I work in the computer industry and there is a certain connotation when you say “Oh, he’s a computer geek”. Well, I’ve meet one that reminds me of Clark Kent. He’s a PHP coder by day and Martial Artist by night. In fact, at his day job, I’m sure some walk by him and if you didn’t know his alter ego, the unaware would say that he’s just another PHP programmer. Why I point out the word unaware is he teaches that being prepared gives you a different attitude when facing situations that would strike fear in most. You walk with a different confidence and are less likely to be a target for attack.

Before I get into a list of martial arts accomplishments that is mind boggling and longer than most of us have in their day jobs, think about this. No matter where you are or were in life, there is always the baddest guy you know. Sure there are better video game or ball players, but I’m talking about who you strikes fear in you. We all knew him in school, he was the bully. If you go to a gym, he’s the guy who can bench the most. There is always someone who you compare yourself against and as you move on in life, there’s always a next baddest guy. I’m going to point out that it’s not always about kicking someone else’s butt, but it’s being able to and not doing it. Or better yet, being able to do it no matter how or with what you are attacked with, in the blink of an eye.

Qui-Gon Jinn said in the The Phantom Menace , there’s always a bigger fish. Well the biggest fish I know, and likely the biggest fish most people will ever know is Mr. O, Sensei at Karate International . Not only is he a 9th degree Blackbelt in Karate; he is a 6th degree Blackbelt in Jujitsu; 3rd Degree Black Belt in Judo; 2nd Degree Black Belt, Japanese Kendo, Blackbelt in Tai Kwan Do, Inducted into the Karate Hall of Fame in 1998 and the U.S. Martial Arts Hall of Fame in 2001. He’s won well over 200 trophies in competition and has been state judo champion 2 times. So the net of it is, you pick your poison, he’s going to hand your butt to you. I’ll point out that in some of these disciplines, if needed, eviscerating or killing is quite easy and learning how to do it is part of the training. I know from experience that they don’t just hand out black belts to anyone, you work and you train and you hone your skills to the point of exactness.

Mr. O is not the biggest or strongest guy you’ll meet, but that’s not the point. You don’t have to be big to be bad, you have to work your at your art to be the best. Being skilled at something does not happen by accident. Mr. O has trained for over 30 years and in any of these forms of the martial arts, I’ve yet to see anyone best him. He can throw you like a rag doll if you’re dumb enough to grab him. It’s so fast that time won’t seem to pass from standing to picking yourself off the floor. He can strike you up and down your body, choosing to stop you or break bones if you’re dumb enough to stand in one place too long (an instant is too long). He’ll tell you where and how he’ll hit you and you can’t stop it. He’ll pin you with a finger (I know this one from experience) or apply a hold as excruciating as a broken limb, or fight like a samurai with the long sword. It is bad enough to face anyone in just one of these arts, but to face all these in one person is disconcerting. Let me sum it up this way. We train and practice and work and come back to the dojo and no matter what the class is, he wins. Now, assume someone is dumb enough to try something on him out on the street. As Mr. T. once said, “I pity the fool that try’s that”.

He’s been nicknamed the smiling dragon, and for a good reason. We’re taught to not betray your next move when sparring by giving it away with a facial expression. When Mr. O spars, he smiles and thus you know why he has that name. I asked him in class one day why he smiled (other than the previously stated reason). He told me he smiled when he knew that he had his opponent beaten. This is particularly upsetting when he smiles before the match begins. I asked him about another story I had heard that when he was a green belt, he was beating the founder of our style of karate, then at least a 6th degree Blackbelt. In typical understatement, he answered that he was starting to annoy the founder. Take away from this that annoy is analogous to he was handling him quite easily.

When I learned Mr. O. was a PHP programmer, he told me how efficient it was as a language. He described that in only a few lines of code, he could do what takes others far longer in comparable languages. Mr. O has a no nonsense approach to exactness, even though I didn’t understand at the time that it permeated his life from programming to fighting.

Mr. O has many stories which I hope to tell from time to time, but here’s a story with a moral about a guy that came looking for a fight one day, in Mr. O’s words.

“There was a guy who had self studied and wanted to fight, he had called all around town and no Sensei would fight him. Well, I understood both sides of this equation , so I made an appointment with him for early afternoon to fight, after lunch. I didn’t think he’d show. Well my office at the time was in the back of the dojo, so around 2pm the front office buzzed me and said that my appointment was here. I got up and went to greet the young man. When I looked past the front door, through the second doorway, my mind noticed something strange. I didn’t see enough light as I looked towards the door. This was a really BIG boy who filled the door frame from top to bottom and side to side. He was wearing some Tai kickboxing shorts and a loose shirt. He was very polite and appreciative that I would take time for him, as no other teacher in town would fight him. So, to go on, a little of my staff came into the dojo training area and found some cleaning duties to attend to (they never do this, but I guess they were intrigued) as I put on my sparring gear.

I made a little small talk with the guy to put him at ease and to find out what arts he’d studied, so that’s the build-up, He’d studied a few books and was a very imposing guy, 245 or 265lbs at least 6’5. So he gets around to throwing a lunging jab and slow backleg kick, then I slide in and hit him with a reverse punch. I hit him only once and was getting geared up for some action, but he buckled and slumped to the floor. I was so stunned that I just stopped, he went on to squealed like a stuck pig for a while. Well I regrouped and helped him up, as he called me master and wanted to train with me. Well, there are many more stories but that’s a start.

Please note that we always try to educate people as to the true purpose of the arts, but sometimes you have to take them back to first grade show and tell. Most people have no real idea what it’s like to be nose to nose with a real warrior. As you know I love to teach, and have a passion for all the arts.”

So he didn’t have to fight, but he was willing to. The results speak for themselves.

I’m going to end the first part of this story with some advice, Be careful of the Geek you pick on or assume is not capable of defending him/herself. You may get an unintended lesson. From a PHP programmer no less.

Authors note. Mr. O. is my Sensei’s Sensei. What I have learned has been passed down through the excellent teaching methods of Karate International and Mr. O. I’ve admitted already that I’m not a pulizer prize writer so I will take the appropriate amount of time to tell the rest of the story properly.

If you look further down to the post, It’s Picture Day at the Dojo, Mr. O. is somewhere in that photo. See if you can guess the PHP programmer.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, October 5th, 2005 at 8:43 am and is filed under karate. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.