Calasanz Near Death : Finds a Way to Come Back

Taken From an Audio Recording of Calasanz

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That you set out to find another man more determined, more mental, more spiritual, more physical, more super crazy than me?  You won't find it on this earth.  Even if they find people on mars, never can you find it. 

At one point I am testing 120 people, I am training them with the help of the wonderful, beautiful Renee F.  At that time Renee, she was a very nice person, but for some reason that day she was very tough to deal with.

We had started testing at 4 in the morning but then at some point Renee decided that she was going to give me the finger and leave because she was angry.  I couldn't say why she was angry, its a mystery to me.  Why would she go and get angry at a saint like me?

So, she left and I said to myself, "You believe that you're gonna make a mess out of me?  No way Jose, there is not going to be a mess."

I had over 100 students testing that day and I did it all.  I held boards, picked up the broken ones; I got the belts, I lead, I coached, I held more boards, I talked to them, I talked about philosophy, I bowed again and again, I gave the exercises.  I did it all by myself.  I did not use anyone to even write down who payed.  I did it all, collected money, collected whatever.  I didn't take any time to eat, just tested.  I ran the show, I ran the whole thing.  I did it all without even a bite of food.

Then at around 11 o'clock that night I had a vision, I saw the building falling in on me.  I picked up the phone and I pushed the number 9 to dial 911.  I didn't know what was happening to me.  After pressing '9' I caught a glimpse of the water fountain.  I ran to it immediately and began to drink.  I probably  drank enough water to drown myself, but after drinking that water I was restored to some degree of normalcy.

That was when I really found out about the curative properties of water.  From drinking that water I was able to come back to be myself again... and I realized then also that... "Wow, I didn't drink any water all day."  I hadn't eaten or drank at all that day being so busy.

You see, nobody came and told me, "Calasanz, you can do this by yourself without eating food, but without drinking water, it will kill you."  Nobody told me that.  Seems like nobody cared or maybe because I didn't speak up, or I didn't talk about it.  I am not stupid, but I was so busy I couldn't even remember 'I am supposed to drink water'.  Maybe I could have gotten away with not eating food for that time, but then without drinking water, it nearly killed me.

To tell you the truth, it was one of those times that you remember and go thinking back on and say, "My goodness, they could have found me dead over here." 

I remember another incident like that when I was very young.

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I was painting cars at one of those well known car dealer repair shops in the Dominican Republic.  I worked there because I was going to school and working; working and going to school.  Of course I had to make a little extra money because my father couldn't pay for everything.

But that was the purpose, that was in the DR [Dominican Republic], I remember... I have history, still up to today there, I did so much stuff over at that well-known dealership, Albreo.  The car racers in the mid 80's and 90's they were known all over the world for having some of the best cars and racing in the DR.

I went over there and in just 1 hour I would make more money than probably any one over there because I could paint in 20 minutes or 30 minutes what another person takes 5/6/7 hours to paint.  I was so energetic and so focused that I could do that, so that was me.   Like I said...

Anything I do, I do it with courage, I do it with passion and whatever, but that day I can never forget because I said after an event... "I'm supposed to be dead!"... the electricity burned everything around me and left this 14 / 15 year old kid there, alive like nothing had happened.  I remember standing there watching electricity and sparks go all over the place.

It was like fire works.  

I was standing downstairs painting in that auto-shop with cars all around, then...  something happened.  A loud bang came.  Something had broken on one of the cars and all this electricity came from nowhere and was all around me like fireworks going everywhere.  Everything was whizzing, sparkling and burning, another guy who was working there painting outside came running.  There he was and he saw this kid about 14 years old in the basement.  He looked at me and his face said it all.  It was saying,

"How this guy is alive?  He's supposed to be electrocuted..."
 Meanwhile the manger was sitting there thinking, "I'm gonna get sued."   

The other workers, they couldn't get into the place because of the explosion, but I just was there, I stepped into the water, I stepped out of the water and I got out.  But no, the electricity didn't come to me... It would have electrocuted anything standing in that water but no, this child lived.  I was alive, I survived.  Thinking on it now, probably I survived only because I was wearing shoes.

And I have the same feeling, about that day when I had over 120 people testing... I ask myself now... How could you not drink any water??

But I proved my point that day, that I really was a mentally strong, spiritually strong and physically.. forget it... super strong person.  And that was me.

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Calasanz Physical Art
507 Westport Avenue
Norwalk CT  06851

203-663-6651

Story Inspired by Calasanz
Transcribed and Developed by Alan Wedell

Happy Training!

On Being and Being Well Balanced

 Taken from an Audio Recording of Calasanz

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Today I had a tremendous experience with one of my students.

We were talking as we all eventually get to to talking.  We came to how we have all sorts of instructors.  We have a good instructor of tai chi, one of the best, we have another that teaches Wing Chun, we have another to teach Karate and another for Ti-Kwon-Do.  All sorts of instructors.

 As we went talking I said listen, still up to today there are people who tell me, "Calasanz do you want to learn this?"  [referring to a type of martial art]


I said, "Look, if you give me 300 life times.. that means I lived and died 299 times.. still I don't have enough life, enough time, to teach people or to help people teach all that I know."

