Lifewriting Steve Muhammad 5 28 22

And, yeah, well, that's wonderful. I just, you know me, I'm just happy I get to see you, you know, it's just like, it makes my heart very happy just to see your face, my brother.

Well, that. That little white tap that come up, it's covering your face. I can see you moving your hands. I got your hands put together. I can see that. Yeah, but I can't see your face. This thing is covering your face. What?

What is it that's covering my face? What is it?

It's just saying this meeting is being recorded.

Okay. Yeah, sit, sit. Hit. Yes or something like that.

There you go.

Yeah, there we go. So. Oh, that's great. So, you know Jason, first of all, how are you, sir?

I'm doing wonderful, black man. How about yourself? And how's your beautiful wife?

My beautiful wife is fine. We're both in a little bit of shock because Jason graduated high school on Thursday. And we realized we're entering into a new phase of our marriage and our family. And it's. We've worked so hard for so long and we've been so scared once he got that ADHD diagnosis, and so we put together a program to help him. And it seems we ran it past experts, doctors, therapists, teachers, and they all thought that we were doing brilliant work. And he has graduated. He moved from doing special classes to complicated standard high school, you know, stuff in sports, physiology and economics. And he has learned that if he put. If he put an A and he put an hour a day into studying any class, he could have been getting straight A's all along. And he understands that now. So my attitude is the next step is to set him up with a business so that he understands how to make money for himself using his computer and using skills he already has and then once. And then also teach him how to max out his physical body. I'm going to be giving him more encouragement to study a martial art. He is. He's been looking at Thai boxing. I think he would love. He'd like to kick somebody in the head. And I. I approve this message. And, you know, yeah, absolutely. He is, you know, he is fast and aggressive and has really good sense of balance in his body. He's, you know, that's an impressive young man. I wish we lived close enough that I could bring him to you. But he considers you to be his. His Marshall grandfather, so it's all good.

Oh, yes. And don't. Don't leave this up. And he be. And he's big.

That's right. Six foot. Five. He's got that Tommy Hearns leverage, and he hits like a freight train. I mean, Jesus, he hits scary hard, shockingly hard, you know, and he just. He loves it. He loves to mix it up.

That's right. That's fighting.

Yep. And he. He loves his mom, he loves his sister, so he treats. He knows to treat women well. And he. You know, I just. I just need him to understand how proud of him I am and just how I know that he was climbing Mount Everest every day just because he loved us and trusted us and to make a young. Make sure that that young man knows that I love him. He has a safety net in life as long as I'm alive. But I expect him to. To reach high and go high and to help others.

That's right. That's right. And there's nothing he can't do.

That's right.

And do that he wants to do.

That's right. I absolutely believe that. And, you know, I like the idea there's no unreasonable goals, just unreasonable timelines. Sometimes it takes you a little longer to get to your goal, but that does not mean you can't get to it.

I have a. I have a son by the name of Stephen. And when he was being born, they let him not have air some kind of way when they were trying to take him. We had the.

The umbilical cord wrapped around his neck. Cut off the air.

Right. And for that, he's not retarded in the sense of. I forget the word. But what. He. What. It turns out that, you know, that he. He's a. He's a electrical engineer now.

Fantastic.

How he did that, was that around the house. He started taking everything apart that dealt. Dealt with like this. The radio, the tv, everything. And he was. And he said his mother came. She told me she came home one day and he had stuff all over the house where he had. Took different things apart, she said. She started yelling and screaming. Put that back together. You know, he was in there working, working. She says, go to bed. And she went to work the next day, and she came back. Everything was sitting back where it was supposed to be sitting. He actually put everything back together. So they found out that with electronics, he was very smart.

Good.

He's about 47 right now, and he works. And I forget the name, but he works on TV sets and all that kind of stuff. Anything they've given, he can actually put it together.

Beautiful. I believe that everyone has a genius within them. You know, I think you see. Unusually fast. You see. You know, your. Your Vision, your visual acuity is off the charts, you know, with me, I don't know, man. It seems to me that maybe my best skill is that I don't, I don't know how to quit. I mean, I really, I don't know how to quit once I. If I'm heading towards something that's worth doing, it's like I will, I will just keep going and going and trying different things until I got it.

That's right. That's right.

You know, it took me 17 years to earn my first black belt because I was dealing with so much emotional stuff from having been bullied when I was a kid. It took me a long time to get through it. But then once I got through it, I just kept going and just. Oh, let me study this, let me study this over here. Let me say. Oh, this is interesting.

That's right. Martial science.

Yes.

Not everyone actually learned in the manner I think and which they should.

