fter a few unsuccessful visits to several schools, we were told to try a school located in the outskirts of our town, near an old
mine. We didn’t believe that we would see anything better than what we had seen in the town center, but something was definitely drawing us there. After spending half a day questioning a great number of locals, we finally found it.
“Indeed,” in a low voice confessed my friend Tatyana, “this place is, of course, quite scary. If we will be practicing here, I will die from fear. I already have goose bumps.”
I too felt a light shiver, even though the weather was quite warm. Approaching a dilapidated old building, blooming with moss, even always-silent Slava couldn’t keep quiet:
“Well, well! I think we’ve just wasted our time. Don’t tell me that someone is practicing in this out-of-theway hole. I bet, only mice are practicing here at night.”
Andrew, whose face and figure were slightly reminiscent of the Russian Schwarzenegger, concluded significantly, “Generally speaking, the outside form always corresponds to its contents. It’s very likely that we’ll reinforce that saying.”
And having pulled the handle of a worn-out door, he heard crafty words cited by Kostya with regret: “I'll bet the doctor's in your body yet.”
With loud laughter, we rushed into the sports hall. But our cheerful mood quickly changed to mute amazement because inside there were around sixty people.
“Oho,” Slava whistled, “there you are!”But I wasn’t listening to my friends’ puzzled remarks. My eyes were immediately fixed on a fairhaired man. Even though that man didn’t differ from the others standing in the crowd, something in him was definitely intriguing me. “God, his face looks so familiar,” I thought. His appearance reminded me of someone I knew well. But who? I started to dig intensively in my memory, recalling all my friends from different cities, my numerous relatives and their friends. But all my attempts were in vain. I was awaken from that wild stream of memories by the melodic voice of Sensei (the Teacher) who turned out to be that mysterious young man.
“So, newcomers,” he said with a smile, “why do you stand like a girl after her first kiss? Here you either practice or leave. It’s your choice.”
That voice!... I was so amazed. For sure I’d heard his voice once somewhere. But where and when?
Our small company went together to the locker rooms. And all that time, buzzing thoughts continued to demand satisfaction of their useless curiosity. Getting ready for the training, I tried to ask other people around me about Sensei, to find out where he was from. But it turned out that nobody knew anything clearly. This intrigued me even more.
Unlike slow Tatyana, I quickly put on a white kimono and went to the sports hall hoping to find more answers there. But there I got only more questions. What struck me at first was the fact that there were people of all ages, from fourteen to fifty years old, and that was strange by itself. I’d not seen something like that in any previous school. I thought: “What can unite so many people of different beliefs, ages, and life experiences? If it’s only the martial arts, then what kind of master and psychologist do you have to be in order to attract and interest all of them?”
When the training began, the second thing that struck me was the ideal discipline and friendly atmosphere that surrounded us. Nobody here forced anybody to do anything, but no one ever thought of breaking the discipline. Everyone sincerely tried to do his best, and that was astonishing in comparison with our previous unfortunate experiments. Our company tried to show ourselves only from our best side, intensively puffing, groaning, and sweating. But even during that activity (painful, as it seemed, for my badly trained extremities), one thought didn’t leave me: “How was it possible to create such a discipline without, as they say, carrot and stick? What have all these people found here for themselves that they train their bodies with such enthusiasm? And why do they all train in silence?!” My feminine mind finally rebelled. “Why won’t anybody say at least one word!” For my curious, talkative nature, this was a complete disaster. But I hoped to gain at least something during the training.
After the warm-up, we heard three strong claps of the sempai (senior disciple). It was a kind of a signal. People started to form a circle by sitting on their knees on the floor. When everybody sat down, the Teacher went out simply and easily to its center. He began to tell the history of the Tiger style as if he were telling it not to the crowd of silly disciples, but to his old friends. For the first time, I learned that the Tiger style is the only style that preserved its original martial spirit without any changes.
It appeared in China. One of the Shaolin masters observed the behavior of tigers and created his own style distinguished from the others by greater aggressiveness and danger. The style has no sportive roots. Its martial spirit was transmitted from Teacher to disciple, changing his consciousness to the level when he begins to feel and to think like a tiger. By its wisdom it’s only inferior to a more ancient style called Dragon.
