He
was one of the most influential men in my lifetime. That father or wise grandfather I`ve never had. He never let us call him grandmaster, only simply "Yaron".
I
admired his mental abilities, but only tolerated his behavior.
Still, whatever he did was with purpose, guided by the zen philosophy
and way of life.
Even
the sucker punches in the arms, grabbing the inner thigh from the
back or tapping the testicles were with good intentions, because we
were not aware of our environment. We could only focus on the
exercise, but life wasn`t an unidimensional controlled exercise.
He
was as free as he could be. Imagine that he had no phone. Being a
dynamic spirit, was always on the next flight to God Knows Where, in
order to spread the knowledge handed to him by Imi L-feld, the
original creator of the K-M. Still, Yaron answered every e-mail that contained
questions regarding the techniques of the K-M.
“When
a master dies, the next day hundreds of disciples and wannabe
students of his create their own style.”
Probably
the most important quote that i`ve heard him say was:
“K-M
is a complete martial art. For one to be complete, there are five
things to consider:
1. Punches
2.
Kicks
3.
Falls
4.
Rolls, and the most important of all is 5.Philosophy.
Without
it, we are simply brainless monkeys copying and doing some moves like
fitness.
These
five are interdependent. You cannot have one without the other. Many
so called martial arts eliminated the ground combat, falls and rolls,
because they did not consider it to be important. K-M is like a
house, and every technique is a brick.”
“You
should always perfect the techniques. Let`s take Makat Egrof Smol for
example. If the punches at the dojo are 50% good and accurate, on the
streets filled with adrenaline, about 10% of those punches will be
good punches. Well, if you do 90% of the punches good on the tatami,
chances are that 40-even 50% of the punches on the street will be
effective punches.”
THE
FIRST BELT
Before
the yellow belt exam, the sensei told us when we meet Yaron to never
say good morning to him.
The
second after we entered the sports hall , guess what we did, out of
habit.
He made a pair of huge staring eyes, and screamed from
the top of his lungs:
“IT`S NEEEVER A GOOD MORNING. NOT WHEN
I AM AROUND! Now go get dressed!”
We
were shaking throughout the whole training. He forgot all about it.
When
the training was approaching the end, I was called in front to
demonstrate the beitat magal, (kick with the ball of the foot to the
head or the ribs of the opponent). Nervously, I bent my left knee a
lot in order to gain stability.
He
screamed again: “NO. NOOO! ... AGAIN!”
The
second time wasn`t that great of a try either.
“NOOO,
IF YOU WANT TO SHIT ON THE OPPONENT, THAT`S THE WAY TO DO IT.”
He
puffed and continued: “Again! I have all day. What about the rest
of you?”
(pause
from the students)
“You
have all day also. So continue, please. We are waiting...”
I
did it better, by not bending the knee that much.
“See?
That`s more like it. But no applause for you. Next time, maybe ;) ”
When
I approached him in order to kneel and get my diploma, he put it away
just as I could take it.
“For
you, mister knee bender, you have to do something extra for this
diploma, if you want it. Do you?”
“Y-Yes…”
“Are
you sure?”
“YES!”,
I cried firmly, with an echo.
“For
this diploma, you have to kiss this bald instructor on the cheek.”
The
guy on his left side smiled and locked eyes with Yaron.
I
shook my head negatively.
“Tell
me, Istvan, did he pay?”
The
bald guy nodded his head.
Yaron
looked straight into my eyes
“You
sure you don`t want to kiss Istvan! He is a good guy...”
“I
am certain.”
“It
was a good offer, but if you refuse…” and
handed my diploma in disgust and sent me back to the row with a wave
of his left hand.
A
few QUOTES
“I
was a fool once, when I was young. I thought that sex could solve all
the problems of a woman, because us men are like that. I will tell
you now. They are not! We men when we ejaculate, all the problems go
poof. With women, five minutes after that orgasm, most of them
remember or make up new problems. As a man, you cannot solve all the
problems of your woman. Do not even try!”
“Women
are complicated. If a woman says no, she means maybe, if she says
maybe, she means yes. But if she says yes, she is not a woman
anymore.”
“K-M is like sex. We do sex in order to penetrate the woman`s vagina.
That`s why every punch and kick must go through the target. In this
case the magen"
"You have nothing to prove to anyone on the streets.”
" Sometimes the warrior has to put his sword down and learn to use the writing feather pen."
“Religion
is a waste of time. It`s not balanced. Why, when I talk to God every
night I am a good Christian, but when God talks to me, they send me to
the mental hospital. Where is the logic in that? ”
“One
time, a student of mine from Brazil came to talk to me after the
training was over. She was beautiful, a 30yo brunette. She dared me
to hit her as hard as I can. Being a gentleman, I said I will not do
this, not in front of everyone. When she insisted, I grabbed her neck
firmly with my right hand and with my left I hit the top of her head
with a firm hammer punch. Do you know what happened then and there?
