hen the main crowd left, Sensei started to show some special techniques on how to use counterforce. Divided in
pairs, the guys started to practice them. Tatyana and I also tried, but our feeble bodies ended up hanging on each other, like tired out boxers in the last round. Having seen our parody of sparring, Sensei separated us, placing us into pairs with the guys. I immediately mobilized all that was left over of my power. Who could have expected it?
Exercising one of the kicks, Ruslan, who looked like a skinny ant against his partner Eugene, complained to Sensei, “Is it even possible to knock out such a giant? He is so impenetrable, like solid armor. If he initiated an attack on me, I could at least use his own force against him, as you said. But what if I need to attack him? Then what can I do against this stubborn rhino? He’s a heap of muscles!”
“A heap of muscles is nothing. In martial arts, power is not essential. In the East there is a saying, ‘Hands and legs are nothing more than a continuation of the body, and the body, in its turn, is a continuation of the mind.’ In other words, the most important things are knowledge and skills. Then even the weakest woman, with just a touch of one finger, can knock out the strongest athlete in the world or even kill him.”
“Well, theoretically it’s possible,” Eugene smiled. “Especially if she is beautiful, then one glance is enough… But seriously, in my opinion, it is practically impossible.”
“It is possible,” replied Sensei.
“An athlete?”
“An athlete.”.
“With one finger?”
“With one finger.”
“Without force?”
“Without force.”
“I don’t beli….”
Eugene had hardly finished his sentence when
Sensei touched one of his throat muscles, a little below the right ear, with a light movement of the middle finger of his left hand. Unexpectedly for all, Eugene’s face distorted as if he had chewed a dozen lemons with the right side of his mouth. His right leg quickly gave way, and he fell on the ground, with no time to understand why. His right hand was not obeying and looked like a rag. Eugene glanced at Sensei with frightened eyes, twitching with the left side of his body.
“Ohsh, notsh shou bash,” Eugene could only mutter, trying to say something coherent. We stood shocked by this scene, as a young, healthy man was turned into a helpless, half-paralyzed old man.
“Whash shush i shu?”Sensei bent over the living corpse of Eugene and touched some points on his back and stomach. He did it so quickly and skillfully that I didn’t even see where exactly he pressed. Eugene started slowly recovering, massaging his suffering extremities.
“Notsh sho bash!”“So, how are you doing, doubting Thomas?” Sensei asked.
“Shenshei! You should have letsh know beforehand. I gotsh almosht crazy,” Eugene hardly enunciated in his broken, hissing language.
“What a pity you didn’t,” the Teacher said jokingly with disappointment. “At least once in your life you would feel good. Sometimes it really helps.”
“Sensei, tell us the recipe for this poison,” Stas jokingly joined the conversation, evidently being the first to recover after that shock.
“Well, the recipe is simple. You need to know where, when and how.”
“It sounds logical, but could you give us more detail?” Volodya made an attempt to clarify.
“In detail? There is a great number of BAPs in the human body.”
“Whatsh?” Eugene didn’t understand.
“BAPs – biologically active points.”
“Thshey are not pointshs, damn itsh! Thshey are balishtic misshiles!” Eugene said it with ironic indignation. “Moreover, witsh auotshopilotsh.”
The guys smiled at his zealous speech.
“Absolutely correct. It proves once again that any knowledge can be turned into a weapon. So, this effect of ballistic auto-piloted missiles is caused by no other reason than an accurate point impact on biologically active points of a human body.”
“And what are these points?” one of the guys asked with interest. “How do they work?”
“Well, it’s a certain area of the skin with common innervation. Located in this zone, receptors send signals through nerves which in turn transfer these signals not only into the spinal cord but also through centripetal and extraspinal tracts up to the cerebrum. There happens to be a certain fusion of seemingly unconditioned reflexes. Moreover, this process is reflected in cortical analyzers as well, with the formation of conditioned-reflex connections. In other words, to put it simply, a certain order for the body is being formed there.”
“If so, will it lead to such an effect?”
“Not just one effect. A man can be frozen for some time or knocked out, or finally programmed to cease existence on the physical level in a definite amount of time.”
“And do you only need to hit this point hard?”
“Not at all. All processes inside of the body take place at very small energy levels. If you affect these points with a threshold stimulus, that is to say, with a weak stimulus, it brings a much bigger influence on the body’s function than a strong stimulus.”
