I have a lifelong friend who has asked me several times to teach him self-defense. He is in fairly good shape, has good self-discipline and earns enough money to afford classes yet I continually refuse.

            Why, you ask? Here is a sure thing, a guaranteed student, and we all know how rare that is. But he really doesn’t need my help. I could learn from him. In fact we all could, and here is why.

            He has never been in a fight in the 46 years I have known him. He married the first girl he ever dated, and has worked the same job for over 30 years, loves the house he bought right out of college, has great kids, now grandchildren. He already understands, on a level I wish I could reach, how to protect all he holds dear. He has some kind of awareness we all wish for.

            We each have some kind of unexplainable event, maybe humming a favorite song and turning on the radio and viola…there it is. Or going to phone a friend only to pick up the receiver and find them saying, “Wow, your phone didn’t even ring!” This happens to everyone, meaning it is not just the randomness of life. Or is it?

            I once was on a 6-hour drive home from a job when I suddenly ‘needed’ to take an hour detour out of my way, seemingly on a whim. When I got home and turned on the TV I found there had been a horrific, multiple-car, fatal accident on my original route about the same time I would have been there.

            Master Chai called me when I was living in Salem, OR a few years ago to tell me he had been on a connecting flight to Chicago when he suddenly just ‘wanted’ to catch another flight. The plane he had been on originally went down and everyone aboard was killed. My conclusion is that all those years of training paid off right then. And my belief is that this is something he can teach to us. In fact, we have talked about this subject repeatedly in my tenure with him.

I believe he can teach us spiritually, emotionally, and mentally to be greater than what he can teach us physically. I am particularly interested in this because several times in Vietnam I knelt down, or stepped aside or behind a tree and ‘whack’ went a sniper’s bullet. I used to be really in tune, so to speak, and that was something I really hope I haven’t lost.

            But decay is inevitable, like death, and the aging martial artist must make it entopic. As our bodies slow down, our abilities should progress. Cases in point are all around us, from every old master.  You know the old guys who never seem to move but are always in the right place. Uyeshiba, Kano, Masamarn are names easily recalled. And yes, less we forget, Inosanto and Sirisute; although they are not that much older chronologically, they are eons older martially.  But they all started at the same place as us, the bottom – rank beginners, tyro to the stars.

            And what is the beginning you ask? Hell if I know. But I do have a game plan, thanks to all of my teachers, my parents, and my enemies. At the Chalambok Academy we assign rank based on the students growth in 4 areas: Self Awareness, Self Honesty, Self Teaching and Personal Power.

            And although we believe knowledge to be a wheel that everyone climbs on at a different place, our teachings start with Self Awareness. No one can be totally Self Honest if they are not Self Aware, body and mind. So that goal is probably, realistically unobtainable. Still we try. We stress perfect form without having it ourselves.

            It’s no crime for the teacher to self-deprecate, regardless of level or class. And Self Teaching is impossible without Self Honesty, although we all are honest with ourselves to a degree. The circle is endless. The yin/yang symbol is in the circular footwork of number 3 Krabi-Krabong exercise.

            Is that a coincidence? Is there a deeper plan? Can Self Awareness equate to avoiding all evil, cultivating good, purifying one’s mind? Christmas Humphries has devoted essays about the ability of a strong mind to defeat a strong body.

            When Master Chai draws someone from the crowd and makes them fall forward or backward and spin in circles is he practicing his Self Awareness or teaching us how to use ours? Stephen Hayes told me to push with the head and pull with the stomach. It is an emotional device, used to throw the opponent’s timing off. Master Chai says if you can upset your opponent’s timing this way, pulling him off balance or stopping him before he starts to move, just by 1/10 of a second, you can control the confrontation.

            Basic drills of every system are designed to let the student learn about themselves, their proclivities and tendencies, their abilities both physical and mental. We continually stress the development of a thinking martial artist. Master Chai has said over and over that it is a chess game.

Hence the old 42 count, (Ajarn Chai's 42-count was a something, he used to have a big easel with about a 2 x 3 foot piece of paper on it and he would start at the top with step 1, something like a foot jab and then inexorably work to step 42, sometimes breaking it up into 17 counts or some number of importance only to him. Nowadays he seems to stick mostly to smaller numbers. Believe me, it's damn hard to remember 42 feeds and 42 responses during a seminar.)

            That is why after I have been away on a seminar tour I always return to the basics to continue my training. I check my stance, my hand position, my breathing. I start my lifting regime with lighter weights and concentrate on form. I jog shorter distances and build up again. I look at the four ways to grip a sword. I get my stretching manual and ensure that I am doing every stretch properly, synergistically. I do not over train. I do my homework, my basics.

            I do this for my students? No, I do it for myself and they just happen to benefit from it. After all, I am learning more from them then vice versa. If your basics aren’t good, you will do poor advanced techniques, it is that simple. Self-Awareness is the basis for all I try to do.

            To quote Khuen Khru Dan Inosanto, page 15 of his book, ‘The Filipino Martial Arts’; “Truth is in being yourself, totally and a lively. “ And Self Awareness, my friends, is truth. You can learn it many ways, some easier than others. I learned in the crucible that was Vietnam; and it has taken me the rest of my life to be able to express it as well as I can to someone who has no way to relate. So for all of you wannabes, users and takers, players, portrayers and operators, here is a short poem.

Few people can even begin to imagine standing on the skid of a helicopter.

Yelling through the window to the pilot,

Flying about twenty to thirty feet above a river through the trees so narrow.

The blades seem to barely clear at about 150 miles an hour,

Wearing a one hundred pound rucksack and carrying a blooper in your free hand

That you could have a big grin on your face

While your asshole is so tight, a nail wouldn’t fit.

Looking for anyone mean enough to shoot first,

Hoping to never to find any enemy.

Just to have a nice morning, which has come to mean

More and more as you grow shorter and shorter in time,

But deeper inside maybe enjoying this war.

Vive le Resistance…Chalambok.

chalambok@hotmail.com