Well, how do you believe we should learn the martial sciences, sir?

Say it again.

How do you think we should go about learning the martial sciences? If you were, if you had a theory of when a student was begins to learn, this is what they should focus on, this is what they should do, what would you say?

I believe that the marshal science is actually a science for fighting. And if it's a science for fighting, when do we leave the karate part alone? Alone and start dealing with the science part of it? Because the baser foundation is the karate part. But you must keep that base of foundation all the time in your head so that you can build off. But that's not the fighting. The base like the inward, outward, upward, down, round house, heel, thrust, spinning, back kick, even stance, uneven stance. Two ways to strike. 12 basic movements. Open and close hand. You can't go any further than those 12 movements. You can create from those 12 movements. But those are the 12. Now do you understand? That is the karate part of it. Are the empty hand. Well, karate part of it. Now you have to advance that into a fighting science by using that base of foundation. And you can. And your brain, while you're doing the base of foundation, if you start to move on the floor against someone else, it will create ways to get where your brain says you want to go and deal with that particular person. You know, like if you did five swords, you go with it. Palm block, chop to the neck, finger poke to the eye, hit him into the body, twist the body around, hit him in the face, then do a footstool. That's not real. And real Fighting. And you have to understand the technique that you have is not the real technique. Because what if it don't go that way? What do you do? If I do a block and try to hit him in the throat, he moves his head over to the side and I hit him on the shoulder or something like that, then where does the next technique go? Because you have a line that you're following when you do a technique. Do you understand what I'm saying?

Yes. Yes, sir. Absolutely.

So why train that way? You don't have to. I give them like I. I throw a punch at it. And when I throw a punch at him, brother Steve, he may lean his head to the side or he may. I punch in his face. He leans back and get away from that blow. I just take that same hand, throw it at him. I just continue it on with a slap in the face. Do you understand?

Yes.

When I slap him in the face, 99.9% of the time I slapped him in the face. When I hit him, he just won't go back. Well, he either goes left or he'll go right. Do you understand? I've never hit somebody in the face and they just went like this. Stumbled back. It was always, he'll turn his head, but he'll turn his head every time. That's an angle. So now I slap him from here and he leans that way. I hit him. If I slap him here, I'll touch him here and lean this way and hit him this way. I'll just change hands. If you can see what I'm doing. Did you see what I was doing?

I think so. If you. If you hit him, he's going to go one direction or the other, depending on which direction he goes. That will determine your next move.

That's right.

So a technique like five swords is, you know, is an idea of perfection. If he happened to move exactly those ways. But every time you touch him, if I. If I block here and if I block here, you know, maybe his hand stays out, maybe pulls it back. If I chop, I like that his head's going to go that way, but maybe I miss him there and I have to come a little bit deeper in. If I hit that way and miss him, I've got that palm strike. Miss him this way, I've got that palm strike. So it's a matter of with every time, which direction is his body moving in, and be prepared to move and always have a way to speak a language of pain on his body.

Yeah. And they say that, no, he can move. So Fast. You can't see that. No way. There's no way. He's not faster than the brain. Whatever your senses are, brother Steve, see, hear, taste, touch, smell, and sense, they all function averagely at 24 billion miles per second. That's how fast your brain think averagely. And because it has the ability to think that fast, it has more than enough time to actually see the movement. I. I call it brain sight. But I also say you have the ability to make movements appear slow. And I use the word appear because it's not slow if it goes just that fast, but you have the ability to make go.

So how do you do.

By understanding that that ability is there. See, the average person don't even think of slowing, that they have the ability to make a movement appear slow when it's not slow. Remember I told. I think I told you. One day in the fighting, the guy threw a punch at me. I saw the punch far away when normally I was seeing it. When it got about this close to my face and I would check it. Can you see what I was just talking about? Well, this time I saw it back here. I thought it was here. So I went like that. The punch hit me in the face.

Right? You actually checked too soon.

I checked too soon, which means now something happened to make me do that. Because normally, say, for five years, I've been checking it right here. All of a sudden, it's not there anymore. So what happened to make it not be there when I. It should have been there? Because that's where it been for five or ten years. So I realized one day that what I had done was I blocked too early. You know, how did I block too early when I usually sit in the same place and I was moving one day and I was shifting and I was going in this direction. He threw a front hand, and I shipped over to the side. But when I shipped over to the side, my brain noticed that I was inside of his hand because he came, I stepped inside, and I just shot at the. At the face with a backhand and shot to the body with a. With a right hand. And when I did that, I jumped back and said, whoa, dang it, man. I saw that movement. And I realized after that I could see movements at a. At a distance, which made them appear. What?

