said something back to him. 

     He stopped in mid cue and looked at me.  He asked me what I said.  I wasn't in the mood and told him "I didn't stutter."  He stood up to his six foot two height and, with pool cue in hand approached me.  I wasn't really in a position to move.  If I had, he would've been at my back (no good).  He set the cue on the table and raised a fist.  I subtly went into my Uechi stance and he moved at me.  I blocked and threw a few controlled strikes and we both backed off.  He looked surprised and I made my out. Once again, he never said a cross thing to me.  In fact, he started saying "Hi!"

 

Wherever there's been an interest in the karate I know, I've tried to accommodate and share.  In January of 1992, I was working a movie as an extra and met a stunt man named Tom Pieper.  We got to talking and along with working to make movies, he's also shared his vast knowledge of martial arts with me (Tom holds Master rank in Chinese Kenpo and black belt rank in four other styles). 

Through Tom, (above taking the kick) I met and became stunt-fight scene partners (and now good friends) with four time kick-boxing world champion  Earnest Hart, Jr. (above delivering the kick, and then with Cardinal Baseball great, Ozzie Smith).

Karate is Exercise (I used to fill a sweat band and my gi (uniform top) with sweat every workout). Karate is Body Strengthening (I didn't gain any mass, but I became much stronger, able to do the push-ups and sit-ups that never could on the playground).  Karate is a Work-Out (2 hours of flexible motion ... start stop/hard-soft).  Karate is Confidence Inspiring (I can STILL feel the surprise on my face when I broke my first board!)  Karate is Discipline (I WILL put that fist a fraction of an inch from the solar plexus, mouth, nose ... that thumb strike at the floating rib, temple or eye socket).

Karate is Endurance (I can be cool and deal with this situation ), Karate is Focus (Nothing will deter me from my target [whatever the target might be; studying and passing a test, moving something heavy, dealing with an emergency situation, etc.]), Karate is Balance (Keeping the elements in your life in their place and in perspective).

Practiced and applied, Karate becomes an anchor in your life.  You can begin observations by the videos provided for viewing above screen left.  We are working to get more martial arts educational videos available.

 

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