Correction

I received a very insightful email from someone who knows alot about such things and has asked he remain annonyous. But he pointed out something I failed to mention when I described what I called the Ball Peen Hammer punch. (I just made up that name - as I also did the Bull Whip Kick - for dramatic and more descriptive effect. No one ever called it that. It was just a description of the resulting effect when someone was hit with it.) He quite correctly noted that the index finger is not pressed down towards the palm but, rather across towards the middle knuckle. That's exactly what I do, and what I was taught. Thanks to him for the correction and a bunch of very interesting and educational information about the history and practices of Hawaiian kenpo, the many great martial artists who have come from the Islands over the years, and the many contributions they have made to our arts.

Fighting Arts Article on same fist

Here's a link for a Fighting Arts Magazine article on the same fist. Thanks to Andrew Paxton for passing this on to me. As I said, I never ran into anyone else who taught or was taught this fist. This would probably indicate that it came to Sam Brown through William Chow and James Mitose, who supposedly received his training in Okinawa. Thanks, again, Andrew!

http://fightingarts.com/reading/article.php?id=215

One more fist shot

Hopefully, it's clear enough to see the only point of contact with his forehead is my middle knuckle. It was even larger when I regularly worked out on a makiwara.

Ball Peen Hammer Punch

I meant to add photos to my last post but couldn't find them. I think I have them now.

Ball peen hammer punches and bull whip kicks

Continuing on my study in the early 60s with kenpo sensei Sam Brown.

Sensei Brown told us about “pinging”, a Hawaiian practice in which a martial artist punched an anvil so hard he made it ping. The goal was to “break the cap” of their middle knuckles. Then, when it healed up, the knuckle would be much rounder and larger.

According to Sensei Brown, when one “pinged” his knuckle in Hawaii (where he grew up), his enemies would see his swollen hand and know that he would soon have a formidable weapon at the end of his arm. So they would attack him on sight while he was still vulnerable. So the pinged person would lay low for a couple of weeks, until his hand had time to heal.

He told us that when done properly, your middle finger, post-pinging, would feel like a ratchet if moved up and down.

I don’t remember if he recommended we ping our hands or simply mentioned it. But at some point I decided to follow the tradition.

Lacking an anvil, I punched a concrete wall. Feeling no ratcheting, I punched it even harder. This time, my knuckle clicked as I moved my finger, like a ratchet.

My hand swelled up and turned purple. It stayed that way for awhile. But after it had healed, I was disappointed in it. Although my middle knuckle was larger, it was not as large as I had hoped. So, I did it again. The result this time was a much larger middle knuckle.

Sensei Brown also taught us to make a fist differently than anyone else I’ve encountered in my 55 years in the martial arts. His unique punch was formed by extending the index finger and locking it into position with his thumb. This rounded the back of his hand and separated the knuckles.

When combined with a nicely “pinged” hand, the enlarged middle knuckle protruded even further, allowing us to focus all of our force into that one knuckle, rather than the traditional two, greatly increasing the pounds per square inch (psi) of impact. This had the effect of hitting someone with a ball peen hammer. I’ve used it as a specialty punch ever since for attacking certain targets and used a standard flat fist or half fist to attack others. But it’s served me well through the years.

Sensei Brown also taught us a different and dangerous (to both us and our opponents) way of executing a front kick. The standard approach is to raise the knee, execute the kick, then wait for the foot to return before placing it back on the floor.

Between the start and the execution of the kick and between the kick and its return to the floor is what we call “dead time”. There’s two reasons for this name. One, it’s time in which nothing is going on. But second, if you allow much of it to exist in the execution of your techniques, you’ll soon be dead. So Sensei Brown’s approach removed much of the dead time, especially on the recovery phase.

We were taught to snap our knees upward and whip our kicks out, with lightening quickness and as little telegraphing and dead time as we could possibly muster. But instead of waiting for our foot to recover, we’d snap our knees downward while the kick was still in route to its target, forcing the kick to hit and immediately snap back to keep up with the knee action. The kick was executed much like one does to crack a bull whip. But the result was a hyperextension of our knees. And the practice negatively affected my knees.

Several years later, after I had completed my military service (and studied martial arts with others), I returned to San Jose and opened my first dojo. Someone asked Sensei Brown about me. He wasn’t happy about me opening a school even if it was on the opposite side of town, miles from his. He told them I wasn’t bad for a skinny haole with bad knees. Considering him and his history, I took it as a complement, even though he may not have meant it that way. (Fortunately, after learning to kick in a safer – but slower – method, my knees healed up. But I’ve kept that lightening quick snap kick in my arsenal and been times I’ve silently thanked him for it and the ball peen hammer punch.)

I’ve gotten feedback that most people prefer shorter posts. So I’ll try to keep them shorter. The good side of this approach is it gives me more time to remember more details, many stored away for 50 years and only seeing the light of day again because another detail opened them up for me.

Take care and thanks for reading.