Slow.

Slow. But they were not slow. Everybody has that ability. And people actually go through it sometimes, brother Steve, because when you drop something and you can re. Catch it, you can't remember the movement, none of thought. Do you hear what I'm saying? You can be playing with something in your hand, drop it, and you just recatch it again. And don't think anything of it. You don't think this is something I can actually make work for me other than just slipping out of my head and catching it again?

Are you saying that the secret, or at least part of the secret, is that you have to understand that it's possible, and you have to tell your brain, this is what I want.

Yes, you have to tell that it's possible. Because if you don't say that it's possible, it will never work on something that you haven't engaged the brain in. That's why when you. You do punches and stuff, I said, I'm gonna hit him through the face, go down to the groin. It seemed, though, when I'm sitting there and that thoughts come up the hand, boom, and go down to the groin. You go, whoa, man. I didn't even have to think to do that movement. Yes, you did, because these will not move without this. Nothing that you do will move without this. That's why all. Everything that you do is connected to this. If that's not working, brother Steve, everything else becomes very slow or slow down, where you don't really do much of anything. You have to connect this and the rest of this and make it one, sir.

You were known as the fastest man in karate. I mean, there's just no question about it. That was your reputation. That was what I saw in you. I'd never seen a human being move as fast as your hands moved. You know, your feet were very fast, but your hands were unbelievably fast. How did you develop that speed? What. What's the secret to developing speed like that to the degree that you can? That there is a secret other than I'm just really fast.

What.

How do you do that?

You. You have. I would say in the beginning, I was only using my hands to get me where I needed to go, and I didn't realize how to use my feet to get me there, too. It was just something that I just jump in there and throw a fast hand, and I had fast hands. But if you look at me as I come out of brown belt into black belt, all that started to change, Brother Steve, where I'm beginning to find out now, I would jump to hit you with the front hand. As I began to go into a black belt, I realized by using my feet, I could just guide, glide into you rather than step into you. It was like coming from the ground to the ice, where on the Ice, you just slide into it, but on the ground, you had to kind of get your body in a position where you could get it off the ground, but not really off the ground, if you understand what I'm saying. Slide along the ground. Once you got an understanding that you could do on the ground, on ice, where you can do on the ground, on the ground, you could do it on ice, or vice versa. You know what I'm trying to say?

Yes. Yes, I do. Yes, I do. So what you're saying is that your hands had a certain amount of speed, but it wasn't until you learned how to coordinate your feet with your hands that you became blazingly fast that everybody started looking at you and saying, damn, that's right.

That's when the hill came off of the. Off of the floor. Also, I became faster once I learned that, that I had a way of actually, like. And I thought one day, man, because I had it up because it didn't hurt my knees anymore, but not for any other reason. But I remember one day I was doing something, and it's like, there's an opening there, and I boom. I shot the hand. And the guy goes, whoa, Steve. He says, man, where in the hell did that come from? I push off. Pushed off of the back foot that I had in the air. Like you're in a block spur.

Like a sprinter.

Say it again.

Like a sprinter.

Like a sprinter.

You were taking a body feeling that you'd learned in track and putting it into karate.

That's right. But I didn't realize that at the time. I only knew that I had it up because it helped me keep my knees and legs from hurting. But this particular time, because I wanted to get to that dude, I pushed off of it. That was the first time I did it. But I never stopped after that because I had blazing speed when I pushed off like I would do a track, if you understand what I'm saying. So that's how I came about, I think, believe, getting quicker, because I got quicker as I began to grow in the martial science.

So that also implies that part of it is simply practicing your movements, getting those basic movements so that they're automatic, getting your perception so that you can see the openings, telling your brain that you want to move fast and setting up your body so that you are capable of moving fast. There's your, you know, each of these individual pieces of the question of speed, they were all separate problems that you were solving.

That's right. And see, I don't. I don't. I don't understand the word automatic in fighting because of the speed of thought.

Got it.

All I have to do is think it, and my hands will move, and all I have to do is want it, and my hands will move. Do you understand what I'm saying? I want to hit this dude in the face. When I get boom, that hand will go there. I've actually ordered my body to move and do that movement against my opponent, whether it's left or right hand. And they will hit him with the right, hit him with the left, hit him with the right, hit him with an uppercut, go down to the ground. All this is going through my mind. I can not only have it in my mind, I can see it. And every thing that I hit, I see it as a target, and I target that target.

Okay. Excellent, Excellent, excellent. I love this discussion about how you develop that speed, because like I said, this is. This is pure gold. I guarantee you. I'm gonna show this to Jason. So. So it you. A picture would flash in your mind of what it is that you wanted, right?

