FEAR and DOUBT

By Dennis McCarthy, Columnist (http://www.dailynews.com/)

Fear and doubt never had a chance. Not from the minute Sam Flores laid eyes on 8-year-old Cole Massie wrapping both arms around a handrail at the Glendale YMCA and inching his way up the last 16 steps to make it to his karate class on time.

Those steps were supposed to be Flores' way out of this dilemma - the fear and doubt he was feeling.

The fifth-degree black belt sensei - a master karate teacher - feared no man. But he had come to fear this little boy with cerebral palsy who wanted so badly to learn karate.

For hours, Cole would sit in his wheelchair in his room watching pirate movies on TV and practicing karate moves to help the good guys win, says his mother, Michelle Massie.

For his 9th birthday, he wanted only one thing, he told her. Real karate lessons.

For weeks, Michelle called every karate instructor in the Yellow Pages only to hear the same answer:

"Sorry, we don't take severely handicapped children in wheelchairs as students. We are not trained to train them."

The Glendale YMCA was her last hope. A friend had told her about Flores, and how all the kids there loved him. Their sensei spent as much time in class teaching pride and respect as he did teaching them to fight and defend themselves.

If anyone could see past the wheelchair and her son's physical disability and know what to do, it would be this 50-year-old sensei with the big heart.

Michelle crossed her fingers and dialed his number.

Flores put down the phone and took a long, deep breath. Those old enemies of his were back, slowly crawling up the back of his neck. Fear and doubt.

"I knew I wasn't trained for this, and to be honest, I didn't want to do it," he said.

Flores thought long and hard, but in the end he called Michelle and gave her the bad news - couching it with a plausible excuse.

The elevator at the Glendale YMCA only went up to the third floor and his karate class was on the fourth floor. There was no handicapped access to get Cole to class in his wheelchair. I'm sorry, he said.

Flores hung up feeling as low as he had in a long time. Fear and doubt had won.

Michelle hung up and started to cry. She had nowhere else to turn. In a few minutes, she would walk into her son's room and tell him she had tried - but failed.

He was a great kid, never gave her or his father, Will, a second's worth of trouble or back talk. They had told Cole he could be whatever he wanted to be, not to let his wheelchair and cerebral palsy define him.

But it was defining him, and that made Michelle angry. She never made it to Cole's room that day. She picked up the phone and called Flores back.

"Are you saying the only reason Cole can't take lessons is because of those steps?" she asked him.

Sam smiled. He could see what was coming. This was one tough mother and kid that his fear and doubt were going up against.

"I'll carry my son up those steps if you'll take him," Michelle said, holding her breath.

There was a long pause. "Mondays and Wednesdays at 3:45 p.m.," the sensei said. "See you there."

And that's where Cole has been every Monday and Wednesday at 3:45 p.m. for the past nine months, arriving half an hour early so he can cling to the handrail and inch his crippled body up those last 16 steps to make it to class on time.

"I carried him the first six months, but now he wants to do it himself, show his sensei how far he has come," Michelle said last week.

Cole has nothing to prove to anyone, Flores says, watching the boy struggle up those steps last week.

"It used to break my heart watching him, but now I only feel pride and respect for him. This little boy is the essence of the karate spirit. Even though his body will not allow him to do what other kids can do, he never gives up.

"He has become the inspiration of my class, and teaching him karate has been the most rewarding thing I have ever done."

There was a special class last Saturday at the Glendale YMCA for Cole Massie's 9th birthday.

The sensei bowed and stood in front of his 20 students, who bowed back. Cole sat with them in his wheelchair, practicing all the modified moves Flores had devised for him.

Cole knew his test for a novice's yellow belt - the first color belt in karate - would be coming up soon. He just didn't know when.

Flores led the class through all the techniques, asking Cole before each one what it meant and how to say it in Japanese.

"I didn't tell him, but this was his test," Flores said. "Cole may be limited because of his physical limitations, but he grasped and excelled at the mental, spiritual essence of the karate spirit."

At the end of the session, the sensei announced that in 25 years as a teacher he never had one student score 100 percent on his yellow-belt test.

Cole Massie was his first.

Flores walked over to the boy and handed him his yellow belt as the class began clapping and cheering.

With a smile that lit up the room, Cole Massie looked up at his sensei, then over at his mom and dad. "I knew I could do it. I earned it," Cole said.

Yes, he had. One step at a time. Fear and doubt never had a chance.

