Drive! -- by Michael A. Black

What’s the first thing you think of when someone says the word “drive?”

Since we live in a country that’s had on ongoing love affair with the automobile for the last century, most people would probably think about their car. Everybody remembers his first car, just like your first love. Mine was a --- well, never mind. That’s ancient history. Besides, with gas prices going up constantly, driving my car is one of the last things I want to think about nowadays. <Grin> Not that I think ascending gas prices is going to end the American love affair with the automobile.

For me, when someone says, “Drive!” I get another fond memory. Back in the day, during my grammar school days, I was the little kid everybody loved to pick on. Getting beat up in class, in the playground, and on the way home was a way of life for me. My dad, who had been a navy boxer, taught me the rudiments of the sweet science, bought me some weights, and enrolled me in judo classes at the local dojo on the South Side of Chicago. My first judo instructor was a man named Gene Waiyaka. He was a powerful guy who trained us well, explaining how to bring your opponent off balance and execute a throw. Gene also taught us mat work, which consisted of pins and choke holds. (These would later serve me very well as I finally found the courage to fight back against the neighborhood bullies. More than one of them was surprised by my newfound strength and skills, and a few of these rats found themselves being shaken back to consciousness by their equally rodent-like friends. But I’m digressing from my “Drive!” topic.)

Gene explained how the torrie (initiator of the action) uses kazushi (balance) to throw the ukie (receiver of the action) and thus accomplish the throw. As I said, part of this process involved pulling or pushing your opponent off balance, and part of it involved shifting your own body into the proper position to execute the throw. Sort of using your strength where your opponent was weak. “Judo is not about strength,” Gene would say. “But it’s all strength, used at the right moment.” We would practice randuri (a wrestling-like sparring match) relentlessly and through it all Gene would be watching us and coaching. When someone initiated a throw, he would yell, “Drive!” This meant to use your entire body in the effort.

In a way, these were not only judo lessons, but life lessons as well. From this youthful experience I learned to give my best effort to whatever task I undertook, be it a judo match or a theme paper in school. Gene eventually left the dojo to open another school on the South Side with the karate instructor, a man named John Keehan. Keehan was an incredibly handsome charismatic guy whose expertise in karate had us all fascinated. He would lead his students in a circular route around the mat doing squatting jumps, each as precise as a dance move. I would watch in awe as the karate men would beat their hands against these straw mats that had been laid over concrete blocks. He and Gene later had a falling out and he opened his own school. This was back during the infamous “dojo wars” on the South Side, and Keehan and one of his students went to another school to pick a fight, during which the student was killed. Keehan disappeared for several years after that and reemerged as “Count Dante, the deadliest man alive.” His picture graced the back of every comic book in the early seventies advertising his mail-order martial arts course including the “dim mak” or “death touch,” which he had purportedly perfected in some “death matches” in Hong Kong. He died from hemorrhaging caused by a bleeding ulcer in 1975, but his mail-order business continued to thrive after his death. I guess you could say Count Dante had more than his share of drive as well.

Gene’s influence has stayed with me all these years. I heard a while ago that he had passed away, and I was saddened. But his legacy, the sense of sportsmanship and doing your best in all things, was passed on to his students and lives on today.

 

Comments

[Mysti Berry]

I had no idea that life imitated the art of Hong Kong movies, where many a plot is about fighting between schools. Wow!

I'm a phys-ed ignoramus, but they did teach us some self defense in junior high school (being a girl in Las Vegas in the late 70s demanded it, apparently). Surprise, leverage, and intention(drive) are what I remember--stepping into the attacker, not pulling away. And, don't be mentally prepared to stop at the end of move, but drive it all the way through. Been using that to get through this last draft :)

I would never have guessed that you had a bully problem in your past! I guess the good guys turn even bad experiences into something good!!!!

[Camille Minichino]

Mike, you have a way of making "Drive!" seem like the gentle thing to do.

[Ann]

When I think of "Drive!" I think of momentum, which meshes nicely with self-defense and with writing. :-)

[Michael A. Black]

Thanks for the comments, ladies. Yeah, Mysti, I did have a "bully problem" when I was younger and it probably influenced me for the rest of my life. Finding the courage to fight back, even after I'd built myself up to where I could, was hard. Camille, interestingly enough, Ju Jitsu is roughly translated as "the gentle art," which made your comment a jolt for me. ;-) And Ann's right: self-defense and writing kind of go hand-in-hand. Thanks and take care.