That's right.

It's not a word. You didn't say back knuckle. You saw a back knuckle.

That's right.

You saw your back knuckle hitting him.

That's right.

You didn't see it traveling out. You saw it at the last moment hitting him. And so it's almost as if the. The distance it traveled didn't exist. You were just there.

That's right.

Yeah.

And it's. It's everything. Remember I said I use the language of that for fighting. That stands for distance, angles, timing, targeting. And I tell my students, you must master that distance, angles, timing, and targeting. And when you can not, you must master it. Once you master the distance, angles, timing, and targeting, which. Which means that every time you move, your body's at the correct distance for striking your opponent. Every angle that you see, you can either get to that right angle within a fraction of a fraction of a second by hand manipulation or just shifting the foot over slightly. So when you put them together, either the hand manipulation or foot movement. What's the language I want to use when you put them together? I can't think of the word now. Now it actually. It becomes one in movement. When you put them together, you do all that. It's like, I want to. I want to hit from here. Say that I check something. As soon as I check it, if that thing is coming, all I do is slip it back toward me. When I slip it, I can send the opposite hand towards You. Now if I resist that movement, brother Steve, you throw something, I block it and I resist that movement. It make it harder for me to get that out, if I can get it out. Because all you have to do if I'm resisting and you're bigger than me, is just to show me if you understand what I'm saying. But if I check this here and I can feel your strength, I don't try to stop it. I let it come, but I redirect it. If it comes straight at my face, I'll connect with it in my face. Now take it over to my opposite ear, which is my right side. And when I do that, then I'll be able to do this movement against you. But I won't be able to do it if you push me. I can't be pushed and go forward at the same time. If you understand.

Yes.

I forgot what we were talking about because I got into something totally different.

No, no, no. It's all, it's all connected. You're talking about how you, how you fight. And specifically I was trying to get you to talk about speed of technique and speed of fighting. But distance, angles, timing and targeting are all part of that equation.

That's right. Because when I fight, I have a 12 inch fighting science. Now that is where my power line. It doesn't mean I can't hit you back farther than that and even break a rib, but the power in which I can generate it into you from 12 inches is four times the power in which I can put at long range. Do you understand? Short range. I can put four times more power into your body than I can in long range.

So.

And that's why I have. Go ahead.

No, no, please finish your thought.

That's why I have a 12 inch fighting sign. Everything that I do, every time I punch for the Steve fight hit here. Dang. And my hand move back from your, that your body six inches. I can go up and down and generate full power by getting up to 12 inches.

Yes.

I already six. So what I do, I have six down. I'll send six up. Do you understand? To get that 12 inch volume.

So it's 12 inches between the feet. 12 inch. You need at least 12 inches of space to generate the power you want. And so if you're, if your, your fist is six inches away, then you send it up to get the rest of those six inches or you send it down to get the rest of the six. It's down into the groin, up in an uppercut, but you're going to get that, that 12 inches.

That's right. But in the one going down, I shoot it 45 degrees. The one going up, I shoot it 90 degrees. But the one going up, the one going down, I drop my body down into it. The one that's going up, I drop my body down to shoot this one up. And when I come up, you'll see that my body not only does my hand, not only does my hand, at some point, at point of contact, contact, I may have it this way. And it twists this way and then go up. It actually reversed. My palm is now facing out away from me. So when I hit, my palm is now facing me. Do you understand?

Yes.

That's a torque there.

Yes.

Also a spend and sin. When this hand spins from facing out to this position, I make contact. At the same time, I make the contact. When I do this or turn it, I also send it up, but I send the body. So when I'm here and I make contact here, look at my body, it also goes up, it comes back down to the fighting position. I push off of the back leg and I make my body go up.

So if you go up, you're getting. You're getting your legs into it, your upper, your. Your lower body into it. If you go down, you get your what? You get your weight into it.

