Arrived 15 minutes early just in case. As expected, a high school, check.
Parking lot--full--check and uh-oh again. Not good, for me anyway, given that it was a Saturday morning.
Gym, check. Poster on the wall... Oh boy. Master Oh was giving one of his twice yearly demonstrations of techniques that were not taught in the regular classes. These were the techniques that you never, ever used in a competition, but were very useful indeed if someone tried to mug you.
So, why didn't I get a notice about it? Another big Uh-Oh. He didn't want me to know. That sneaky....
Hmmm. Starting at 7:30 a.m. Bring your lunch -- you won't have time to leave to eat. Ending at 5 p.m. Good thing I always had food with me.
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Listening at the door I could hear occasional noises, thuds, shouts, the usual for a demonstration. Very quiet otherwise. Maybe not so many people after all.
Hah! Who was I kidding? One of Master Oh's special sessions would bring out people from all over the Seattle area, not just his personal students.
10:02 and 59 seconds. I pushed the door open and entered.
Heads turned and stared at me. A lot of heads. There were some fairly widespread sniggers from the audience. I could read their minds: "Who's the kid dumb enough to come in this late? Stupid beginner!"
I stared right back and was more than a bit taken aback. I'd underestimated the crowd by a factor of 10 or so. Now I could see why this was taking place in a high school gym. Every seat in the bleachers was full, and there were people standing along the walls too. There were easily six or seven hundred people.
Ouch! I recognized masters from Washington, Oregon, Idaho, and even two that I knew were from British Columbia. In other words, the entire governing board for the Pacific Northwest Region was here.
Master Oh was standing at the far end of the basketball court. He cleared his throat, and the building was suddenly as quiet as a church on Monday morning. "It appears that we have a student who is rather late."
"Richards and Williamson. Front and center."
Two of the students I'd heard laughing the loudest when I came in hurried down from the bleachers, trotted over to Master Oh, and bowed.
Master Oh raised his voice a bit so that everyone could hear him, "Sometimes our younger students need special instruction. Please begin that instruction if you will." As he said that, he was looking right at me. OK, my first test.
I looked over the two he'd called down. Their belts were still a bright black, and they were just a hair stiff. Obviously these students had recently been promoted, and from Master Oh's slight frown, he didn't think that they had been ready. They must have been from one of the branch schools run by a newer instructor. "Begin with the basic forms, then proceed as you see fit."
The two black belts came to attention and saluted, then turned to face me. I almost shook my head at their stupidity. They thought that they were going to instruct me.
I let my eyes go a bit wild, then squared my shoulders and approached as if I expected to be made a fool of, but still had dredged up a little bit of courage somewhere.
The one named Richards approached first. When I saw the contempt in his eyes, I knew what I had to do. I just stood politely and waited. Eventually he became frustrated and initiated a basic attack.
In Hapkido (and probably any martial art) there are two responses to every attack. One is to block, and the other, which is obviously more difficult, is to evade or deflect the attack.
I just leaned a bit to the side and evaded. He'd obviously been expecting me to block, and he overbalanced and almost fell on his face. The laughter this time clearly wasn't directed at me.
He squared himself and attacked again. I evaded again. After a few of these, Williamson joined in. It was more than a major breach of form, it went against everything that we're taught, and, it was apparent that Master Oh had intended this from the beginning.
I countered as per instructions, with the basic forms and worked my way through them. Within two minutes there was dead silence as most of the audience had noticed what I was doing. By then it must have been pretty obvious to all but the novices present that Master Oh's instructions at the beginning were to me and not to these idiots who were now lying on the ground gasping for air.
"Instructor Ragan." Master Oh didn't raise his voice, but, of course, he didn't need to at that point.
A giant of a man came forward. He must have been 6' 4" and weighed about 260 pounds. His belt had 3 stripes on it. "Yes Master!"
"It seems that these students are in need of a bit more instruction, and discipline, don't you think.
"YES MASTER!" He went over to Richards and WIlliamson and picked each of them up by the collar, at the same time. Gods he was strong.
"Stand at attention!"
"Yes Instructor!"
"Bow to your teacher." They started to turn toward Master Oh, but Instructor Ragan stopped them and turned them toward me. You always bow to the one instructing you.
They both looked pathetically confused for a moment, then they both blushed as red as an overripe tomato as they finally realized what had happened. They came to attention and bowed to me.
Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.
I bowed back and said: "Dismissed".
The pair of them shouted; "Yes Instructor!" and returned to their seats. They looked more than a little hangdog, as they should have after that.
Ragan turned to me and bowed.
He raised his voice just enough to be generally heard. "Thank you for the instruction Master Knight."
That caused quite a stir. Even the new kids knew that you had to be at least 5th dan to claim the title "Master."
While the audience was calming down, Ragan whispered just for me to hear. "They're good kids. They're a bit full of themselves because they were just promoted, more so than I'd expected. I'm still rather green too I see. I'm sorry for that. I think that they'll be easier to handle now. Thanks again."
He bowed to me once more and then returned to his seat.
Master Oh took the stage again. How you ask? He just made a slight adjustment in how he was standing. I think that someone once called it "command presence."
"I'm a bit disappointed in almost all of you. You jumped to conclusions when Master Knight entered. I said that one of our students 'appeared' to be late. I never said that she was. Remember this in the future. Words should be chosen precisely and understood precisely. Making assumptions can get you killed, or, even worse, get someone you care for killed.