“All right, theory is just a theory; it’s time to warm up a little,” Sensei said.
He called three fighters - strong, tall, athletic guys – to the tatami and demonstrated a couple of defense and attack techniques from this style. First he showed
the moves at high speed, where the real blows were happening. Honestly, I, and probably many others too, didn’t even notice when the Teacher struck the blows. All that my eyes could record was the fact that Sensei passed by three fighters and waved his hands for a second. I didn’t even realize what had happened before they had time to fall. The same happened during the demonstration of defense techniques. The speed of the blows seemed to be unreal to me. And my brain, unwilling to comprehend that, suggested artfully: “Maybe they fell down on purpose, probably pretending.” But it was impossible that the men’s faces, distorted by pain, were faked. Sensei came up to them calmly and helped restore their breathing by poking his fingers into some points on their bodies. After that, the boys were able to recover from the pain and shock and continue the training. That entire scene was accompanied by silent contemplation of the amazed crowd.
After that the Teacher started to explain the technique of the Tiger style in detail, slowly showing each movement and the targets for the blows. I thought that these movements were too complicated to be able to be thrown in a split second.
Having split up into pairs, people did their best and repeated diligently what they’d just seen. A plump man of about fifty years old was puffing not far from me, comically ejecting his short hands and legs. His face, with chubby, bulged-out lips, looked like a big dumpling and was neatly shaved. His wise eyes looked through thick glasses. A small bald spot, with errant hairs turning gray, was shining on his head. “And how did he get in here?” I thought. “It’s hard to tell by his appearance that he has been practicing martial arts all his life… What is he looking for here? Has he decided to master Kung-fu in his old age?!”
My thoughts were interrupted by Sensei’s voice correcting the attack technique of a pair of young, strong boys near me.
“Who strikes like that? What are you doing, Valentin Leonidovich? You are a future doctor, aren’t you? You should understand why you strike, where you strike, and what is going on during this process. Your goal is to cause a painful shock, not just to flap your hands. A blow should hit the exact location of the nerve or nerve plexus. It should be instantaneous. The faster, the better. Why? To cause a spasm in the muscle tissue. In its turn, the transmitted nerve impulse, through reflex channels of the nervous system, will cause intense irritation of the nerve-knot, which will inevitably lead to inhibition of a certain part in the brain cortex. In other words, the man will fall into a stupor caused by the nerve shock…”
A crowd of curious guys began to gather around him during this conversation. Sensei continued to explain, “But the blow should be delivered taking into consideration that every human being has its own anatomical peculiarities. That’s why not everybody will be affected by an ordinary blow to this anatomical point. So in order to be one hundred percent sure, you should strike not with a straight “tsuki” (blow) but a blow with a twisted fist at the moment of the contact, so that the blow goes deep inside. As a result, a big “damage zone” will appear…
“This strike goes into the point between diaphragm and solar plexus. Why exactly there? Because there passes one of the twelve pairs of cranial nerves, the so-called “nervus vagus” or the vagus nerve. It not only passes that point but also forms the nerve plexus which forms two vagus trunks close to esophageal opening. And what is the vagus nerve? It is, first of all, innervations of respiratory organs, the digestive system, the thyroid and parathyroid glands, adrenal glands, kidneys. It also takes part in innervations of the heart and vessels. Therefore the correctly delivered blow to this point causes an intense irritation of the nervous system, which temporarily distorts functioning of the cerebellum. And the cerebellum, as you know, is responsible for coordination of all movement functions. Man is momentarily disoriented. In other words, it means that you have time to make a certain decision. For example, to deliver another blow or to run away.
The last word caused a lot of selfish smiles on the faces of the surrounding people, including myself. ”What? To run away?!” I thought to myself dreamily. “If I’ve just dealt such a powerful blow, I would, I would… wouldn’t chicken out, that’s for sure!”
At this moment, the Teacher looked at the smiling crowd and said seriously, “And why not run away, if that’s the best way out in this situation? In some cases it’s a lot better to get hit ten times in your own nose rather than to kill… to take somebody’s life.”
His words made me shake and turn red, ashamed by my own egotistic thoughts and megalomania. With bitterness, he brought me back to the tough reality of my existence.