That's right. The. The. The gravity marriage of gravity. Me in that fight, I use that gravity to drop down at a 45 degree angle. Gravity works against me in going up. So I use that leg to spring up into it to get that torquing power. You will find ways, brother Steve. When you fight a lot, you have to find a way to survive. Find a way? I'm only 12 inches from you. You have to find a way to be able to see from the ground all the way up to the head and all those little things. It's like sometimes if my hand is this far from your face, I just step my right leg forward. This is my left hand. I step my right leg and I just step into your face. And when I step into the face, I step my whole body at that time. 165. I can put it in your face. When I hit you, you turn depending on the angle. Now when I hit you this way, I. Your body's gonna turn this way. Now this is all facing me now, which is the body, because you're kind of like this. If I hit you across the face, if you're even if you're like this, I hit you across the face with a forearm and I Hit, you cross towards your right shoulder. You're gonna turn towards your right shoulder. Because when I hit your face, you'll lean in that direction. In turn in that direction. I'll stop this shoulder. I'll go home and then stop it. Hammer down into that shoulder. These are angles now that I'm giving there. I'm creating those angles. If you don't turn far enough, hell, I'll hit you here. If you turn far enough, hell, I'll hit you here. It don't matter. I'll go all the way to the other side of your body. I can have even with the same hand. Because when I do these movements, if you look at it, my hand is up. I'm raising a little higher now, but everything locks down. It whips down into your body, 45 degree angle. The ones that's underneath, I whip up into your body at 45 degree angle. Or I whip it around the circle and leave the knuckles. But I torque it, torque it and send it. Torque it and send it into the waistline. If you, you, if you let me get near you and I touch you, you will find every time I hit you, brother Steve, I'll be hitting you on bone, on bone. Do you understand what I'm saying?

Yes, sir.

Every time when you get hit bone on bone, it's like hitting to the face here. I'll never hit you into the face like that and try to, you know, break your face. I'll hit you with a little two, with a little beat bounce to make your head turn to the side. That's when I crack you on the side of the jaw. When I do that. Now, if I'm going to hit. Let's see, if I'm going to hit you in the jaw. Say I'm going to hit you here. That one. I'll put full force into it and I'll drop it and I'll hammer it down through the jaw, which means I'll hook it on the bottom jaw and send it at an angle of 45 degrees, which will move your jaw over to this side of your face. Do you understand?

That's how you break a jaw.

That's right, because I rip it from this side, jam it into this side. When I hit this side, it rips from this side, jam it into the side, which means your jaw is broken. You won't be able to do movement with it like that. I've learned where to hit and how to hit. What brings the most pain, what weapon fits that pain. I. I've learned that over the Years. So when I hit, I can be devastating in the power in which I present against you. And it doesn't matter, brother Steve, about your size, how many muscles you got? It doesn't. Hell, you can kill muscles, too.

How do you kill a muscle, sir?

Oh, yeah, when he's got big muscles and stuff. There's a guy named Flex Wheeler.

Yeah, he's a bodybuilder.

The bodybuilder. He's huge. He's my friend and he, you know, he. He's huge. And I looked at him, but I knew already. I said, man, look at the size of this brother. And. But I knew because I. Shaq. Oh, Shaq. I think I told you that. Shaquille o', Neal, Shaq. He met me when Wesley. He, like, adopted me because I was so little. I was always doing this when I was looking at him because he's that tall for me, you know, he always get right on top of me, real close. So I have to do this when I look up at his face. And he always grabbed me and pick me up and hold me so he can look at me in the face. I'd be like a little pup. Put me down. But it's really something when you got big people like that. They'll say, you think you could hurt me? And I'll say, yes, I can hurt you. He said, man, look at all this. How you, little man like you, how you gonna hurt me? And I did like this. And I pissed him. He goes, did that hurt you? He says, yeah, it will hurt me too. You have the same feeling every. The nerves and stuff I got in my body, those nerves are still there. If you can penetrate it and get to those nerves, you can hurt. He says, you know what? If a big, big guy with big muscles and stuff, I said, pinching and see if it'll hurt him. And I said, those muscles, it doesn't matter if they're big or huge. You can hit those muscles and freeze them. Do you understand? You can hit him and he won't be able to use that arm when you hit him. It was. I hit a guy that cut my. It's actually my cousin. When I was a police officer, we had two suspects. I was turned the wrong way because I was young and as a police officer. But he whipped the knife out. He had his hand on the knife while my father was talking to him. He whipped that knife out and he was left handed. He whipped that knife up and cut. He had a vest on, so when he hit that vest, it didn't go through the vest and cut through. He cut through his clothes, but it, you know, hit the vest rather than cutting. There was a. Like, a little cut in the vest, but didn't cut him. And he. He jumped back and said, oh. And I could see the knife in his left hand. I went up and hit him in the back of his arm. There's a bone back there, but there's also a muscle. When you flex your back. Back of your arm. Is there a big muscle back there?

Yeah, it's tricep.

Tricep, that's right. I hit him down on that tricep. The knife just kind of flew up in the air. That guy grabbed his arm. I don't know if I broke a bone in his arm or not, but I heard him enough where he did not want to try to do anything. Fight. He didn't try to fight us. He sat down on the ground, grabbed his arm. Oh, oh. Just hollered. So I knew then, but I already knew that muscle. You could hurt muscle.