At that time, Eugene stood up and tried to walk around, all the while limping on the right with his right hand shaking. “My dshear mothsher, thshish gripsh, ash if I were laying on thshe right sidshe.”
“This lazy lie-abed,” Sensei joked. “He just wants to sleep and to eat well… You should train more!”
“Well, I kindsh of sweatedsh ash muchsh ash everybodshy.”
“I mean, you should train your mind more so as not to make an ass of yourself.”
“At which point did you ‘kick’ him so easily?” Volodya was interested.
“This is a so-called Botkin-Erb point. If I had pressed in a bit another way, the effect would’ve been completely different. If I had affected the plexus of nearby splanchnic nerves with the same impact power, then I could’ve caused a spasm of the thyroid artery, which in turn would cause a disorder in the thyroid gland. This would’ve led to overall weakening of the immune system or its complete cessation. In that case, he would’ve died on his own from any infection.”
Eugene stopped moving after hearing such a speech, “Shanks, you shealy calm me witsh shuch a chsheerful pershpective.”
“You also said, ‘Where, when and how,’” one of Volodya’s guys uttered. “What do you mean, where?”
“Well, apart from the fact that you need to know the exact location of the point and the power of applying impact to it, you need also to know the time of the day when this point is most active.”
“Hmm! And that’s all,” Volodya smiled.
Even now Eugene didn’t miss an opportunity to joke, still in his hissing language, “Tshell me, and doesn’t it come witsh the latesht map of the universh?”
Sensei smiled, “It depends for whom. For a dummy, even this won’t be enough.”
“And how can one understand all these points and use them?” Stas asked.
“The simplest way to understand something is, of course, to examine and to feel it in yourselves, especially the impulse of pressing, this is very important.”
“Aha, and if we screw up something in ourselves,” Victor made an assumption half in jest.
“You won’t screw up. There exist points-antagonists on the human body for this purpose, which neutralize the given stimulus or spasm. Everything in nature is maintained in equilibrium.”
“It’s better to try it on others,” Kostya proposed smiling.
“It won’t work,” Sensei said. “No matter how many times you try on the others, you’ll never achieve the right effect until you feel for yourself the power of this impact.”
“May we try it right now, during the fight?” some of Volodya’s guys asked.
“You may.”
“And may we?” someone else in the same company added.
“Yes, please.”
Three volunteers from Volodya’s team and Ruslan came up to Sensei. Stas, who also joined them, offered the same to Volodya who refused, saying, “I’m not your everlasting makiwara, you guys!”
“Well, well.”
Eugene hobbled, sitting next to Volodya on the sport bench, and addressed Stas, “Come on, guys. One shecondh and zhthere is no thongue nor head anymore. Andth itsh will be your own faultsh.”
“So, anybody else?” Sensei asked, looking at Volodya’s guys.
This time I screwed up my courage and put myself forward, evoking a smile on the faces of the surrounding guys.
“And what are you going to do?” Sensei was surprised.
A cowardly thought flashed in my head, “And really, why did I come up?” But it was too late to retreat:
“May I try?”
“Aren’t you afraid?”
“Only of tickling,” I got confused and blurted out my dad’s favorite joke.
“Alright, if you want to join the ranks of kamikaze, you are welcome.”
Already addressing the other volunteers he added, “Let’s work in full contact. Your task is to win this fight by any means.”
“May we work in a group?” one of Volodya’s guys asked.
“You may. Fight as you like, you have absolute freedom of actions.”
While Sensei turned around, Volodya’s guys came together into a circle, negotiating something in their own military language of gestures. Ruslan and Stas also whispered to one another. I stood among these giant athletic bodies like a mouse, without any idea what I could do, with my power of a small fly against a hurricane wind. Unfortunately nothing special came to my mind. “Alright, whatever will be, will be,” I thought.
The guys took up their fighting positions around Sensei. Only I stood in the same place. When the senior sempai gave the order to attack, Volodya’s guys surrounded Sensei from all sides and started to attack him at the same time on different levels. Surprisingly, Sensei easily avoided their strikes. He launched a counterattack so quickly, that all I saw were chaotically falling bodies. Terrified, I was shaking in my shoes. Then Ruslan and Stas tried to attack the Teacher. In fighting with them, Sensei turned with his back to me, only the distance of an outstretched arm. I made up my mind to do something immediately. Nothing else came into my mind but to catch hold of Sensei’s back, like a flea, so that he wouldn’t touch me. But when I tried to do my best to realize this idea, it turned out that my hands went through the emptiness, and instead of Sensei I caught air. I didn’t believe my eyes, right now he stood in front of me! “It’s easier to catch a ghost than Sensei,” I thought.
