I could hear them yelling while sitting in my living room. I went down there, and now my ears are wishing I hadn’t.
They’ve had “THE A TEAM IS COMING IN X DAYS” painted on their windows for over two months now. It has been more like three. Every day they re-paint the appropriate number on the door. They’ve been counting down to a special tournament. I noticed that the Alameda school’s head was parked in the lot, so I figured it was something big.
I made like I was on my usual coffee run, and on the way back walked in and watched from the entryway. The boxing girl (who lost, by the way) greeted me. I said I was a neighbor, and that I could hear them so I thought I’d drop by. I had seen the boxing matches, and that those were so much fun that I couldn’t help myself. She asked me why I hadn’t come down for a lesson yet. I’ve been planning an answer to that question for months, and this time decided that the appropriate answer was that I have an ankle injury. It keeps my from my usual practice, and I re-injured it the other day, so it wasn’t too far off. She said that some of their students can’t even move their knees, so I should give it a try. I hemmed and hawed, explaining that I just graduated and am now coasting, but when my schedule settles down, I’ll see about giving it a shot. They’re having tournaments every saturday during the month of April, for what reason, she didn’t say. She said I was welcome to stay, I thanked her, and watched the tournament unfold…
I was about 20 minutes late, and the MA ended 20 minutes after I got there, so there wasn’t much to watch. The mat was sectioned off into three parts, each part having its own judges, and students of appropriate rank. Luckily, I was next to the brown belts, and could see the green belts past them.
It was a kata tournament (but the woman at the door said it was a dance). But I have to give them some respect for at least doing the applications to the kata. Each student got onto the mat with a partner. They went through the kata, with the judged student attacking the other student. For each move that they made, they had to keep a vicious face and yell what it was they were doing to their victim. The victim overexaggerated as much as they possibly could. When they were through, the victim got back into the line surrounding the mat, and the judged student continued. I think instead of bowing, they get into a low horse stance and chamber their fists in their armpits. When they were ready to go, Mr. Thompson, the head of the schools, yelled “MOVE!” and they went into their form. Even though they had just performed the kata on a live person, I still had no idea what each move was suppsed to really accomplish. I could see how theoretically, wagging your fingers in front of someone’s face might rip their eyes out or pick their nose or something, but I still failed to see any real conviction that the move is effective and real.
I know most of it must look silly to someone with a strictly MMA/KB/MT/BJJ background, but even to a TMAer, it was bizarre. Perhaps because I try to keep a realistic perspective on things?
As the students put on their best berzerker faces, they went through a series of moves that I just did not see as effective. They seemed to like to think they were doing a lot of ear clapping and eye gouging and I believe I heard one of them yell that he was ripping the collar bone out of his victim. A friend of mine does Uechi-ryu, and they have collar bone removal techniques, which I don’t think work, but I expect the uechi-ryu parcticioner to do a good job anyway. At their black belt tests, their instructors just go up and kick them and punch them, while they stand still in their ready position. At least they’re tough. The West Winders looked like they’d get taken down and beaten in a matter of seconds. They had a lot of useless spinning around and switching of feet that would get someone toppled if their opponent were even slightly resistant. You know kickcatcher’s Dance of Death avatar? It looked a lot like that.
The green belts weren’t very impressive, either. They were doing a form that looked exactly like the First Form that we learn in my school. The only difference was that theirs had the invincible bok fu side stance in a few spots where we simply use a forward stance. Put on your shotokan hats while I explain. The performer stands, facing the judges. They turn to their left, throw a low block, and move their feet into a left forward stance (this is my version I’m describing). Then, move to right forward stance, and punch midlevel, with the other hand chambered. You add in a few turns and change the amounts of moves in various directions to get you moving in a big I shape, and when you get back to where you started, you’re done. We teach this to the brand new students, who have been there all of a week. The green belts at WW, who appear to be of intermediate rank, were performing this at a tournament. Oh, and they let out a terrifying kiai for every move “I’M TAKING A STEP AND PUNCHING!!! EAT MY FURY!!!” They seemed to really enjoy sticking their butts out while they did this. I really don’t know the exact mechanics involved, but it looked really weird. It was… excessive. It would have made my sensei cringe.
One guy did a kata with some oddly shaped knives. I guess if you’re slashing around with knives your feet don’t need to look stable or useful or anything. He was the last performer in the brown belt section.
And then all of a sudden it was over. Mr. Thompson got up and went into the office with the other head instructors. I guess they were calculating the scores. The crowd busted into the loudest damned yelling I have heard since my days in club volleyball. There was constant chanting and rooting and clapping during the kata, but as soon as things were over, they went ten times nuttier. I realized at this point that the A Team was the Alameda school, and the Berkeley Dragons were this school (keep in mind that West Wind never has tournaments that involve any other schools–even other BFD schools). The A Team wore black gi, while the Berkeley team seemed to wear red. They did the “give me a B!” thing, and yelled “the mat, the mat, the mat is on fire! We don’t need no water something something house!” It was difficult to decipher. At some point they started chanting “Thompson” over and over (keep in mind that their students range in age from munchkin to pushing 50). THAT was when I mouthed “this is creepy” and started planning an exit. It didn’t appear that there would be any more performances today, so I left before they went through any sort of awards ceremony. Since the tournament is going on for a few more weeks, I doubt it was particularly conclusive. I didn’t do any schmoozing this time, cause I couldn’t hide how freaked out I was.
West Wind is the closest thing to a cult that I have ever seen.
Pardon the length, I’d like to make the accounts as vivid as possible. West Wind is so much more than just a crappy school. It’s a whole experience that I really lack the verbal abilities to truly describe.