My mom's friend asked me to teach her three children some basics of self defense. I was overwhelmed with that offer, and what I had in mind was of course lah teaching them tkd. But hell I was wrong. She wanted me to teach SELF-DEFENSE not tkd, so I have to come up with my own training module that will suit their needs. It's like you have to imagine what are the possible life-threatening situations that might be encountered by the kids and create some sort of self-defense techniques out of it. Yeah, it's not a problem bcos I also learn self-defense (other than sparring and pattern) in tkd, kungfu and silat. The problem is...I need Bruce Lee's brain in creating my own "Tao of Jeet Kune Do" (the Tao of Lieawulf's Do instead), combining my humble knowledge and experience and to do some research on the best and most effective techniques for counter attack / self-defense. And another problem is, you need to learn the basic things like punch, kicks, blocks etc before moving to self-defense...and erm, I am expected to teach them in like err 1-2 months, and tada they have mastered the art of self defense.

Ok, before I go any further, I'd like to explain that tkd is an art of self-defense...it has the combination of sparring and locking techniques, pattern and self-defense (as in what shud you do if somebody grab you from behind etc.) and others. This lady, my mom's friend lah, she doesn't want me to conduct a formal class for her children. She doesn't want them to learn all these patterns yang agak memboringkan membosankan kerana ia adalah proses pengulangan (am trying my best to put in as much malay words as I can, so that I won't slowly lose my competency in standard malay). Basically (asasnya?no?), dia mahu saya mengajarkan kepada anak-anaknya apa yang saya tahu mengenai seni beladiri excluding the pattern and seni tari thingy. One thing that she might not know is that, if you want to master the self-defense techniques, you need to first master the bunga, seni tari, kata or the pattern/hyung in tkd term. Jika anda bagus dalam perihal kesenian sesuatu beladiri, anda pasti juga akan bagus dalam sparring ( I don't know the malay word for it - and I sounded more like malay from Indonesia rather than Malaysia hehehe, datukku orang minang dari seberang! tapi aku tidak berapa pandai berbahasa :P)

Was chatting with the madam the other day, expressing my erm, frustration or perhaps my hunger for something beyond the tkd that I'm practising at the moment. I'm looking at tkd not only as a variety of sports, and not just as a means of defending oneself, it's more than that. I wish I could define it, tetapi tidak ketemu perkataan yang sesuai dengan konsep dan idea yang ada dalam kotak fikiran saya. Barangkali, kebingungan yang semacam inilah yang mampu menghasilkan sesuatu yang hebat di masa depan, sepertimana Bruce Lee ketika terlantar sakit akibat dari kecederaan yang serius dapat memikirkan cara atau yang lebih tepatnya falsafah berkaitan dengan keberkesanan (affective) yang seiring dengan kepantasan (speed) hasil dari satu gerakan counter-attack (what's the malay word for that huh?). Geez, I'm a damn confused half malay hahahaha. The madam asked me to re-discover my passion in tkd, yang menariknya the madam berpendapat bahawa saya mungkin ingin mencari spirituality in tkd (erm, tak tahu lah betul tak trans ni :P) - kerohanian dalam tkd. If I'm not mistaken Bruce Lee did a degree in philosophy, no wonderlah he could write a book based on martial arts and philosophy. He didn't stop there, dia membuktikan kebenaran falsafahnya setelah dia pulih when he was challenged to duel with his enemy who had previously caused him a severe spinal injury (if I'm not mistaken lah), and he defeated the challenger in less than 60 seconds...ain't that something? Erm, spirituality in tkd...interesting, need to think about that...