James Mitose

Leslee Kufferath posted tonight on my Facebook page in response to a link to a new page I posted on Sensei James Mitose. I posted it in response to questions I was getting about him and why I had avoided revealing much about stories I had heard about him. She posted the following:

"My father knew James Mitose personally. I have his original book that he signed and gave it to my father. He was a great man."

Her father was one of our greatest jujitsu masters, Professor Sig Kufferath, one of my favorite people on the planet, and one of our USNKA Living Martial Arts Treasures. I wanted to pass on the perceptions of one who actually knew him. As I told her, I had always heard only negative things about Sensei Mitose. Yet he taught many who became great martial artists. So I always felt there had to be more to his story - or at least hoped there was.

I think our society tends to be too quick to focus on the negative side of people. I think it makes them feel better about themselves, even superior, thinking or knowing one who achieved great things was worse than they are in some aspect. I always tried to focus on people's positive sides and use their example to elevate myself, rather than focus on the opposite and try to bring them down to my level. While they help me become better, others end up exactly where they've always been.

My thanks to Leslee Kufferath for her input. I prefer to hold her father's image of Sensei Mitose in my mind than what was there before. Just my 2 cents.

Learning to kiai... the hard way!

Sensei Brown named his new group Ken-Ju-Bo-Ai and began offering classes at Pacific Judo Academy.

I was one of the first 12 to join. I was not just the only white belt but also the only teenager. The other 11 were grown men and black belts in judo and jujitsu. Most were either current or former judo competitors. And one of the group, Joe Molo, was a defensive tactics instructor for the San Francisco Police Department.

The first thing I learned was how to kiai. Now, people learn most things via one of three methods – reflection, instruction, or experience. The latter – experience – is generally the most memorable but also the most painful. And that was the method by which I learned to kiai. In my very first class, everyone knocked the wind out of me at least once.

Not only did I learn how to kiai in the process, but also how to keep fighting until I could regain my breath. If I hadn’t learned this skill quickly, I would have had far more than my breathing to worry about because no one ever stopped until told to do so. And Sensei Brown had announced at the start of our first class that he wanted to see blood at every workout… and he did… as well as broken legs, arms, toes, fingers, jaws, and collar bones. A fair amount of it was mine.

Sensei Brown focused much of our training on perfecting ways to attack four vital areas – the groin, solar plexus, throat, and eyes. We practiced attacking each of these in a variety of ways and from all angles, over and over until we could find them even in the dim light of nighttime streets.

We began each workout with a lot of body conditioning and toughening drills, especially our stomachs. In one drill, we practiced punching each other in the gut. In another, we would lie down on the mat side by side, our belts lined up with that of the person next to us. The first in line would get up and run across everyone’s stomachs, then lie down at the opposite end. The second person would repeat the process, then the third. But as this continued, people would pick up speed. Soon, feet were not always on target and would step on your groin, neck, or face.

Whenever someone got promoted, he had to stand in horse stance (kiba dachi), with his hands tucked into his belt behind his back. Everyone would line up and punch him one time in the gut, as hard as they could.

Laughing or joking around was forbidden. The only time we were allowed to laugh was when someone fell. Then, everyone would run over and laugh as they kicked the downed person relatively hard as he tried to get to his feet. This was done to teach us the price of going down in a fight and make us always struggle to stay on our feet.

To become an assistant instructor, I had to stand in a low horse stance with my thighs parallel to the floor and my arms out straight in front of me, level with my shoulders. I had to stay in that position, without moving, for thirty minutes. It was an extremely difficult task physically. But it was perhaps even more difficult mentally and spiritually – our spirits that part of us that keeps us going when every other part wants to quit.

It was a great learning tool, enabling me to better know myself and my level of inner strength. And it contributed towards the development of one of the most critical of martial qualities, self discipline. My mind learned through this and other drills and experiences to dominate my body.

A lack of self discipline is the great destroyer of our goals and dreams. Our bodies are born weak. And either our minds control our bodies, or our bodies control our minds. If our minds can’t dominate our weak, pleasure seeking bodies, they will always fail us when things get tough, robbing us of the achievement of any difficult goal we set for ourselves, cheating us of ever achieving success.

To stay in a low kiba dachi, I learned to make subtle adjustments in the muscles holding me up, relaxing one muscle a bit and tightening another to compensate, giving the first some rest before calling it back into service.

But most important, I also learned to keep my mind occupied on other things so it couldn’t dwell on the overwhelming pain and fatigue. I used rudimentary mental disassociation drills, which I would later research and refine, to get through this and many other difficult tasks in my years in karate.

I have a bit more to add about Sensei Brown, including the Hawaiian practice of “pinging”, that when coupled with a unique way to form a fist, allowed us to hit with all our force in a single knuckle, as with a ball peen hammer. I’ll also reveal important lessons I learned for personal security that are still of service to me almost 50 years later.

Thanks for reading the humble ramblings of an old man.