Yeah. You also talked about Shaq saying. I think it was Shaq saying that how would you hurt somebody this, that. And you stomped on his instep.

Oh, yeah. Well, yeah. You, you, you, you. It's. It's a funny. It's funny. But the one that really get. That wasn't so much Shaq was another guy that was like Shaq. He wasn't quite as tall as Shaq, but when he picked me up, my foot was in between his groin in his knee, my foot. That's how tall he was when he picked me and he asked me because my face was in his face now. He said, what can you do now? You know, I got you off the ground. All that karate, maneuvering and jumping and all that stuff you do, you can't do that now. So I eased my foot up and touched him in the groin with my foot. He go, ow. And he put me down. He put me down. That will get your attention quick.

Well, what do you. So it. Is that what you tell smaller people when they're dealing with larger people? Women, when they're dealing with men? You know, you have. As a man, you were never a large guy, although you were superbly muscular. What is that the advice that you give people when they're fighting people that are bigger than them?

Yeah. See, women aren't just. They're naturally weaker than we are if they don't do something about it. It's mostly with a woman. It has to be skillful with strength. Not just strength. Some men are just brutal Strength. But if you train her and make her have strength, she would be a little above of just the average man with strength, if you understand what I'm saying. Yes, you can grab a woman that liberates and work out and stuff. You can't hold her. You have to hit her in order to make her stay where you want her to stay. You cannot. You grab her knife, you move her hands out of the way, you grab her and she grab you back. This woman is strong, man. And I've done that as a police officer. I go, whoa, this woman is strong. And when you get, and you ask him, you know, what do you do? He says, I work out where you work out at, you know, one of the major gyms or something like that. I said, and when you look at them, they got muscles, but not like a man. The woman shouldn't have muscles like a man. Some of them do, but they should. But you should be able to see a little firmness in there. Grab one of them and see what it's like to grab a woman that actually work out. Her strength is almost either equal yours. And if you don't work out, her strength can surpass your strength.

Yes, sir. So. But it's skill. I mean, one of your specialists is that you teach women to fight the exact same way you teach men to fight. Say, fight like a man and walk away like a lady.

That's right. That is correct. And she has to be. If she fight a woman, you know, they can do all the scratching and grabbing hair and stuff like that, that's what they want to do. But a woman that fight a man and she put him up, she can spit, he's stumbled back, he look, now you have to make up your mind. This woman, damn, they knocked you out. When she hit you, do you really want to fight her and possibly get your backside whipped? The answer is no.

Yes, sir.

He might say, if you weren't a woman, I'll do this to you, I would do that to you. So he has a way to leave then. But he will leave her. Unless he got a gun, he'll hit her with a sticker, you know, something. But he is not going to stand in front. Now, if it's a man, it's different. There's a male and there's a man. Do you understand? What's the difference, sir, between a male and a man? Both are males, but one of them is a man. When you get a man in front of you, you got something. When you got a male in front of you, mostly that Male is this talking about? Yeah, his. His fighting will be with his mouth. But if you got a man, you fire on a man and that sucker stumbled back and you put his hands up, starting to come back, you got a man in front of you.

Let's talk about that for just a second. Because my son just completed childhood. He's now at the first step of being a man. So how do you nurture the part of yourself that's capable of being a man as opposed to being a male?

Well, there's a. You know, usually you get a guy that he talks a bit. It's like my father said, he got an alligator mouth, but a canary backside. They do not go together, brother. And that, that's what I mean is that you can talk, but you can't back it up. When you talk, you must be able to back it up or shut your damn mouth. Because some kind of way that person got to come against you. It's like this one guy started talking to me. Now, I wasn't afraid of him, but he talked so much, he scared me. So I fired on him. See, when he went down to the ground, he said, huh? I didn't really want to fight. Well, hell, he scared me. So I fired on him. You can talk your way into a fight or you can talk your way out of a fight. So you don't have to say that much, dude, tell me and I'll whip your song. No, you won't. Who going to stop me? Say I'm going to stop you. The last man that whipped me was my daddy. Do you understand? Now we getting ready to go to war. I don't get weapons no more, you know, and you have to let them know that. But you don't have to curse and yell and scream at them to get them to understand what that. No, that's not gonna happen. Not today. Not gonna whip my backside. And you can be calm with it when you talk to. You don't have to curse or anything when you're talking to someone. And when I got to that stage in my life, brother Steve, when people hear me talking to somebody that want to fight me, they would say, whoa, man, you should leave that guy alone. If you, you look at him, man, that dude don't have. Don't appear to be scared or have any fear. And as I began to grow all that, that fear and stuff are being scared actually went away. The scare went away to a degree. As you get better and better at fighting, that dissipate. Also when I used to fight, especially when I Began to get later in years in close combat. Brother Steve, I was devastated at close combat. I could put present to you all my weapons. Not some of them. Did you hear what I said? All of them I could present to you. I could present to you weapons down low and up high in simultaneously, almost at the same time. I just hit you low and hit you high, low and high. The same as if I went bang, bang with my hand. I just stop, stop and fire. Stop. Do you understand what I'm saying? I could put them together and I had to make my body become one in order to do those things. But at the same time, I'm doing distance, angles, timing, targeting, and they are perfect in the science of fighting, not just hitting them. They are perfect. The angles. Even if I have to shift slightly, hit you with something into the body, that angle is perfect. We have the ability to evolve into perfection. The Creator says that I made you in my image and in my likeness. What are you then? If you made in the image and in the likeness of God, can you also be a God? God is life, force and power. Do you have the. Do you have that within you? Life, force and power? Is that in you too?

