Soemtimes I get some feedback on these posts and Tony Perez in Brisbane, Australia frequently chimes in. He's got good questions, comments and observations. He sent a note entitled "Always means 99% of the time", a phrase we use in Kenpo meaning it's not a hard and fast rule and allows for some bending. The following narrative illustrates how turning your back may be necessary. I will point out that Tony's experience here follows good tactical application - he transfers a skill used as a pilot (scanning), demonstrates awareness of his surrounding (Ed Parker's environment definition) and commonly used First Aid technique. A concept similar to that of competing harms is found here, too. Tony feels it necessary to chance turning his back to help a downed woman, yet he mitigates the risk by scanning and others helped by supplying light. There are lessons here.
Hi Lee,
Just read your recent story about not turning your back on your opponent. I'd like to share this story that happened to me just last Wednesday night.
It was 9:00pm and I had just finished teaching my ladies class at my home studio. We'd had a great class with 4 ladies who have been training with me for about 5 years now. After class two of them drove off to go home. My wife was talking to the other one and I was tidying up. Suddenly the ladies who had just left pulled up out the front and screamed,"Tony, quick there's a body in the grass!"
To set the scene the attached photo was taken at the front of my home and as the arrows shows, a "body" was lying in the foetal position just 2 houses down from mine! I couldn't believe it.
I ran down the street and stopped just short as I didn't want to become a statistic myself. As you can see there is parkland immediatley behind where the "body" was. It was curled up facing towards me and just to the side of the tree. We've had incidents here in Brisbane where people will feign injury whilst an accomplice lies in wait to ambush the good samaritan. This was definitley ambush territory.
The position the body was in left me no choice than to go around behind and forced me to put my back to the footpath and the bushland behind. Standing in front was casting my shadow over the "body" from the nearby street light and I couldn't see clearly.
I kneeled down to determine if there were any life signs. The "body" was a woman, late 40's and well dressed. Her purse and contents were strewn around her. She had a pulse and was breathing faintly. I held her hand, asked her if she could hear me to squeeze my hand. Nothing. By now my "spidey sense" was tingling and my ladies had parked their car opposite to shine it's headlights on us. My head was on a swivel (good pilot training coming back to me) as I still had no idea what had happened, how badly hurt she was or who else was around.
She eventually responded by sqeezing my hand and finally opened her eyes. To cut a long story short she told that her husband had assaulted her. She had no idea how long she had been there. We had been training less that 50 yds away and we hadn't heard anything.
Whilst waiting for the ambulance to arrive she kept sqeezing my hand ( I was in a real bad position if I'd have been approached from behind.) She kept saying that she was sorry and begged me not to let her go.
I told her that everything would be alright and that she had nothing to apologize for.
Now I would like to say that this is where the assailant reappeared on the scene and that I did what I had to do, but no. The ambulance arrived, asked me a few questons and eventually whisked her off.
We were all shocked that this could happen in our great neighbourhood and so close to where we had been.
For me though, Kenpo's principles, concepts and theories again passed the litmus test - in this case the environment totally dictated what I could do and what I should do - and that meant knowingly exposing my back.
Kudos to my lady students as well for not pretending they "were all that" and using common sense to get help rather than rushing in blindly. It was a sobering lesson for us all and a reminder of the importance of keeping those First Aid skills up to date.
Cheers,
Tony
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