"Some of you look surprised. Hapkido is a sport you say. What's this talk about being killed? You don't watch television? Haven't you seen stories about random stabbings, murders, rapes? I don't want you jumping at shadows, but you need to be prepared at all times. I don't want you living in fear, but I DO want you living in the moment. Feel the moment and embrace your surroundings. Should a threat appear, if you practice dilligently you will automatically respond as you need to."
When he said "diligently" he waggled his eyebrows at the younger students and got a chuckle. (I never have figured out how he moves them independently.)
"So, we shall proceed as planned. Unfortunately, I can no longer know all of you personally, but that is, in its own way, good, as it means that our brotherhood is growing.
"All of you who are 2nd to 6th dan stand."
About 40 people stood.
"Hmm, too crowded to have all of you down here at once. Second dan students please be seated."
That left about 20 people.
"Good enough. Please come to the floor and arrange yourselves by rank, the highest closest to me."
Some minor shuffling and then all was still again.
"Master Knight."
"Yes Master Oh."
"Your task is simple. Come to me here. I wish to speak further with you. These students between us will obstruct you."
Master Oh, just stood there and grinned at me, the tricky bastard.
He continued: "I want you by my side within 5 minutes. Continue to instruct us in the forms, continuing from where you left off."
"Yes Master Oh!"
Damn, not only did I have to beat all of them, he'd just told them how I was going to attack them, starting with the simpler forms coming after those I'd just used and working my way up in difficulty. Not only that, the higher level students would have time to observe how I moved before I got to them. And I was only being allowed an average of 15 seconds each. Wonderful...
I thought for a bit and strategized. Straightforward attacks for the lower levels, so the higher levels would think that I'd continue, then switch to the tricky methods for them.
Yes, of course tricky. There are variations of almost all forms in a martial art. If you come at someone who is expecting a particular technique, they're usually vulnerable to a variation of it.
Putting thought into action, I began. I'd already wasted almost 20 seconds thinking about what I was going to do. The trick is that most people, and even many martial artists, think of opposing force with force. If you realize that, you can outmaneuver them every time.
I went, somehow, into that state where there was no true distinction between thought and action. My next conscious thoughts were that I was a bit tired and that I'd have some new bruises come tomorrow.
Master Oh was frowning at me. "You only had 12 seconds left. You cut it fairly close."
"I'm sorry Master Oh. I'll do better next time."
He laughed and took me gently by the shoulders then turned me around. There were 20 people sprawled on the mats in front of me. "Oh, I don't know about that. I suspect that they don't especially want you do to better next time."
He turned at looked at the members of the governing board.
They looked at each other briefly and there was a brief, murmured exchange among some of them. A bit of frowning but mostly smiles. Then the managing director looked at Master Oh and nodded briefly.
Master Oh turned me back around and patted me on the head. "Well done Short Stuff, you are hereby promoted to 7th dan."
I shouted at him, "DON'T CALL ME SHORT STUFF!"
I felt shock and amusement coming from the audience. NOBODY talks back to the Grandmaster! Then some started cheering, having realized that I had just been promoted to a rank held by few enough people that most of them might never see one again except at workshops like this.
Master Oh smiled at me. " I do love Piers Anthony, and his book 'Wielding a Red Sword' was particularly interesting. I've wanted to pull that trick on someone ever since I read about it. You're the first student who could have managed it.
"Now come back out on the mats with me. I promised to teach some higher level techniques today as well as ones at the intermediate level, and you're going to be my practice partner."
What could I say but, "Yes Master Oh," and then head out onto the mats for my pummeling.
We went into full contact sparring mode. Occasionally he'd tell me to "halt" and I'd freeze, and he'd walk over to adjust my position minutely. Then we'd resume.
Frequently, a LOT more frequently that I'd have liked, I'd find him holding out a hand to help me up after taking me down with one of the new techniques he was teaching. I was definitely getting bruises on bruises. However, bruises made you learn faster, as every good instructor throughout history has known. It even helps some if I tell myself that now and then, say, maybe every 20 seconds or so.
Finally, he held up his hand to signal that it was time to stop. I looked at the clock and it said 2:07. We'd been going at it for nearly 3 1/2 hours.
I was suddenly ravenously hungry. My stomach growled and he chuckled at me. "I see that it is time for you to eat little bear. Hopefully your hunger isn't enough that you want to eat me."
"Nah, you're much too tough and stringy."
He threw his arm around my shoulders, and I reached up a bit and slipped mine around his waist as we walked off the mats.
The audience went wild and I finally looked around.
(You never EVER look away from Master Oh when you're sparring with him. If you do, the pain will stay with you for days.)
I noticed that they were all still in the same spots they'd been in when I'd entered. I also noticed lots of sandwich wrappers and drink cups. Obviously they'd paid attention to the instructions to bring food.
I slipped out from under Master Oh's arm and ran over to my duffel bag and brought it back. Took out my five sandwiches and two liters of tea and got started.
Master Oh bent down, ruffled my hair, and said, "You still eat like a bear too."
I just grinned at him. I was too busy shoving calories into my mouth to talk.
He stood up and said: "Listen up people. I'm going to get a bit to eat and drink myself, then I'll continue by teaching your instructors the new techniques I just demonstrated. Pay close attention while I do so. I'm sure that they'll be checking on how closely you've watched when you're back at their schools."
Then he frowned, very slightly. "I expect that they will all be rather disappointed if you don't."
At the conclusion of that statement, there was dead silence in the gym and not a few pale faces in the audience.
Then he smiled and said, "Bathroom breaks are hereby authorized." The bleachers were nearly empty in 90 seconds.
He took my hand gently in his and said, "I've missed you little one. I have much to tell you, but later. That's why I wanted you here for two days. Come stay at my place tonight so we can be private."