Yes, sir.

Yeah, it is. One of you can you have the control over life or death, depending on what you're doing? If I want to kill you and I got a gun, I got your life in my hand, I can walk up to you with that same gun and say, give me all the money you got. I can force you to give it to me. And that gives me what Power. Do you understand what I'm saying? That is what God is. Life, force and power that is within us. But you have to understand. You can't understand that. In a spooky way, you know, it's like when someone tell you, brother Steve, God is not a man. Then how does he make you in. In his image and in his likeness if he's not there? It can't be something that you can't fake, is something that is not there. It has to be there. You can eventually take. If it takes you 20, 50,000 years, you can develop it within that 20 or 50,000 years. But it's not there. You have to bring it into existence. Like a car. In the beginning, no car was here. No airplane was here. Those skyscrapers were here. Someone had to think of that and bring it into existence. That's real. As long as he's thinking about it, is not real until he started working to bring it into existence. So is God real? When you think about it? Or is he a spook or spirit, you know? And there has to be something there. When he said, ye are gods talking to us, Ye are gods, children of the Most High God. What does that mean? This is in all the books of God, that same writing. Quran or Bible, whichever one. You can find both of them. What is this saying? Ye are gods, children of the Most High God. He's saying, you, you belong to me. I can only at this time that I'm developing you is develop a God. Then I give you free will to do whatever the hell you want to do. At one time, I can imagine that all people just naturally obeyed God, if you understand what I'm saying. Until something came along. Like what they call the devil, where the hell he come from? He had to rebel in order to become a devil, he had to rebel. And if he rebelled, then he had a different teaching than the Creator. But all this stuff, it goes back to what kind of martial artist you are. I believe that I have the ability to fight like a God. Not the God, if you understand what I'm saying.

With life and power and force.

That's right. Life, power. And for when I get in front of you and being able to check stuff and you find that stuff that they do in Wing Chun, there are times when I hook a hand, I'll reach up and hook it. He can throw a punch over this way. Coming cross angle toward my right side. I just put my hand up and hook it and take it this way. He can shoot one here. I take it right back with Bong Sau. Do you understand? I use one hand, trap it over here. Bong saw over here, same hand. Then as I bong saw here, I'll shoot it right back. If I shoot it back, I'm looking at you. I'm reading you. Now. When I shoot this hand, you check it cross angle. I'll check it and fire right back in your face. If you check that, I'll shoot it back underneath. If you do this, I'll repeat this thing again. If I can't, I'll shoot this and slap this into the groin. I know where your hands are. I see them. Do you understand? If they're out of place, I immediately, without any hesitation.

You know, I'm going to be honest, sir. Your hands are so sensitive that playing with you, it feels like your water. The tiniest opening and you're going to go right through it. I mean that no matter what I do, you find an opening, it's. It's spooky. It's it's baffling. It's inspiring. It's, it's. It's wonderful to watch because it just never fails. It's almost like you're seeing a revolving sphere of motion that I can't see. And then no matter what I do, it creates an opening for you to move through. It's. It's beautiful.

Yes, but you can do it. You have to understand. I've been doing this for 60 some years now, but I didn't really start to understand it. I understand it better once I got into faith and they made me read the Bible and the Quran. Not just the Quran, they said read them both. They have the same things in them. But it is said different from the. I guess sick. From the Bible side, it is said a little different because it comes from. At the Arabic side or Arabic writing. So it can be. The language can change a little bit, but it doesn't matter.