But then all my thoughts about the soul left suddenly when I realized Sensei had already completely bewildered the next unfortunate fighters. I turned around and ran away with all my might in the opposite direction. But having hardly made two steps, I got a light painful push somewhere in the vicinity of my first and second vertebrae. A bright, blinding light momentarily flashed before my eyes, as if I were illuminated by a bright powerful projector of some yellowy-pink color. All my body stood motionless in a rather unusual position with arms frozen wide, torso bent forward, and right leg half lifted. How I was balancing, I didn’t understand. But that time it worried me least of all.
I observed terrified what was happening to my muscles. They all as a single mechanism started to spasm despite my will and desire. And this overall spasm crept over all of my body. It seemed that the strain intensified with every second, and nothing was able to stop it. My body was being squeezed with such a strength that it seemed I heard my spine crackle. The most extraordinary thing was to feel the tension of my internal organs. It had never happened to me before. Even my strongest former headaches were trifles in comparison with this unbearable pain. The muscles of my face got so strained that it was distorted into a dreadful grimace.
Amazing, but despite all these transformations in my strained body, I kept a clear mind. I continued to clearly see and hear everything. I saw how guys from our group, observing all of that, changed their expressions, looking with fright at our frozen figures. I could clearly hear the words of Kostya addressed to me, “Oho! What a beauty you became, I can’t take my eyes off you.”
I wanted to reply to him sarcastically, but I couldn’t say a word, couldn’t even move my tongue. It seemed to me that an eternity passed while Sensei was bringing us back to life. But in reality, I hadn’t even stood one minute in this position. My whole body felt like pins and needles in all directions, as if I had simultaneously crushed all my extremities. My accomplices were actively rubbing their bodies. I hastily followed their example, though not so emotionally. My body was aching and hurting.
“Don’t worry,” Sensei reassured us. “In a couple of days, a maximum of three days, this pain will be over.”
Until the end of the additional training, all six of us were doing nothing but rubbing our extremities while suffering the tireless jokes of the other guys. When our company of cripples came outside, Volodya, who stood close to Sensei, said with admiration, “Splendid! It was a great training today. I warmed up my muscles well.”
“Oho, he warmed up his muscles!” I thought, hardly moving my legs. “If it continues like that, next time I will arrive in a wheelchair.” Our group of unfortunate fighters slowly toddled down the road, accompanied by funny jokes of our company.
“You don’t look bad, guys, just like in that joke,” Victor commented ironically.
“Which joke?”
“Well… two guys meet each other in the ER, bandaged from head to toe. One asks the other, ’Where did you manage to get hurt like that?’ ’I crashed into the garage.’ ‘Your car is probably smashed,’ the first one felt for him. ‘No, I was walking!’”
“But it’s not a joke, my body hurts,” I complained to the Teacher.
“Just don’t think about the pain. Because any pain is an illusion.”
“How can it be an illusion if I really feel it?”
“It just seems to you that you feel it. It’s possible to stop feeling any pain at all, if you wish strongly enough.”
“Really,” Slava asked with distrust, “even if they cut you up?”
“Even if they fry you,” Sensei answered with smile and added more seriously, “Because pain is a reaction of certain nerve endings to irritation, delivering a signal into the brain. If a man controls his body and mind perfectly, he can regulate his pain barrier. By the way, there is a ‘katedo’ school in martial arts in which masters specially teach their followers not to feel pain.”
“Lucky guys who learn in this school,” Ruslan mentioned dreamily.
“They are not so lucky,” Sensei uttered jokingly. “Before they learn something, they get hit in the neck with a stick at least one hundred times.”
At that moment, Yura wanted to say something approving to his friend. But as soon as he opened his mouth and clapped Ruslan on the shoulder, his friend yelled out at the top of his voice, “A-a-a! Don’t exuch my totremities!”
The whole crowd burst out laughing at such a precisely perceived absurdity.
“Well said,” Stas said laughing.
Eugene continued, “Such trainings will inspire people to invent a new language.”
“Aha,” Victor added. “And they will speak with words of unknown letters.”
We walked on, more cheerfully now with a host of new jokes, partially having forgotten about our unfortunate extremities. Just my stomach was jerking from laughter in evident pain convulsions. Andrew spent this time thinking about something and didn’t participate in our mutual conversation. Not paying any attention to our laughter, he asked Sensei, “And this style, the points style that you showed us, is that a style of the Old Lama?”
