Against All Odds: My Story

by Norris, Chuck

  My military tour in Korea was the first time I had ever been out of the United States, and the poverty in the country was an eye-opener for me. I had grown up poor, but I had always had enough to eat. Yet many of the Koreans I saw were barely surviving on subsistence levels of food day after day. Life was a constant struggle for them, with no hope of improvement. More than ever before, I realized how fortunate I was to be an American. Until then I had taken for granted all the opportunities and benefits our great nation has to offer. I decided then and there I'd never make that mistake again.

  At Osan Air Base soldiers could do three things with their spare time: (1) booze it up, (2) enroll in an academic class, or (3) study martial arts. I'd never been a drinker, and academic studies weren't my forte, so delving into the martial arts seemed the best way to pass the time.

  Judo was the only martial art that I knew anything about, so I joined the judo club on the base. I was interested in learning something that would help me as a policeman when I left the service.

  During my second week of judo training, I was practicing with another student, and he threw me. Rather than landing on my back, I fell directly on my shoulder. I heard a sickening crunching sound, and pain seared through my shoulder. Although I landed on the judo mat, I broke my collar bone in the awkward fall.

  A few days later, with my arm in a sling, I went for a walk through the village of Osan with its straw huts and shabby market stalls. The strong aroma of kimchi (cabbage cooked with garlic) permeated the air and was almost overpowering in the narrow alleys.

  As I walked through the village, I suddenly heard fierce yelling and saw people's heads popping up over the top of a knoll, like puppets on a string. Curious, I walked up to see what was going on. Several Koreans, dressed in what appeared to be white pajamas, were jumping up in the air and executing spectacular kicks. I had never before seen such incredible athletic maneuvers, and I could not believe that the human body was capable of such amazing feats. I stood there watching them for more than an hour, fascinated by the sight. I wanted to ask the Koreans what style of martial arts they were doing, but I was apprehensive about interrupting them.

  When I returned to the base, I told my judo instructor, Mr. Ahn, what I had seen. “What kind of martial art is that?” I asked. “It's nothing like I've ever seen before!”

  Mr. Ahn's lips hinted at a smile—he rarely smiled during class. “That style of Korean karate is called tang soo do, the art of empty-hand fighting, using your feet and hands as weapons.”

  “Do you think I could learn to do that?”

  The judo instructor's face broke into a full-fledged smile. No wonder! I was only two weeks into learning judo! And I hadn't exactly been breaking any records with my progress. A broken collar bone? Yes. Nevertheless, Mr. Ahn was encouraging. “Yes, I believe you could learn tang soo do,” he said.

  “Could I train in tang soo do while my shoulder is healing?” I asked.

  “Oh, yes,” the teacher responded. “It might be a good idea, although you must learn to block out the pain.”

  The next day Mr. Ahn took me into Osan Village to meet Mr. Jae Chul Shin (actually the Koreans place the last name first: Shin, Jae Chul), one of the instructors there. When I told Mr. Shin that I wanted to train with him, he looked skeptical. Americans had a sorry reputation for trying but not lasting long under the grueling training. And I was an American with a broken collar bone! What chance did I have of learning this highly physical martial art? Mr. Ahn convinced him to give me a shot.

  There were twenty students in my class, most of whom were Korean black belts already! An unusual feature of the class was that everyone trained together, the beginners with the black belts. The theory was that if you wanted to learn, you learned, but no one actively encouraged you. The Koreans were not schooled in the psychology of teaching. Like most of the beginners, I struggled along, handicapped even further by my arm being in a sling. Still, I did most of the exercises with one arm. The black belts were indifferent to me, and I did my best to keep up with them.

  The daily training sessions were five hours long, Monday through Saturday. My body was not limber, and the stretching exercises we did before each class were real agony. Classes started at 5:00 PM, with five minutes rest between each hour.

  For the first twenty minutes of each day's session, we warmed up by punching from a wide stationary stance. Then we practiced blocking techniques for forty minutes. For the next hour we practiced various kicks: front, side, round, and back. We spent the third hour working with a partner, with one attacking and the other attempting to block the attacker.

  Then we reversed the procedure, with the partner who had earlier attacked doing the blocking and countering. Next we did those flying kicks that I had first seen and admired. For the fourth hour we did heians, choreographed movements fighting an imaginary opponent. During the final hour we free-sparred or fought against each other. It was the same routine day in and day out. It never varied, and it was especially difficult for me in the beginning since I had only one good arm, and no one was any easier on me because of my injury. Worse yet, compared to the other competitors, I was not in particularly good physical shape, nor was I especially well coordinated. But I was determined to learn tang soo do, so I refused to give up.

  After my shoulder healed, I continued my daily classes in tang soo do, but I also studied judo for four hours every Sunday, my one day off from training in tang soo do. Many nights I went to bed so stiff and sore that I could hardly sleep. Despite the agony of training, I said to myself, “If I can stick with this, I can stick with anything!” I was learning discipline by developing the ability to do something that was never easy, not always pleasant, and about which I was not always enthusiastic. But I kept at it. I had not set my mind on achieving any particular goal, such as becoming a black belt. I just wanted to survive the training and perhaps learn some moves that might be helpful in my future career as a police officer.