The LAW and SELF-DEFENSE: The Legal Aspect of MARTIAL ARTS

An Essay from Atty. Eric G. Espiritu¹

While a person may be excused for being unable to control the force or number of his blows when defending himself, there however must still is a rational necessity to employ the means used in his defense.

Factors that determine reasonableness of the means of defense

The reasonableness of the means employed in the defense depends on various circumstances, such as the gender, size, character, and physical condition of both the attacker and the person defending himself; the absence or presence of a weapon or weapons, and if there are, the type(s) of weapon(s) used by the attacker or defender, or both; and the location and time of the attack.

As stated earlier, the means of the defense employed should be proportionate to the attack. Hence, if a man is being attacked with mere punches by another who is of the same size and strength, then the former may have to limit his defense to just punching back as well, in which case an exhibition of honest-to-goodness fisticuffs shall ensue to the possible amusement of on-lookers. In contrast, the Supreme Court determined in another case that there was no reasonable necessity for a person to use and kill his attacker with a knife when he was being attacked with fist blows only.

Circumstances change though when there is a difference in the genders of the attacker and victim. Women are straightaway perceived, rightly or wrongly, to be the so-called “weaker sex” (a misconception that is convincingly quashed however by the female Black Belts of KDA) and this misguided labeling prompts men to attack or commit acts of aggression against females who tend to be smaller than and/or not as strong as their attackers. Thus, more leeway is usually given to women in the appreciation of the circumstances of attacks against them, and it would be more acceptable, for instance, for a woman to use any sort of reasonable weapon to ward off her aggressor, even if the latter were unarmed.

On the subject of weapons, what would constitute a “reasonable” one for self-defense? It varies once again according to the situation. In line with various cases, a knife is a reasonable weapon of defense against an attack with a club or stick if the person had no other available means for defense, or even if there were other means, he could not rationally choose a possibly less deadly weapon to repel the attack. It was also decided that it is reasonable to use a gun—in one case, even a shotgun—against an attacker with a bolo.

We have finished discussing the first two requisites of the Justifying Circumstance of Self-Defense, and proceed to its third and final requisite.

Third requisite: LACK of SUFFICIENT PROVOCATION on the PART of the PERSON DEFENDING HIMSELF

Given that there was unlawful aggression against the person defending himself, such aggression however should not have been the result of the latter’s own actions, for if it were, then he would be just as responsible for inciting or provoking the aggression in the first place.

There is a legal maxim that goes Nullis commodum protest de injura propria, which means, “No man should be allowed to take advantage of his own wrong.” It is easy enough to understand that if one provokes, through words or acts, another sufficiently enough to cause the latter to attack him, then the person who provoked cannot benefit from his own initial wrongdoing and evade criminal and civil liability for any injury he may cause the one he provoked by hiding behind the mantle of self-defense.

What constitutes “sufficient” provocation

Note that the provocation should be “sufficient”, or enough to cause the unlawful aggressor to attack the person defending himself? In other words, even if there was some provocation on the part of the person making the defense, but the provocation was not sufficient, there may still be a valid instance of self-defense. How is this so?

Take for example, a typical situation that occurs daily: Two friends are playfully joshing one another when one suddenly shouts at the other, “Napaka-TANGA mo naman!!!” in public. Feeling humiliated and slighted, and still smarting from other insults in the recent past, the recipient of the unflattering remark throws a hook punch at his insulter who, because he is proud holder of a yellow belt in Karate, is able to parry the blow and instinctively counters with his own gyaku zuki (reverse punch) to the attacker’s face, knocking out two front teeth in the process. In this situation, the novice Karateka shall be able to claim self-defense, because while he may have provoked his friend with his cutting insult, such provocation however was not sufficient to justify the use of violence. In other words, as the third element of the Justifying Circumstance—lack of sufficient provocation on the part of the person defending him—is present, then our Yellow Belter can successfully assert that he was merely defending himself against his friend’s “unprovoked” attack.

What then would be “sufficient provocation”? For one, and as discussed previously, challenges to a fight, in which the combatants will be considered mutual aggressors, will almost always be certainly considered sufficient provocation coming from either combatant so as to nullify the claim of self-defense by anyone. Insults which are more than just annoying or irritating, unlike our example above, can actually be sufficient provocation if they are particularly or extremely harsh or vulgar. There will be no valid instances of self-defense under these circumstances.