“Ah, don’t mix up a stone on the road with the Himalayas. In the style of the Old Lama, the Art is brought to perfection. There is enough one hand shake or simply a mediator, to do anything you wish to a person.
“Not bad!” Andrew got surprised.
“This is just rubbish. There are more serious things, and maybe someday I will tell you about them.” When saying goodbyes at the tram stop and shaking everybody’s hands, Sensei suddenly took Kostya aside and started to whisper something to him. We tried our best but were unable to hear anything. When Sensei and his company started to move away down the street, we began to torture Kostya with questions. But he tried his best to laugh off all the attacks and ascribed everything to his personal secrets.
We were silent on the way home. Only Kostya tried to joke and cheer us up. I was deep in thought about my pain. What’s strange, as soon as I started to think about that purposefully, my body began to ache and to hurt with new power. I thought about only one thing how to get back home faster. Fortunately my house was in the center, five minutes away from the stop.
But having accompanied me home, the guys didn’t hurry to leave. Or to put it more precisely, it was Kostya who was not in a hurry and who burst out with jokes and other funny stories from daily life. I already was shifting from one foot to the other, mechanically smiling and showing with all my appearance that it was time to say goodbye. But Kostya in no way reacted to that and went on with his jokes, only nervously looking at his watch from time to time.
Less than in ten minutes after our conversation about nothing, Andrew unexpectedly huddled himself up with wild cry of pain and almost fell on the ground, but he was caught in time by Kostya, who stood close to him. But Kostya himself couldn’t keep balance and fell down on the ground, holding his friend on his body. Frightened, we bent over them trying to help Andrew somehow. Out of fear, I forgot about all my aching muscles. Only Kostya seemed to keep quiet.
“It’s alright, it’s alright, just let him sit down and rub his temples, now it will be over,” he said, raising Andrew.
While we messed around and seated the almost helpless guy, Kostya glanced at the watch and pronounced thoughtfully, “Exactly as Sensei said… What power!”
We looked at him puzzled.
“What did you say?”
“I will explain it later,” Kostya pronounced quickly and started to help intensively rub Andrew’s temples.
Gradually, Andrew’s color began to return to normal. The yellow-blue spots disappeared, and his cheeks became slightly red. His breath became natural. In about a minute, which for us lasted for eternity, Andrew recovered more or less. Grabbing his head, he mumbled in confusion, “I don’t understand what the matter is… That has never happened to me before… Maybe I overtrained or something is wrong with my body… Well, but I’m still young.”
Kostya grinned shaking his head, “Wow! Sensei foretold even these words… So, have you come back to life, fellow?”
“Which words?” We didn’t understand.
But Kostya was entirely absorbed in the conversation with Andrew. “Sensei told me to ask whether you liked what happened to you?”
“What?!” Andrew looked surprisingly at Kostya.
“I say, did you like this fall?”
When Andrew grasped these words, he became furious and was covered with red spots out of rage, “Did I like it! Go to hell! If you were dashed against the asphalt like me, would you like it?!”
“Oh!” Kostya uttered with smile. “If he’s cursing like mad, then for sure he came back to life.” And then he added, “Why are you boiling and puffing like a teakettle? Cool down. This wasn’t a simple fall, but a punishment from Sensei for your thoughts.”
“What?!” Andrew got even more astonished.
This time I got boiled up, “What do you mean, a punishment?! How could he treat the guy in this way? He just decided to make a helpless creature out of him. What does Sensei do? How can he be good, if he is doing such things? He drones on about love thy neighbor, while he acts like that!” I recalled a couple of cases with demonstrations of strikes during trainings – they were harsh, ruthless, and rude towards a sparringpartner. Immediately a wave of despair and anger covered me.
Andrew continued, “What?! Punishment by Sensei for my thoughts?! For which thoughts? Are you crazy? And it means you knew all this time and said nothing to me? What a friend, damn it. And I was puzzled why he was cracking jokes here looking at his watch. Just so he could relate Sensei’s words on time. So, have you told? Enjoyed the spectacle enough, you idiot?!”
Now it was Kostya’s turn to blush, “You are stupid! Sensei asked me to stay close to you so that you wouldn’t break your empty blockhead against the asphalt. And then, if you were able to listen, I had to tell you these words.”
