I was once a Martial Arts Student.- 3

I am thankful that I never had to really put my martial arts study in to practice in a manner of a life threatening situation except on a few occasion like when I was invited to spar with aTae Kwon Do Black belt student in Green Bay, Wisconsin during my college years. The head instructor was a close friend by the name of Fran Wilson who was at one time a medic in Vietnam. Reluctantly I agreed to do it and when I was face to face with this student something in me told me that he meant to go all out to defeat me even hurt me if he had to. I knew too that it was too late to back out and so i faced him and before i knew what was happening my left leg flew out in a sweep slap kick like an arc and caught him on the side of his head and he dropped  in front of me like a sack of potatoes. Fran later thanked me for putting the man in his place, he was a show off in the group and not too many liked to spar with him.

 Another incident took place while I was working at H&H Ship Services in San Francisco where a power struggle was in making as to who would replace a supervisor who had just been killed in a work related accident on site. It never occurred to me that I was a contender but shit happens as they say. I was standing and chatting with an old timer, a black man by the name of Rocky who stood at the doorway to the boiler about two feet off the ground from where i was. Along came a young man and elbowed my shoulder for no apparent reason as he passed through between Rocky and I. Before I knew what was happening my right hand punched him in his stomach almost simultaneously and he stopped dead in his track facing me. My eyes were on his right hand and I clearly saw his hand tightening into a fist and my eyes followed his hand upwards till our eyes locked and I whispered close to his face."Do't even think!" At this he dashed off leaving me and Rocky stunned and not able to speak a word. Later I was called to the office and after a chat with the president 'Big Foot', I became the Yard Supervisor. Till this day I could still remember the incident as to how my mind/body took its own action while I watched like a spectator in a slow motion movie.

I had a face off with a man twice my size one afternoon at Green Gulch Farm Zen Center for reasons that i have forgotten. I knew i could not walk away without being pulverized, yet i faced him. Then an odd thing happened, he simply turned around walked away with a worried look on his face. I later asked him what had happened and he told me that he saw me growing larger in size and looked scary. Then it occurred to me that at that moment I had seen him actually shrunk in size and that I could have swiped him like a fly. How or why this happened i cannot explain except that I had been protected somehow by some unseen forces from within taking over my rational mind. Perhaps it may sound like I am making this up of even bragging, I rarely relate these events to others except now that I am reflecting over incident related to what I am writing about as a matter of sharing my experiences for what it is worth.

I am not sure of what the art of 'Subud' really is but I feel in me that even though I have not been faithful to my side of the bargain in keeping a clean and healthy spiritual life, I still have the force or energy within me that has been helping to keep me safe if and when the need to arises. My journey towards self discovery involves all these incidents in my past and they perhaps were mere coincidences, but I know what i had experienced and do not need to justify or convince anyone of them. I am not a brave man when it comes to facing my enemy but when push comes to shove I have the tendency to explode; which incidentally I fear more in itself. Hence i have more than often walked away from confrontations even if it seemed a cowardly thing to do.