  Meanwhile I had my hands full with my job as an Air Force Military Policeman. The Koreans were resourceful people and had managed to illegally hook up the electricity for the entire village of Osan by tapping into a wire from our base. Every night the village would light up like a Christmas tree, powered by the US Air Force. Occasionally I drew the late shift, and it was my duty to drive around the perimeter of the base and locate the connection. When I found and removed the wires, the village would go totally dark. By the time I returned to headquarters to report, however, the village would be ablaze with lights again.

  One of my daytime jobs was to guard the main gate and check the Korean workers as they left, since government property was constantly being “liberated.” One day a mamasan, an elderly woman, who must have been seventy years old, approached the gate carrying a big bale of hay on her back. Before going through the gate, she sat down on a curb to rest. I noticed that when she tried to get up, she could not. I went over to help her up but was unable to heft the load. I started digging through the hay, and to my surprise found an entire Jeep engine hidden inside the bale! I confiscated it but soon regretted my decision. I couldn't begin to lift the thing! Five soldiers were needed to haul the engine back to the motor pool. How that little woman had been carrying it, I'll never know!

  I continued studying tang soo do the entire time I was stationed in Osan. It took time for the Korean black belts to accept me, one of the few Caucasians in the class. But when they saw how determined I was to learn and how willing I was to persevere no matter what the cost, they became friendlier. That didn't make the training any easier. Not being a natural athlete, developing strength and agility in the military was already a rough challenge for me. I had never before really stayed with any form of exercise or physical sports for long. Growing up, my tendency was to take the easy way, the convenient road of least resistance. I had a hard time sticking with anything. But the intense discipline I learned by studying the Korean form of karate inspired me. While the training caused my physical body to become more f
lexible, it infused steel into my spine and my spirit. I was determined to finish what I had started. I knew that I would never be the same, but I could never have dreamed that within eight years I would be sitting on top of the martial arts world as a champion!

  CHAPTER 6

  CRACKING THE EGG

  OF INSECURITY

  Take a look at your hands. If you're a woman, you may use special creams to help keep your hands soft and beautiful. If you're an accountant, lawyer, secretary, or a person who spends most of the day nimbly typing at a computer, your hands may be more of a tool than a finely adorned extension of your arms. Construction workers, plumbers, and other manual-labor types often have rough, calloused hands.

  Regardless, as you look at your hands, it may be hard to imagine them breaking through boards or bricks. Even more difficult, try imagining your hands as lethal weapons!

  In tang soo do, great emphasis is placed on toughening up the hands in order to be able to break boards and bricks, the theory being that if you can hit hard enough to break a solid object, you can certainly damage an opponent. To build up calluses on my knuckles, I carried a flat rock with me everywhere I went, pounding my knuckles against the rock as I walked.

  When I was in my third month of training, Mr. Shin announced that we were going to perform a demonstration in the village of Osan. The exhibition went well, and I survived relatively unscathed until near the end of the demonstration, when Mr. Shin stacked up eight roofing tiles. He looked around at our group. “You,” he said, pointing to me. “You break!”

  My heart began thumping wildly. I had never broken anything before. But I knew Mr. Shin would lose face in front of the villagers if I refused, so I crouched over the tiles and lined up two knuckles on top of the stack, just as Mr. Shin had taught us and as I'd seen some of the advanced students do. I took a deep breath and went for it! But somehow as my fist came down, I twisted my wrist, and instead of the two large knuckles buckling the tiles, the small knuckles in my hand took the force of the blow. I heard an awful crunching sound as my fist slammed down on the tiles. I broke the tiles, but I also broke my hand! Mr. Shin was pleased, though. That was the Korean way of teaching: the student learns through trial and error.

  As I got into better physical shape, my confidence continued to rise. For the first time in my life, I had stuck with something and had not given up. I was training both my body and my mind, and as a result of my discipline and learning, I was developing a much better self-image.

  As I became more proficient in the martial arts, I carried myself differently, standing more erectly, walking and talking with an air of assurance. A few months after I started training, my new confidence began to show: I was chosen Airman of the Month by my company commanders.

  I soon discovered, as a tang so do martial artist, that I was also a member of a very elite brotherhood whose members were extremely loyal to one another. One night a Korean air policeman who worked as an interpreter on the base was going home through an alley-type passageway. Like most alleys in Korea, it was so narrow that people had to turn sideways to pass each other. Suddenly he was jumped by surprise by six slicky boys (young Korean muggers). One of the attackers had a knife.

  Contrary to images portrayed by martial arts movies, including my own, knowing karate or some other martial art does not make a person invincible. The air policeman avoided the knife attack, but in the confined, cramped conditions, he couldn't kick and was unable to maneuver well, especially against the muggers coming at him from various directions in the dark. The ambushers beat him up badly and robbed him.