Andrew was taken aback as if doused with a bucket of cold water. We stared at each other. The conversation came to a strained pause. We also stood bewildered by such a turn of events.
“And what did Sensei ask you to tell me?” Andrew asked, still irritated, but already more self-retained.
“Sensei asked me to tell you that even a thought is material and that one should not use the Art against people.”
“What does this have to do with the Art? Which thought? What do you mean?!” Andrew was dumbfounded.
“You must know which thought. You were thinking over something the whole way, not me.”
“When?!” He was surprised even more. “Well I, I, I,… in the tram I was scrolling in my mind the whole training from beginning to end,” Andrew said, full of indignation.
“I am not speaking about the tram. When we walked with Sensei, what were you thinking the whole way over?”
Andrew frowned, intensively trying to recall that stretch of time.
“Well, we were laughing and telling jokes…”
“That was us, and you?”
“And I…And I… What was I thinking about? Hmm…”
After a time of concentrated thinking Andrew spoke out, amazed, “Shoot! Is it possible that it was for…”
He stopped in the middle of the sentence and his indignation quickly changed to reflection on some shocking discovery. This event intrigued us even more and our curiosity brimmed over.
“What for? What for?” We threw questions at Andrew.
At first, he tried to get rid of our intrusive questions, but he confessed, “Well, it’s an old story… I found some freaks who beat me up hard five years ago. Do you remember, Kostya, those lanky fellows?”
“Ah, those whom you swore to revenge all your life.”
“Well, that’s an exaggeration.”
“Your words,” Kostya said, shrugging his shoulders.
“Well, yes, mine. But let’s say it this way, those guys were the reason to start my intensive karate trainings… So… When I was walking that time… I was thinking over…”
Andrew got somewhat embarrassed, hanging his head. Evidently, it was not easy for him to confess it. But plucking up his courage, he continued, “In general, I thought… that with the help of this Art… they can’t hide anywhere… from my… revenge.”
After his words, silence fell. Kostya said with a sigh, “Yes, well… You see, it’s your own fault, you dream about God knows what, and I turn out to be guilty.”
“Are these also the words of Sensei?” Slava hemmed, trying to joke.
Kostya looked at him in such a way, that Slava at once was confused.
“And now imagine,” Kostya continued addressing Andrew, “how shocked those lanky fellows would be. Because they are ordinary people, with their own merits and demerits, just like us. But you are at least somehow prepared mentally, or rather you know about this power. And they?... Even if one of them survived after such a fright, just imagine what would happen to them later. Each of them would have thought that he was sick with epilepsy… You felt unpleasant, and how would they have felt? Sensei asked me to remind you that any blow caused by your rage will come back to you in the end… And something else, ‘You should not wish bad to other people, even in your thoughts. Because with the power of your thought, you are setting a trap for yourself, for your body and mind. And the more you think about it, the stronger it keeps you, the tighter its loop becomes. The only way out is to become a friend to your enemy and to forgive his deeds because you are also imperfect.”
Pondering a little more, Kostya added, “Well, I don’t think I forgot anything to say… That’s all, now you can be free.”
“In what sense free?” Andrew didn’t understand. “Does Sensei drive me out?”
“Well, he told me nothing about that… It’s me who lets you go.”
“Ah,” Andrew drawled with a smile and started to get up from the ground with Kostya. “And why have you fallen?”
“Why? You shouldn’t be so fat and heavy. I’m not Rambo to catch such a bull!”
We laughed and said good-bye to each other, in a cheerful mood. I was very happy that everything ended so happily. In my soul there was another revolution of feelings. And really, whose fault is it that there is so much evil around us? We are guilty ourselves. Because we don’t control our desires. And then we just get what we deserve. And then we yell and rebel, but what for? We should think more often about good things and be good to people, and maybe the world around us will change. At least in our mind. And our mind is our real world… If I had realized that earlier, I wouldn’t be paying now for my egocentrism and megalomania with my own health and life… Oh! If only I had known it before, I would have been more confident in tomorrow. But since I’m doomed to such a destiny, at least I will try to live this time with dignity, as a human… Sensei was right when he said once, ‘The quality of instants lived by you in this life are much more important than senseless years of existence. How you lived, and not how many years you lived, is important.’
Yes, we are responsible for all that we think and do. Why was I angry with Sensei? We are guilty ourselves, and he is just an observer of our reality, our irresponsibility and disorder. He judges from the point of view of his internal world, his knowledge, and his high moral values. In order to understand him, we first need to become humans.