She
came loudly. She had an orgasm. Everyone that had watched, including
myself were shocked. She thanked me and a week later she brought her
boyfriend to learn K-M because she wanted to get punched good
during sex. What people do outside the tatami is their business.”
CAR
“When
you are in a car with two aggressors in your right and on your left,
do not do makat marpek latzad an the same time with boths hands. You
do not have the necessary force to hit your enemies good. Choose one.
Say you want to hit the one on your right side. First grab his left
wrist of his arm with your left and hit him with marpek using the
right elbow in his head. This must be done very very quickly.
The
same goes with one aggressor, if you are driving. Be very careful to
distract him. You can hit the brakes and then take him out.”
“If
you have a lighter in a car, you can use it to burn the inside of his
thigh, if he is wearing shorts. If not, go for the hand. If you have
a key that has a pointy tip, you can use it as a weapon to stab his
neck or even better, one of his eyes. If you are a woman and he tries
to subdue you, do not resist, but once you get close enough, bite his
neck as hard as you can, or his ear.”
“If
an enemy points a gun at you, get out ant climb onto the front of the
car, wave hands and scream. Do anything you can think of. Attract
attention to yourself, and this will attract attention to your
agressor, which may give up afterwards.”
KNIFE
At
the knife defence seminar he puts the wooden pointy “knife” in
hand and waves it around without purpose, cutting the air around him.
“Do
you know what this is?”
(total
silence)
“This
is fear.”
The
students look at him in awe.
“Let
me tell you. All this complicated attacks and defences you see on the
internet, are fake and dangerous for the one that belives it could
provide real use.
This fancy stuff doesn`t work. In a real
knife fight in Rio, where I live a man came to the ER with a long
knife wound that went diagonally from his chest to his belly. It was
superficial. The doctors got him 50 stiches and sent him home with
pain relief. He was as good as new in 10 day or so.”
“People
have no idea what they are doing. They do not know how to punch, let
alone kick. With a knife, the story is the same. But sometimes they
get lucky and the other party loses a finger in the fight. By chance.
Well, it`s one finger, but not your life.”
GREEN
BELT
Bucharest,
June 2014. It was one of the hardest trainings, because of the double
heat (directly from the sun and indirectly from the hot pavement).
The water breaks were rare, but the good guy instructors managed to
get a big water bottle with a doser and some plastic glasses.
Yaron
put us do Blimat Kasha (hard fall in the front, with a hit) about 15
times, until my elbows were aching from the margins of the bad
quality leather imitation tatami.
One
moment he was watching the picture of Imi with a pure heart and he
stopped the training.He called one of the woman students from Cluj in
front and asked her what her height was. She said that she was
1,55m. Then he told us to watch her carefully and continued saying
that all the masters of the original martial arts: Morihei Ueshiba
(founder of the Aikido), Jigoro kano (judo), and Famakushi(Karate)
were no taller than 1.50m, but were great in spirit. As for Ueshiba,
legend has it that he was frequendly picked on by the other children
in his school for being the smallest one. That`s why he developed his
martial art. In contrast, Imi l-feld was one of the tall
masters. He was 1.73m.
When
the training was over, he put us in a like in order to take a picture
and after we all gave a big round of applause he told us the
following:
“1.
Congratulations. You are all green belts. You won`t die on the
streets. Not easily.”
2.
I will see about 25% of you in the next belt. Because that`s life.
People come and people go. I do not know the reasons, and frankly I
do not care.”
3.
Drink well, fuck good, and have a great life. You deserve it.”
And
by God he was right. The number of students at the blue belt ceremony
was as predicted.
*
BLUE
BELT
During
that 2015 blue belt seminar, I had to throw my sensei`s wife onto the
tatami. It was the Kavaler techniques. On a regular basis, I had done
it a hundred times, but now I could`t do it. I would`t do it. Yaron
saw us, frowned and said slowly, pausing deeply in between words:
”You
are afraid. Why?”
I
swallowed: “I-I-I am not.”
The
whole room stopped and stared at us.
He
continued, calmly: “Yes, you are. You are afraid of her?
She is half your height and weight.”
“N-no.”
“If
there is no problem, then do it.”
She
was trembling with fear, and begged me through words, eye contact and
her mimic to not do it. Still, I wanted that belt, so off she flew on
the tatami.
“Good.
That`s the way to do it!”, he
applauded my performance.
***
During
a special training involving the use and defence from sticks in the
Polivalent Hall of Cluj Napoca, as I was exercising with my partner,
I suddenly realised Yaron wasn`t in my field of wiew anymore. After
one fraction of a second I realised the grand master was behind
me.
My bearded big bellied partner froze like he`d seen a ghost
or something. I closed my eyes tightly, tensing my lips together,
tilting my head back and expecting the worst.