  The air policeman was a black belt in tang soo do. When the slicky boys found this out, they were so horrified at the potential reprisal they might suffer, they printed an apology in the local paper. It did them no good. When somebody messes with one black belt, he or she is challenging the whole organization. One of our members tracked down several of the attackers. He killed one and injured two. The police arrested him, and he was sentenced to three years in prison. He was back out on the street in two weeks. The lesson was clear: Mess with one member of our group, and you are messing with all.

  After almost a year of daily practice, Mr. Shin told me I was ready for my black belt test. Now every move I made during training was observed by critical eyes. Mr. Shin and the other black belts mercilessly drilled me over and over on the various techniques on which I might be tested, and that I had already practiced to exhaustion hundreds of times. Every technique I had learned was sharpened by constant, loudly shouted, cutting remarks. The Korean teaching method tends to focus on what a student is doing wrong rather than on what he or she is doing well.

  I was a nervous and physical wreck by the time I was scheduled to face the board of examiners in Seoul. My sergeant let me borrow a Jeep from the motor pool for the forty-mile drive to Seoul. It was the dead of winter, the roads were icy, and the drive took two hours. The Jeep's heater provided negligible warmth, and I arrived stiff with cold at the dojang (training hall) where the test was to be held.

  The dojang was a big unheated building with wind blowing through open spaces in the walls. It was freezing inside as well as out. I changed into my gi, my white karate uniform, and sat down cross-legged on the bare wooden floor, along with the other people testing. I was the only student from my school among two hundred strangers testing for various ranks. The board of examiners sat stone-faced at a table.

  I watched as the others exhibited their forms and free-sparred with selected black belts. At first I passed the time by comparing myself to the other novices, whom I watched with great interest. Within half an hour, however, my mind could focus only on how cold and stiff I was from sitting on the floor waiting to test. After about three hours of sitting, my body was numb. Then I heard my name called.

  I uncrossed my legs and stood, still a bit wobbly from sitting in one position for so long. I walked over to the examiners, bowed, and heard someone tell me in Korean to do the form bassai. Bassai was the final form a student must learn to qualify for the black belt exam. It was similar to a choreographed dance except that it involved displaying various defenses against an opponent in an imaginary fight. Although I had done the routine countless times before, my mind suddenly went blank. I could not, for the life of me, remember how to do the bassai. As a comparison, imagine taking ballroom dance lessons for months and learning all sorts of steps, twirls, and routines, but then at your recital you could not remember the most rudimentary of moves. That is how I felt. My concentration had been broken by the cold and my nervousness. After a few embarrassing moments, I confessed to the examiners that I could not remember the form.

  “Go sit down,” one of the examiners said, barely concealing the disdain in his voice. I returned to my spot on the cold floor, where I sat for the next four hours, until the other students finished testing. I had already failed the examination, but to get up and leave before the others completed their test would be disrespectful and disobedient to the examiner's orders and would have effectively ended my martial arts career.

  I sat, fuming over my failure on the inside and freezing on the outside. Those four hours seemed like the longest four hours of my life.

  I was miserable on the drive back to the base. Over and over again I thought about the form I had forgotten. Still frustrated and angry with myself, I knew I had to put the failure out of my mind. If I continued to dwell on it, I would be setting myself up to fail again. I had to prepare to succeed, and I had to begin planting those seeds immediately.

  Mr. Shin said nothing about my failing the test. It was almost as if the exam never happened. He didn't scold or belittle me for my mental lapse. He simply plowed back into a vigorous training program. I trained for an additional three months before he said I was ready to take the exam again. By then I had put the first failure out of my mind and visualized myself doing perfectly any form that was requested. I played out in my mind the scenario for any exhibition the examiners might come up with. More importantly, I saw my
self completing the test successfully.

  The test was just as grueling as the previous one, but this time I was ready when my name was called. I did my forms, some one-step punching and board breaking; then I free-sparred against a black belt. Everything went as I had visualized it in my mind.

  A few weeks later Mr. Shin took me aside after class. Smiling broadly, he told me, “You have passed the black belt exam.” He bowed formally and presented me with a new black belt with my name written on it in Korean, as well as a silver pin designating my black belt rank to be worn on my lapel. That pin was soon to take on a special significance for me.

  One night while I was walking in the village wearing my civvies, five slicky boys stopped me in an alley. I was about to take them on when they saw the pin on my lapel. Their eyes widened in fear, and they ran off. I felt like Clark Kent wearing his Superman costume!

  Earning my black belt changed my life in many ways. I had accomplished something difficult on my own. Being a shodan (first degree black belt) was like getting a college degree. Belt ranks are like school levels, starting with elementary school (white belt) and proceeding to different colors, depending on the marital arts style, similar to advancing through junior high, high school, and college.

  By the end of my tour of duty in the Air Force, I was a first-degree black belt in tang soo do, and a third-degree brown belt in judo. I had also been promoted to the rank of airman first class.

  The Air Force had provided the opportunity for me to learn much about the martial arts. Now the martial arts would help me learn much about life.