Grimjack
26-Feb-2006, 05:17 AM
I got a PM from a newbie asking if I could reccomend some posts for him to read so he would not have to go through so much chaff to get to the wheat.
It seems like a reasonable request. But I thought it better to open up the conversation to everyone. So I am going to start things off with a great post by Snake Plisskin that I think of whenever I see someone try to talk about how tought their training is.
Wow; I didn't know it was that obvious I'd never had "hard training" before. Funny thing, that; I was really certain that I had.
Then again, if your definition of "hard training" consists of standing in a horse stance while some insane wack-job jumps on top of your legs as an excuse to put his crotch next to your face, we're simply not on the same page.
If your definition of "hard training" involves attending a camp where the older man in charge warns you not to masturbate in the shower, so as to avoid ejaculating on the shower floor, we are definitely not talking about the same thing.
No.
My "hard training" took place from August of 1998 and ended at exactly 10:14 am in Grand View Hospital in Perkasie, PA, December 8th, 2000.
And yet, it's continued for the past five years.
You see, my hard training started when my mom, Linda Landis, spat up a huge gout of blood into the kitchen sink two days before Tai Kai 1998, and was immediately admitted to Lehigh Valley Hospital. Diagnosis: throat cancer.
__________________________________________________ ______________
When I arrived at Tai Kai--she insisted I make the ten hour drive--and met my warrior-brothers, they simply nodded their concern, and kept silent in the matter, wisely letting my thoughts be my own.
__________________________________________________ ________________
While I was at Tai Kai, the doctors back home removed her trachea, esophagus, and larynx (voice box) and replaced the esophagus with a length of small intestine.
I spent my time--dark shading into light, light blurring into day, for over two years--weary and afraid, angry and, praying for a miracle that would never come, screaming insanities, and shrieking impotently at whatever god or devil would hear me, that she'd somehow be cured.
I despaired.
And yet, I persisted in helping her. She persisted, in living.
And I continued to train, and find strength in the Place Where the Warrior Gods Live. It was in that place, training beside the same kind of true warriors here on this forum whose words you've read, that I was shown that my heart might break, but it would never be lost, if I just had the will to keep going.
__________________________________________________ _______________
And I kept going, even as I watched the cancer metastacize in her jaw, whereupon Dr. Koch of Lehigh Valley Hospital removed one-third of her jaw and attempted to reconstruct it using tissue from parts of her mouth, leaving bone chips under the surface that were unspeakably sharp, wiggling into her nerves.
MY "hard training" involved learning from her, as she fought, and fought, and kept on fighting, and we--my family and I--battled--BATTLED a healthcare company that seemed absolutely intent on having her die, as quickly and expediently as possible, so as to save them money on hospital bills.
My "hard training" was seeing her crumpled, half-alive, unconscious body, lying on that thinly-padded hospital "bed", then reading the chart next to her.
Two words.
Three syllables.
"Brain Tumor".
A death sentence.
__________________________________________________ ________________
The cancer spread quickly after that.
My "hard training" involved having to interpret what my mother wrote, because the tumor began to crush that part of her brain that covers writing ability. I watched her literally stare in amazement as her hands wrote words she did not bid them write.
All the steroids on earth couldn't keep her brain from swelling.
Radiation couldn't.
Chemotherapy couldn't.
Prayers coudn't.
Nothing could stop it.
Did I act like you seem to imply all your "hard training" makes a man? A NINJA WARRIOR, an UNSHAKEABLE MACHINE IMMUNE TO PAIN, TO FEAR, TO EMOTION???
No.
In fact, I cried.
I wept uncontrollably.
I wept so hard, I'd drop to my knees, fall over, drunken with grief, bereft of reason, robbed of my dignity, not giving a damn what anyone thought of me.
I cried out loud until my throat burned itself hoarse; I wept until it seemed my heart would explode.
And yet, did I give up taking care of her?
No.
And yet, I'm sure you'll try to convince me that your little beachside vacation made of you sterner stuff than I, that being King of the Mat shaped you into a much tougher, resilient person, that all that "Sparring" really prepared you for the kind of fighting my family and I went through.
Good for you. You just keep on sparring and trying to be King of the Mat, and keep on telling yourself you're learning something valuable.
After all, what's spending seventy-two hours straight in the dirty, medicinal-smelling "Death" ward of Grand View Hospital, falling asleep on a crappy vinyl chair, watching the damn TV [they charge extra if you want it turned on] day and night, eating nothing but the cafeteria food and what my girlfriend brought me, thinking nothing, feeling nothing, praying, begging, pleading, falling on my knees crying next to my mother and holding her emaciated hand, as it seemed God Himself mocked me...
...next to that hard-core, quality ninja training you received while sightseeing off some cushy beach in SoCal?
That's your "hard training"?
That's not hard training; that's summer camp for Flight Attendants.
