Even the dog knows

Since I sold my school I don't teach many kids classes, but one I taught last year comes to mind. I was telling the kids about how we don't usually hit the same target twice. Ed Parker told that story in his seminar about "Lightning never strikes twice in the same place." (I'll write that one if there is a demand.)
I have seen over the years that people try to force a technique to work even when the lines are closed. Like in Delayed Sword when a guy puts his left hand up to cover and accidentally blocks the chop. Then the defender tries to get the chop in anyway, sometimes repeatedly, and to little or no effect. We teach that you should change the pattern to meet these situations but lots of people don't seem to get it.
I was telling the kids that when I "fight" with the dog, he may be trying to chew on my arm and when I frustrate him by moving or blocking with the other hand, he will ALWAYS pick an alternate target and then go back to the primary. He'll go for the arm and if that doesn't work he'll nip the leg or whatever else is close to distract me and then go back to the arm. Luckily he's never been in position for a groin shot - years of kenpo pay off!
Most of the kids got it, but one raises his hands and says "Is that true?" You have to laugh but maybe he never slugged it out with the family dog. Maybe he's only got a goldfish. To him I say "Be a man. Buy a pirahna."


Humans have the ability to pause in the reaction process. It's stimulus-pause-response. The dog is not distracted by pre-arranged patterns that he thinks must be completed. He just knows that isn't working so he tries something else. So while we have more sophisticated brains, sometimes we just have to be an animal.

Digital, Digit, Dige

Years ago a mom brought her young son into my Ft. Myers for information. He was about 4 or 5 years old, but he was dressed in a suit with a bow tie. His mother told me he insisted that he dress that way. OK, no problem. His name was Donald but his mother told me they called him "Digit".
The Digit nickname came from the fact he was a second or a third of a line of Donalds and the family hung the "Digital" name on him, or maybe he wanted it himself, I don't remember. But the number generated the Digit moniker. Well, Digital became Digit and that became Dige. Which brings him around to us.
Digit was a pretty smart kid and we liked him a bunch. He started in the Little Dragons class and stuck around long enough to work his way up to the big kids program before they relocated. Like all the children, he learned our student pledges. Those pledges are fairly generic now, a lot of schools use them. One includes a line that they will "avoid anything that would reduce my mental health and physical growth."
Lots of kids, as they grow up, manage to use a bad word or two in front of their mother. Digit was no exception. His mother came in and told me a story about how Digit said a bad word and she was about to wash his mouth out with soap when he exclaimed "Mom! This won't be good for my mental health or physical growth!"
Mom thought about that for a second and said she had to agree. So Digit escaped with a lecture and Mom and I had a good laugh. Out of the mouths of babes....