holy sh*t i know that guy!
when i was a young lad of about 12-13 i was taking Shorin-Ryu karate (wasn’t any kung fu in Port Arthur, TX at that time lol)
anyways, my sensei set up a seminar with this sakronowski guy to come to our school on a saturday. the sak man, his wife, and a top student named David put on a very impressive show for us. pretty much went along the lines of what you saw on the discovery channel with all the ball kickin’ and throat punchin’. one thing i must say in this crazy f-ers defense is that he and his student david were a lot more impressive than any of the students on the show.
they used our black belt instructors to administer the various strikes and kicks, including having four of them punch the throat at once, so i am certain there weren’t any shenanigans on their end. his wife also did some pretty sloppy looking sword work.
however, one thing that did strike me (no pun intended) as a little odd when i first saw it, was the groin kick. basically, i could tell in this particular instance that the student David was rising up on the balls (once again, no pun intended, ok maybe a little lol) of his feet right as the kick struck to lessen the blow.
being a young, unknowing little redneck i aspired to train with him, but luckily grew out of it.
now, since i have seen the discovery channel special with my now martialy educated eyes, and having the memories of our private demo made fresh again it seems pretty easy to see that all this is just conditioning and not any type of real iron body or other chi/ki based technique.
one thing i remembered was the inordinate ammount of braces and wraps the three at my school and then the students on the discovery special were wearing on various parts of their anatomy. which sparks the question, if this combat ki is basically the ability to take strikes without being injured, why are so many of the students injured?
anyways, just a little waltz down memory lane, if anyone wants any other detail i will see what i can remember…
D
I love the smell of iron palm in the morning, it smells like… victory