__________________________________________________ ______________
The last of my "hard training" involved walking into the room and seeing her standing before me, completely naked, a child's gleeful smile on her knife-distorted face, and realizing that the tumor had taken her somewhere else. I dressed her in sweat pants, socks, shirt and sweater, and she just limply let me do it, like she was again a little girl. Then, I took off her socks and rubbed lotion into her cracked feet, and knew that the tumor had robbed her of all but her innocence.
I'm afraid I didn't learn to be as "good" a "MA" as you, because my teacher wasn't some overfed Kapo-wannabe beating on me with a stick.
No; my teacher was a frail woman of fifty-seven years whose throat had been cut out, whose jaw had been sliced out, whose body was wracked with such pain and torture and misery as to drive even the strongest insane, who only taught me to fight, with every ounce of strength, with my soul, to keep fighting until I could no longer draw breath, to maintain what it means to be human. And it was the Bujinkan and my training in it that allowed me to see--to SEE--that THIS IS WHAT IT MEANS TO BE HUMAN. That I am in an art that reasonated in my very SOUL, an ART that literally kept me alive, that showed me I had the strength, the willpower, the sheer tenacity and PA Dutch Stubborness to just...
..."KEEP GOING".
__________________________________________________ _______________
At 10:14 am, Friday, 8 December 2000, my mom, Linda Landis, lost her battle with cancer. Dr. Willenghanz reported she "retained her personhood until the end." She "kept going" until her body forced her spirit to quit the field.
__________________________________________________ _______________
I can still remember the weight of her casket. I can still feel it pull down my left arm, and how hard my hands had to grip that brass rail.
I can still remember my buyu in the Bujinkan who were her pallbearers, next to me and my brother: a USN Corpsman attached to Force Recon and later ANGLICO, a USAF C-130 Loadmaster, a US Army Specialist who'd just passed the Combat Medic course, and a USMC M1A1 Abrams Platoon Commander.
Did these men of honor, who all grew up knowing her and loving her as their "second mom", who trained with me and taught me to be as relentless in the pursuit of truth as in being human, did they stay all stoic and tough at that funeral, as I imagine your "Rick Tew Ninjitsu Training" would teach them to be?
No. They were unconsolable. They wept because they were my brothers. They wept because they were men.
Maybe if they spent more time sparring on the beach, they'd have learned not to cry like that. I better send some letters off to Iraq to scold them, now that I've come to my senses and realized that everything we went through didn't prepare us half as much as if we'd spent our time sparring.
__________________________________________________ ______________
Anyway, have fun in your world of "hard training", and I'll keep surviving in mine.
--Snake
You can find the original post here.
http://www.martialartsplanet.com/forums/showthread.php?t=44771&page=3&pp=15
Any more great posts?
It seems like a reasonable request. But I thought it better to open up the conversation to everyone. So I am going to start things off with a great post by Snake Plisskin that I think of whenever I see someone try to talk about how tought their training is.
Wow; I didn't know it was that obvious I'd never had "hard training" before. Funny thing, that; I was really certain that I had.
Then again, if your definition of "hard training" consists of standing in a horse stance while some insane wack-job jumps on top of your legs as an excuse to put his crotch next to your face, we're simply not on the same page.
If your definition of "hard training" involves attending a camp where the older man in charge warns you not to masturbate in the shower, so as to avoid ejaculating on the shower floor, we are definitely not talking about the same thing.
No.
My "hard training" took place from August of 1998 and ended at exactly 10:14 am in Grand View Hospital in Perkasie, PA, December 8th, 2000.
And yet, it's continued for the past five years.
You see, my hard training started when my mom, Linda Landis, spat up a huge gout of blood into the kitchen sink two days before Tai Kai 1998, and was immediately admitted to Lehigh Valley Hospital. Diagnosis: throat cancer.
__________________________________________________ ______________
When I arrived at Tai Kai--she insisted I make the ten hour drive--and met my warrior-brothers, they simply nodded their concern, and kept silent in the matter, wisely letting my thoughts be my own.
__________________________________________________ ________________
While I was at Tai Kai, the doctors back home removed her trachea, esophagus, and larynx (voice box) and replaced the esophagus with a length of small intestine.
I spent my time--dark shading into light, light blurring into day, for over two years--weary and afraid, angry and, praying for a miracle that would never come, screaming insanities, and shrieking impotently at whatever god or devil would hear me, that she'd somehow be cured.
I despaired.
And yet, I persisted in helping her. She persisted, in living.
And I continued to train, and find strength in the Place Where the Warrior Gods Live. It was in that place, training beside the same kind of true warriors here on this forum whose words you've read, that I was shown that my heart might break, but it would never be lost, if I just had the will to keep going.
__________________________________________________ _______________
And I kept going, even as I watched the cancer metastacize in her jaw, whereupon Dr. Koch of Lehigh Valley Hospital removed one-third of her jaw and attempted to reconstruct it using tissue from parts of her mouth, leaving bone chips under the surface that were unspeakably sharp, wiggling into her nerves.
