A few decades ago almost nobody knew what karate was. But two decades ago my nephew took it in school.
But away back then, if anyone had heard of karate, it was what we called “the grunt and groan school.”* This was the form of show karate where a person would put several bricks on two boards and then break through them with his hand.
Us real shrewd guys knew all the ins and outs, so we saw that there were several problems with using grunt and groan karate as a fighting tool.
One technical difficulty of grunt and groan karate, for example, was persuading one’s enemy to put his head down between two boards in the proper position.
I was in an unarmed combat class as part of my Intelligence work. After class the instructor and an advanced student were talking about grunt and groan karate. I had a joke I had been dying to make.
In case you think I have always acted intelligently, please remember that I couldn’t resist making a smartass remark to two guys who were both experts at killing people with their bare hands.
I said, “I know you start with small planks and move on to breaking bricks, but what do you break in the very first classes?”
The instructor naturally said that you have to learn the technique first, so you don’t break things in the early classes.
I replied, “Hell, I must have been especially talented. In my very first class” I pointed to the side of my hand, “I broke this and this and…”
They both laughed.
But I also noticed they were looking me over very cloesly.
I got the distinct impression that they were deciding, in case I didn’t shut up, which of my “vital pressure points” they were going to take out first.
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