Two
long seconds pass, and I started counting: “three, four,
five”. My breath was fast and my hands were a bit shaky.
I
open my eyes and with the developed peripheral vision I saw
something. His head was just over my right shoulder, smiling. There
was a spark of joy in his left eye.
“Aaaa,
you were expecting it. After all these years of training you learned!
Goood!”
Then
he walked away so proud and so peaceful... For about 5 seconds, until
he found the next unaware victim. That bloke`s noggin got a taste of
the master`s almighty staff of justice.
***
We
were sitting down in between the exercises at another yearly special
training.
“Hey.
You. Please tell me what car do you drive.”
“…”
Frowning,
visibly disgusted:“Doesn`t matter. A very large one, right?. 4
by 4. Why?”
“To
survive in Bucharest…? Ummm, to make my enemies die out of
envy.” (laugher
from the sides)
“One
word. Competition.
Men must have competition. To be better than others. A little is
good. Too much only reflects the social hierarchy. Are you ready to
defend it and maintain it? A warning: it`s a race against others.”
One
spring morning we had an instructor course in Buna ziua,
Cluj-Napoca. One of the students was a woman in her early 40`s,
which was a kindergarden teacher. Yaron put her to do a blimat
leachor (fall down on the back). She fell controlled as if a feather
was landing. Yaron raised his eyebrow and put her do It again. She
fell in the exact same manner.
Yaron,
disgusted blurted out a sincere: “Of course. Look at her
(talking to another black belt instructor). She is a woman. She
doesn`t need to show strength, like men. Although she could be
mentally stronger than you can ever imagine.”
At
the same training, he gave us a few pieces of advice.
“The
purpose of a good instructor is to divide the exercise into as many
small steps as possible, that are repeated again and again, in order
to help the student learn and understand every step clearly.”
“When
we were in orange belt with Imi as an instructor, we did beitot magal
(side kick) for six months in a row, until we achieved perfection.”
“The
most important fight as an instructor is with the parents of
children. One time, a father came to me, because he saw my poster
with the flying kicks. He told me that his son is eight years old,
and he would like for him to learn this kick in 2 weeks. Imagine his
reaction when I told him that this kick is learned in brown belt,
which is after six years. We cannot skip steps here. It`s not like in
the movies.”
“The
biggest problem an instructor could have is an ambulance in front of
the dojo. You are finished as an instructor.”
“The
human body was not meant to do gilgulim (rolls over) naturally, but
that doesn`t mean we cannot learn to perfect it. That is why in
training every day is gilgul day.”
“The
most important thing in the Krav-Maga is Amidat Motza. When you are
in it correctly, you are the most powerful man in the world.”
He
looked at a bald collegue of ours and asked all of a sudden:
“YOU.
Are you gay?”
“No.”
“How
do you know.”
“I
am not gay.”
“How
can you tell if you never tried it?”
(The
whole room burst out laughing)
Turning
to another guy wearing an orange belt.
“You.
Do you watch gay porn?”
flabbergasted,
he said: “No.”
“How
bout you. The not-so-gay-guy?”
He
smiled, and played along: “Well. There was one time I
acci-den-tally watched one.”
Yaron
put his hands on top of his head.:”How? HOW CAN YOU ACCIDENTALLY
WATCH GAY PORN? Do you know how much money I have to pay for cable in
my house in Brazil to “accidentally watch regular porn?”
(The
laughter in the room was unstoppable.)
After
5 minutes of jolly good times, he turns to me, probably because of my
near dream state.
“You.
Abuzaka [the father of the beard]. I have a question for you.”
“O-k…”
“Does
the tree care that a bird is sitting on his branch? Answer simply YES
OR NO.”
No
response came, and I stood there shocked.
“You
think about it. Let`s continue the training.”
Afterwards
in almost every demonstration he kept asking me if I have an answer.
Finally, in the last part of the training I said frustrated:
“Maybe.
How should I know the answer?”
“You
sure?”
“No”
“The
answer is that there is no answer for this. It`s a zen saying.”
/*
one day I mustered up the courage and curiosity in order to ask a zen
teacher about this. She said that nature does not have an ego, so
only man cares or not that the bird is on his head. The equation was
nature(bird) was sitting on nature (tree). They were in perfect
harmony with each other. There was no one to care. In conclusion,
Yaron was brilliant! */
The
last training that I joined was regarding handling Multiple
Opponents.
Yaron
said: “One opponent comes to us and we perform a defence,
afterwards another one comes and we do a defence, and then a third
one and so on. If there are many opponents, we grow tired and we
start becoming afraid. That`s why I recommend avoding these
situations where there are too many of them. Life is not like in the
movies, where the hero is attacked by only one opponent at a time, in
an organised manner. Let`s say if you are a high level belt you could
do with 2-3 attackers, but no more.”
Thank
you, Yaron for all the lessons, tons of sweat and the jolly moments
at the trainings.