No, they're. But they're talking about the same thing. So one comes from the Jewish side more and the other comes from the Arabic side more. But you're saying they're describing the same thing and that something about exploring your faith made you a better fighter. How did exploring your faith make you a better fighter?

Well, I. When you go into the Bible and the Quran, there are things in there like they have 45 and 90 degrees for building. Everything that is built has those two numbers in 45 and 90 degrees. I use those two degrees to fight in my fighting science all the time. Not sometimes. I'm either going to hit you at 45 or 90 degrees. Do you understand what I'm saying? Because that is the building block for building everything that you do and anything that has. Like in a house, if you look around your house, everything is built with four cones. And this room is four corners. That room is four corners. That closet is four corners. If you look at all of it's four corners. So the kitchen got four corners in everything from the ground up. If you build it up two stories is built off of that. Off of 45 to 90. Yes, sir. What were you gonna say?

No, I'm just, I'm just thinking. I'm trying to. Trying to get a feel. So it was. So what you got from studying the Bible and the Quran, where there had to have been elements that had to do with your spiritual life as well as practical suggestions that had to do with things like angles and timing, Were there revelations that came to you as a man of spirit that helped you in your warrior path?

Yes. When you, for Instance, Minister Farrakhan, when you see him, he was absent of doubt or fear and moving and doing what he was doing. He knew that he could get killed, but it didn't make him. He never showed any fear or anything.

And you know, do you have a. Anything else you want to say to a young man who's childhood is ending, who is about to become. Begin the journey of being a man? What do you say to those boys who are becoming men.

Brother Steve? They, their fathers should put them into something that gives them a discipline. Even with football, basketball, baseball, something, it has to be a discipline. Karate is the best one. If you have a teacher that makes sure they have a discipline within themselves when you teach them. Because some school, the children be acting just as silly and they jumping around and say, go stand in the counter and count to eight. I don't do that kind of stuff. Go stand in the corner and count to eight. I ask the father and the mother, did you bring him here just for the martial arts? You bring him here also for discipline. And most of the time they're bringing him there for discipline, not just the martial arts. So I said, sit into the class and watch me teach. You don't have to do it every day, but come and sit in the class and watch me teach and watch how I deal with your son or your daughter and see if you approve of that. And see. Give them a month and see if there's a change in them. When? Within that month. And there's always a change within that month. And one of the changes is, is that even though I'm hard on them in the beginning, they don't like me. But by that month, time is up. They love me.

Because you're showing them how to be strong. They thought their limit was here. You, you insist. You, you ordered us. You insisted that we go beyond our limits. You absolutely. You did not let us settle for mediocrity. Absolutely. Oh, by the way, do you remember one of your black belts named Bobby Lawrence?

A girl? Oh, yes, yes.

I emailed with her a couple days ago. She said to send you her, her greetings. And her boyfriend, Ray, he. Ray Dawson. Remember Ray?

Oh, Ray. That was a bad little dude.

Yes, he was. And he just got his black belt in, in. In Brazilian Jiu Jitsu.

Oh, yes, sir. Please give him my love and respect, brother.

I absolutely, absolutely will.

Yes, sir.

He was fast.

Oh, it's just he looked to me, he looked a lot like me when he made his movements.

That's right. He really, he wanted to be a Lot like you. And I think that, you know, he's a good guy, smart guy. I'm. I'm trying to get back in touch with him. I want to take him. I want to take him to dinner because I haven't seen him in a long time.

But.

But that's great. Well, sir, thank you.

If you could do me a favor, you see him out of contact with it, would you please give me my number?

Yes, I will. Yes, I will. You know what I really, you know, would like to do, you know, I. I'd love to give him a round trip ticket to come out and see you.

Oh, yes, sir. Yes, sir.

That'd be great.

Beautiful, brother. Because right now I think Ray is probably around 50 something.

Yeah. Yeah, but he's still. He's still punching.

Oh, yeah, brother. 50. I was bad. I was agile. Mobile. I got a shirt on in the back of it. It says, agile mobile. Hostile with pain.

There you go. Well, sir, we will do this again next weekend. Good Lord willing and the river don't rise. Thank you so much. I just. You said a lot of wonderful things today, and I just. I'm so grateful just to be able to see your face and have these conversations. And I'm so glad we're recording these because I got so. You know, I would get off my calls with you and I'd be thinking, ah, he said so much stuff. I can't remember this all. I wish I could share it with people.

So.

Thank you, sir. Thank you very much. You take care. And my love to your beautiful family.

You do the same, black man.

All right. Peace.

Peace, black man.