MY "hard training" involved learning from her, as she fought, and fought, and kept on fighting, and we--my family and I--battled--BATTLED a healthcare company that seemed absolutely intent on having her die, as quickly and expediently as possible, so as to save them money on hospital bills.
My "hard training" was seeing her crumpled, half-alive, unconscious body, lying on that thinly-padded hospital "bed", then reading the chart next to her.
Two words.
Three syllables.
"Brain Tumor".
A death sentence.
__________________________________________________ ________________
The cancer spread quickly after that.
My "hard training" involved having to interpret what my mother wrote, because the tumor began to crush that part of her brain that covers writing ability. I watched her literally stare in amazement as her hands wrote words she did not bid them write.
All the steroids on earth couldn't keep her brain from swelling.
Radiation couldn't.
Chemotherapy couldn't.
Prayers coudn't.
Nothing could stop it.
Did I act like you seem to imply all your "hard training" makes a man? A NINJA WARRIOR, an UNSHAKEABLE MACHINE IMMUNE TO PAIN, TO FEAR, TO EMOTION???
No.
In fact, I cried.
I wept uncontrollably.
I wept so hard, I'd drop to my knees, fall over, drunken with grief, bereft of reason, robbed of my dignity, not giving a damn what anyone thought of me.
I cried out loud until my throat burned itself hoarse; I wept until it seemed my heart would explode.
And yet, did I give up taking care of her?
No.
And yet, I'm sure you'll try to convince me that your little beachside vacation made of you sterner stuff than I, that being King of the Mat shaped you into a much tougher, resilient person, that all that "Sparring" really prepared you for the kind of fighting my family and I went through.
Good for you. You just keep on sparring and trying to be King of the Mat, and keep on telling yourself you're learning something valuable.
After all, what's spending seventy-two hours straight in the dirty, medicinal-smelling "Death" ward of Grand View Hospital, falling asleep on a crappy vinyl chair, watching the damn TV [they charge extra if you want it turned on] day and night, eating nothing but the cafeteria food and what my girlfriend brought me, thinking nothing, feeling nothing, praying, begging, pleading, falling on my knees crying next to my mother and holding her emaciated hand, as it seemed God Himself mocked me...
...next to that hard-core, quality ninja training you received while sightseeing off some cushy beach in SoCal?
That's your "hard training"?
That's not hard training; that's summer camp for Flight Attendants.
__________________________________________________ ______________
The last of my "hard training" involved walking into the room and seeing her standing before me, completely naked, a child's gleeful smile on her knife-distorted face, and realizing that the tumor had taken her somewhere else. I dressed her in sweat pants, socks, shirt and sweater, and she just limply let me do it, like she was again a little girl. Then, I took off her socks and rubbed lotion into her cracked feet, and knew that the tumor had robbed her of all but her innocence.
I'm afraid I didn't learn to be as "good" a "MA" as you, because my teacher wasn't some overfed Kapo-wannabe beating on me with a stick.
No; my teacher was a frail woman of fifty-seven years whose throat had been cut out, whose jaw had been sliced out, whose body was wracked with such pain and torture and misery as to drive even the strongest insane, who only taught me to fight, with every ounce of strength, with my soul, to keep fighting until I could no longer draw breath, to maintain what it means to be human. And it was the Bujinkan and my training in it that allowed me to see--to SEE--that THIS IS WHAT IT MEANS TO BE HUMAN. That I am in an art that reasonated in my very SOUL, an ART that literally kept me alive, that showed me I had the strength, the willpower, the sheer tenacity and PA Dutch Stubborness to just...
..."KEEP GOING".
__________________________________________________ _______________
At 10:14 am, Friday, 8 December 2000, my mom, Linda Landis, lost her battle with cancer. Dr. Willenghanz reported she "retained her personhood until the end." She "kept going" until her body forced her spirit to quit the field.
__________________________________________________ _______________
I can still remember the weight of her casket. I can still feel it pull down my left arm, and how hard my hands had to grip that brass rail.
I can still remember my buyu in the Bujinkan who were her pallbearers, next to me and my brother: a USN Corpsman attached to Force Recon and later ANGLICO, a USAF C-130 Loadmaster, a US Army Specialist who'd just passed the Combat Medic course, and a USMC M1A1 Abrams Platoon Commander.
Did these men of honor, who all grew up knowing her and loving her as their "second mom", who trained with me and taught me to be as relentless in the pursuit of truth as in being human, did they stay all stoic and tough at that funeral, as I imagine your "Rick Tew Ninjitsu Training" would teach them to be?
No. They were unconsolable. They wept because they were my brothers. They wept because they were men.
Maybe if they spent more time sparring on the beach, they'd have learned not to cry like that. I better send some letters off to Iraq to scold them, now that I've come to my senses and realized that everything we went through didn't prepare us half as much as if we'd spent our time sparring.
__________________________________________________ ______________
Anyway, have fun in your world of "hard training", and I'll keep surviving in mine.
--Snake
You can find the original post here.
http://www.martialartsplanet.com/forums/showthread.php?t=44771&page=3&pp=15
Any more great posts?