The Innocent and the Snake

By Sensei Spencer

Date: 1/18/2023

 I recently had a student request training in advance knife technique. He is a very dedicated student and has trained with me since he was four years old, and he is now eighteen. I have watched him grow into a fine young man. This training is the darker side of my martial arts because the weapon is easy to hide and is capable of great damage. These weapons techniques come, in part, from a Vietnam veteran that worked in, I believe, the Army Corps of Engineers, but I could be wrong. The slang term for them was tunnel rats. By select invitation I attended this private instruction by the former tunnel rat that was afraid the techniques that had been developed, during the war, would be lost. These techniques had been offered to the Army, but they were rejected, so he was passing them on to a few select martial artists that were deemed to be trustworthy enough to carry on the knowledge. He was a small man with a mischievous twinkle in his eye that I will never forget. He was quiet and not arrogant like most black belts that I have encountered. I learned things from him that were incredibly effective and extremely violent. It was hard to wrap my mind around what one human being could do to another using only a knife. I have never seen these techniques discussed in any book or article, but I do pass them onto my most trusted students. These techniques still live but, I’m not certain that we shouldn’t have let this knowledge die.

I am sixty-eight and have decided to add these techniques to the twenty-two volumes of personal notes that I have gleaned over my forty-eight years of training. Before committing these techniques to paper, I had dream that warned me of the potential misuse of this information. In the dream one of my beloved pets came to me asking for water. I had a container of water and began pouring it into my hand and my beloved pet began to drink. As my pet was drinking, I noticed a snake had snuck up and was also drinking from my hand. This disturbed me, but the snake appeared to be non-threatening. As the water flowed, I noticed that the snake had concealed the rattles on the end of its tail. The snake was a killer.  I sent my beloved pet away and continued to pour water into the mouth of the venomous snake until my beloved could get away safely, and then I made my exit. I then watched with horror as the snake pursue my beloved pet. I yelled and screamed my warnings, but it was to no avail. Eventually, the snake caught my beloved, and they began to fight, but my pet was no match for the professional killer and was bitten. Once mortally wounded my beloved pet ran and jumped into my arms, but I could do nothing to help. It died with its’ head on my chest as I wailed in sorrow.

When the dream ended, its meaning was then explained to me. This is not a normal occurrence. I normally do not remember my dreams, nor is there ever an explanation, but this one was bunt into my conscience. The explanation went like this. The beloved pet was the innocent students that come to me to learn how to defend themselves and their loved ones. The water was my advanced teaching. As my beloved pet drank in my advanced instruction, a snake also began drink from the same pool of knowledge. The snake represented a person that would misuse the information. Their intent was not for protection of the innocent but to enable them to harm others more easily. The snake first appeared innocent and humble bearing no malice, but as all teachers know, the longer you’re with a student the better you know who they really are. My first instinct was to send my students away to protect them and then to extricate myself from the monster, so I sent my students away, but the monster pursued the innocent and harmed them with the knowledge I had given it. This destruction was my fault.

I teach rudimentary fighting skills to young karateka. I give the innocent basic skills to defend themselves. I also give my advanced student knowledge that could cause great harm. It is my responsibility to not give this information to those that would misuse it. Today the concern for the innocent has been lost. It has been replaced with a desire to make money. A few karate instructors will teach anyone that can afford their lessons, and they will teach what should be reserved for only the most trustworthy. Legend has it that a karate master would only pass on the most destructive details of their art to the one that would follow in their footsteps, but I believe the karate master would only pass on his advance knowledge to the most trustworthy of his students and tell the less honorable a canard. A karate instructor has a duty to only pass on dangerous technique to the most honorable of students and this knowledge should only be passed on to them as an adult.  You must know your students. This can be hard if your classes are large, but as the student moves through the ranks and after years of training you should gain a glimpse into their character. Hopefully, I have passed on the instructor’s responsibility to my black belts, so they take a long look at a student before giving them a tool that could be misused or passed on to a less responsible person. This is my warning to my black belts. Note every technique is for every student.

You may not believe in the meaning of dreams, but as member of the martial arts community please consider the underlying message found in this tale. The dream is true. This really happened and I felt compelled to put this on paper. You can chalk it up to an overactive imagination or look at it as the warning that I perceive it to be. The choice is yours. The question is… if one of your students misuses your training do you bear any fault? Every instructor must ask him or herself that question. We must build better people and not better war machines.