Lol. Ya, kinda'.
See, here's the thing. Ed Parker always used to tell me...
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I wasn't even sure what that meant at the time. Especially the "to see is to be deceived" part. I mean, heck, if I see it with my own eyes, that's good enough for me. Or so I thought back then.
I became a rookie cop while in my thirties. We had a great indoor gun range and a crusty old Rangemaster that we all loved. At the time I already had a permit to carry, and thought I was pretty well trained. I was on the range, broke for lunch, then was called on the intercom to come back.
I walk in and the lights are off, but the overhead spotlights are on and focused on three things. The backstop has two blue balloons taped up there, about eight feet apart.
In the middle of the range there's a short podium with a savage looking sword thingy sticking into the top of it. It looked like something you would use to behead cows.
At the firing line is a chair, the Rangemaster sitting in it looking into a spotting scope. He gets up, goes to the podium sword thing, and adjusts it ever so slightly. Says to me, "I'm going to fire one round, hit that blade, split the bullet in two and hit both those balloons." And I'm thinking, "yeah right."
He goes to sit back in the chair, but does so
backwards, and picks up a woman's old fashioned mirror, one of those oval ones with a handle. He puts his firearm, a thirty eight long barrel revolver, resting over his shoulder to the target - we both have on ear protection - holds up the mirror with his other hand....takes careful aim and fires, shattering both balloons. I damn near crapped myself. I had never seen anything like that. He says "go back and finish your lunch, trainee."
I go back to the lounge telling the other guys, "Gino just made the greatest F'n shot I've ever seen! He had these two balloons and - the place just explodes into laughter.
They say, "go back down the range, rookie." So back down I go. There's Gino, who says to me, "Are all karate guys as dumb as you, or are you special?"
He goes to the backstop, puts up two more balloons, and says, "Fire right between them"
I do and both balloons explode. He says, "the bullet shatters into fragments, that's what broke the balloons. You have to investigate everything, even if you see it. The very first thing I thought was Ed Parker "to see is to be deceived".
So, fifteen years later I'm the DT guy there. And when I taught, watching the guys work things on each other was not good enough. They had to do it on me while I resisted, I had to feel if it was working. I find that there's just no other way.
So I'm teaching them how to shove. Kinetic linking up from your root, you know the deal. And it works especially well with a shove. Epic even. It was a new officer's class. In the class was a kid, Brian, helluva' nice young man. His nickname was beef. He was one seriously strong guy. We went on to become law enforcement partners, still in contact today.
I'm trying to get him to shove me, hard. But he's going easy. Even though I'm light, I don't get moved easy, especially if I don't want to.
Now I start yelling at him, pushing him - and he finally shoves me. Perfectly
I fly back about six feet into the wall, which is only sheet rock. Where I go right through the layer of sheet rock and get stuck there. Like a cartoon. It takes two guys to yank me out. The wall has that cartoon image of a man's body, arms and legs akimbo. To
feel is to believe.
I wish they hadn't fixed that hole. They should have framed the damn thing.