“Because human life is invaluable,” Sensei went on, “your objective is to cause only a muscle spasm, a painful shock, in order to prevent the undesirable development of the situation. And in no way should you injure internal organs, break ribs or something else; that is, you should not cause serious after-effects to your opponent. That’s why we spend so much time here, in order to master the right technique of blows. Otherwise, if you deliver a powerful, uncontrollable strike, it is possible to cause great harm to the body or even to bring to death. What for?!… You should respect human life because one day you may happen to be in his place… Or maybe one day he will save your life. Because it is very likely that when you are in trouble it will be this human who will appear to give you a helping hand and save you. Because life is unpredictable and anything might happen in it, even the most unbelievable, what you yourself can’t imagine.”
Throughout the rest of the training, I was very impressed by this peculiar, easily understood lecture of profound anatomy and unusual philosophy. It completely captured my thoughts, and from time to time I found myself thinking over what I had heard.
Three claps of the senior sempai meant the end of the training. When everyone traditionally lined up, he commanded:
“Dojo ni rei” (which means a bow to the martial spirit of the sports hall).
“Sensei ni rei.”
The Teacher also politely bowed in response and said, “We’ll meet as usual at the same time. And now whoever needs to, change, and whoever needs to, stay.”
“There you are! And who needs what? Who stays? I want, too…” I thought to myself. But the majority ran in single file to the changing rooms, carrying me along. Running past Sensei, I saw the chubby man in glasses approaching him.
“Igor Mikhailovich,” he said to the Teacher, with respect in his voice. “Concerning our previous conversation. Here, I brought something for you…”
The rest I couldn’t hear in the noise of laughter and jokes of guys running close with me. In the women’s changing room, a storm of emotions already began to roar, caused by the discussion of the most vivid moments and Sensei’s explanations. All this was happening amidst women putting on many layers of clothes on their wet bodies.
A girl with bright curls was changing next to me. Getting acquainted with her, I asked, “Have you been training here for long?”
“No, only for three months.”
“And does he often tell and show such things?”
“Well, probably when it’s necessary. But, when he is in a good mood, he shows much more…Today it was nothing out of the ordinary.”
“Not so bad, nothing out of the ordinary”, I thought to myself. “I can’t imagine what something special would be then?!”
“What style did he master, the Tiger?”
“Not only. I’ve heard from the senior guys that have been training here for a long time that he perfectly mastered the Dragon, Snake, Wing-chun, Cat, Mantis, and Monkey styles, and a whole range of other styles that I just can’t remember.”
I gave her a distrustful gaze, “When did he have time to master all that? He looks like a young man. People sometimes spend their whole life mastering just one style.”
“I was also surprised at first,” she went on. “But the guys say that, according to the Teacher, a young body doesn’t mean the age of the soul.” My new acquaintance answered, shrugging her shoulders.
“Who is he, then?!” I started to become nervous, and my old thoughts, together with this new information, once again began tormenting my unsatisfied curiosity.
“An ordinary man,” I heard in reply.
Having changed, our company crowded before the exit and contemplated with admiration the unusual technique of a couple of athletically built guys who were training with the others who had stayed. I’d never seen such genuine, naturally beautiful undercuts, overturns, elusively smooth withdrawals, even in movies. But what struck me the most was the speed of their movements. “Is it really possible to move at such speed and still be able to orientate yourself so well in space?” I thought to myself. “Great! And where is Sensei among them?”
Sensei turned out to be sitting quietly aside, looking through a pile of papers and books with bookmarks, presented by Dumpling. Two more men were sitting nearby carefully listening to the explanations of the Teacher. Then Dumpling unfolded a yellowed map, and all four inclined over it as if it were a priceless treasure. Sensei started to mark something there with a pencil, constantly commenting and explaining it. I really wanted to get my curious nose in there, but at that time we were gently pushed by guys trying to get out.
“Hey, guys! Why are you standing here? Don’t you know the law of this dojo? You either train here or you stay on the other side of the door. If you want, go back in, and if you are going out, go out, don’t disturb the others.”
Together we streamed out outside. “It’s not fair!” I thought jealously. “They’ve stayed, why can’t we?” But, of course, I didn’t say anything aloud.