Conclusion

With that, we finish our brief discourse on Self-defense. In review, the three (3) elements or requisites of SELF-DEFENSE under Article 11 of the Revised Penal Code of the Philippines are:

Unlawful aggression;
Reasonable necessity of the means employed to prevent or repel it ; and
Lack of sufficient provocation on the part of the person defending himself .
Always keep in mind that all three requisites must be present in order to successfully avail of this Justifying Circumstance and be free from both criminal and civil liability for what would otherwise amount to a crime committed in the process of defending oneself. To cite another legal maxim: Actus non faci reu nisi mens sit rea—“The act itself does not make a man guilty unless his intention were so.”

What is SIKARAN?

SIKARAN is a form of Philippine Martial Arts whose history dates back to the early 1500's before the Spaniards came; It is the art of foot-fighting where the farmers use their strong legs to drive the partners outside the designated line (pitak). Rice fields about 25 sq. ft.

Sikaran is just a pastime of the Baras Rizal farmers who gathered during the festival after a good harvest season. Doing it constantly made them develop skills that would eventually be marked by effectiveness such that other martial arts could hardly compare, or so claims its most ardent exponent. Of the practitioners, some went on to discover certain skills in combat that made them deserve the honor of being called "Hari"(champion). These are no longer around. As most of them have succumbed, their secrets interred with their remains and never imparted, having chosen to keep it to themselves and not to teach it to anyone else.

The early Sikaranista (farmers) session commences with the drawing of a circle on the ground. The acknowledged talent of the lot, by reason of his superior skill is often obliged to concede a handicap, thus he positions himself inside the circle and trade kicking talents with one who stays at the circle's rim. The objective is for the combatant outside to dislodge the contestant within. The rules are really that simple. In the case of vein, he would agree to a number of opponents who form a circle. Should the man within be driven out of the circle, it signifies defeat and, correspondingly, humiliation. If the game's continuation be opted, another pretender takes the place of the dislodge practitioner and the same procedure is repeated.

Once in a while, and this seems unavoidable, a session witness a mischief-prone contestant who makes it a point to step on a carabao waste (buffalo) dung prior to a competition, if only to dirty and to defeat the opponent.

The Baras-originated method of foot-fighting in its original form No time limit is observed. Combatants call for time out if they became so exhausted as to be unable to go on some more or when troubled enough. No discrimination regarding sex. Both male and female may indulge in it, should they so wish.

They have a vernacular name for a Hari. He was awarded Ias Agila (for his impressive agility), acknowledged as the foremost padamba (jumping front kick) exponent. That he could leap as high as six feet is definitely a testimony to an awesome power.

So also was awarded classified as Hari, a fellow reputed to crack husked coconuts with his steel-like shins. On the other hand a Hari also boasts of the singular reputation of knocking out (T.K.O) a carabao with a single hammer biakid or sickle kick.

SIKARAN and Sipa are both Tagalog terms for "kick" but with a notable difference: the former is a noun, while the latter is a verb. Deriving from sikad, Sikaran like the biakid, pilatik and damba. And came to be known as an indigenous martial sport in the tradition of arnis, kali, dicho, buno etc.

Sikaran utilizes only the feet as a rule for sport and for combat, self-defense and this is what makes it distinct, the hands are never availed of in the sikaran. If they utilized at all, it's only for defense, the player uses his legs 90% of the time and his hands 10% only for blocking or parrying blows. Violation of this injunction, especially in tournaments, is ground for disqualification.

The rationale behind this has something to do with the role of the feet whose significance has yet to be fully appreciated. It is the largest part of the body, aside from the fact that it nurtures the largest bone as well as the most massive muscle.

Sikaran have its own share of kicking styles. The "Biakid" the classic kick is executed by pivoting to the back in a full or complete turn about manner. The degree of effectiveness subscribes to two classifications: "panghilo" (paralyzing blow) and "pamatay" or lethal kick. Obviously the first aimed at less vital parts of the physique, while the target of the second includes the heart, neck, head, groin, and spine, all highly vulnerable parts.

The entry of Sikaran in tournaments, particularly those of international caliber, presaged certain modifications, if innovations, of its original rules. Like the setting of a time limit, widening of the fighting area into twice the size required of the original arena.

Weapons of Sikaran include the balisong, kris, and sticks among others.





Another reading:

http://pub32.bravenet.com/forum/2722234180/fetch/630462/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sikaran