For example, a guy comes here and learns Cheng Chuang Long Fist, and then he wants to learn the snake.  Fortunately here he can ask that question and we can do that because we have a good instructor. And next he wants to learn the dragon... Then the next and the next, and again, lucky for him that we can do that.  But listen, guy, you just need 1 technique. 

Anyone can go and say, "Okay, I know the snake style, I strike here like that.  Now I want to go to another guy that I can learn another snake style."

I don't mind that because, yeah, its understood that Kung Fu when it comes to Kung Fu as the way of life.  Anything you do in Kung Fu is good.  Any one with the right time and dedication can have 90 forms but really you just need only 4 forms.  First one that is basic, then one in the middle, and then one a little bit more advanced, the last one advanced.  But 90 forms?  What is the purpose of that? 

The purpose is here, it is to keep your body working.  So now, Kung Fu means work.  Work.  Patience.  Work.  Patience.  Work.  Patience.  That patience, that is Kung Fu.  To keep working,  To keep the body active.  So that is the reason behind learning many forms.

But many styles?  Guy... why you want to waste that time?  If you have 10 forms of Cheng Chuan, spend your life mastering that.  But if you get bored, if you want to apply yourself in something else, then go to something completely different.  Go to kick-boxing, go to Wing Chun, go to Chinese Boxing, go to boxing... But don't go and keep doing the same thing.

So... whats going on wrong?  Just learn.. I'm going to let my guy teach you. I'm going to give my guy the opportunity to teach you the system of Wing Chun, but not just becasue of what you pay; just for love because you do a lot for me.  But don't come to me talking about you want check about this or that... please!  And he was laughing, he was laughing and laughing. 

Study with him I'm going to let him help you.  That is the way, and yes you can become more well balanced here.  Just remember, UFC fighters are some of the best most well balanced fighters in the world today, but that doesn't mean that these people can teach; that these people can carry you further in body mind and spirit.  They are fighters, not instructors.

Calasanz on the other hand, that is exactly what he does, what his school does.  Calasanz can take you further in body, mind and spirit down any way that you want to go.  Professionally we're the best.  Simple.  I have 300 terabytes of information.  All that information can be reduced down.  One gigabyte is all I need to give to you to make you the best fighter in the world.  All that information though we cannot use all of it because it takes a lifetime to master.

And this is for my students, so they don't get confused.  Go and learn something first.  Go and get the equivalent of a black belt in Wing Chun... learn that, but don't keep going and getting 20/30 forms of the same style.  What is there?  Not even if you would be me.. born with it.  See, you can teach me 300 types of martial arts, 300 forms and I can learn it and distinguish them and I can talk a little bit about each.. okay that one emphasizes this, this one emphasizes that... but that is me... born with.  But you are not.... so you know what; learn something simple.  Go and finish learning Wing Chun from my guy under my direction... go and learn something, but don't be dumb anymore.

And he was laughing.

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Calasanz Takes a Hit : «Be Alert While Training­«

We recount an unfortunate training accident which occurred at Calasanz Physical Art and Martial Arts Center.

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A guy, [we call him J for confidentiality purposes], he was here training for over 5 years.

He is a kid that just wouldn't grasp the lesson when someone was teaching him, either out of incompetence or stubbornness... at least any lesson involving martial art.  There was nothing you could do.  So what I did was I remembered the system.  "We can teach anybody."  "We can teach ANY body." and J was somebody, so we taught him.

What did I put J to do?  I put him to get stronger.  I gave him techniques to build power.  He got over here at age of 16.  He had been training here for 5 years, he was 21 years old now.  Just knowing the kind of punch that this guy capable of delivering after 5 years of training with me.  And I prepared him to do it.  I trained him to throw a punch like that.

He would come to the school and he would hit the bag non-stop for over one hour... bare fist.

Just imagine I have you hitting that bag here all the time because you cannot learn the form, you cannot learn the kata, you cannot learn the dummy, so you know what I said... "I'm gonna make him good.. I'm gonna make him as good as anyone."  Because you know he cannot learn the kata, but with this training at least he can survive, he can kill the person.  So that's what I did with this guy.

And then all that turned.  Turns out he was preparing.  The reason that the punch got up so...  Because the punch was so hard... 

 

It was.. I was just in the office and I came out to explain something to the boxers training here because I was watching them from the office.  But you know, if you are like Bruce Lee, if you are like me and you love the martial art you want to help no matter what.  So I came out to explain to them a little bit about blocking, about closing the gap by showing them blocking different techniques.

I put J to demonstrate, for the others to help me show them something in training, in calm training.  But here I was sitting on the ring and he was in front of me with no weight on his front leg.  I saw that at the time, that he was waiting, getting ready to deliver something big, getting ready to unload a punch, just to see if I could block an unreserved shot delivered purposefully, hard and fast towards my head.  But even that was not enough,  as my gaze shifted to one of my boxers to explain the concept J goes and throws the punch.

He throws a punch like he is in a fight; as if he was in immediate and express danger even, as if his life depended on that punch.  He throws that punch so hard, and fully extended with everything he had, it was 100%, nothing held back.  He threw every ounce of power his body could generate into that punch.  With that power I had helped build for him, that I had taught him how to build over the last 5 years.  That amount of energy was thrown straight at me in that punch. If my head wasn't in the way it would have finished well behind my head, that punch was ready to go through my skull, but then it landed, it landed straight into my eye.

There has not been one person who did that ever before, who punched like that in training, in that cool  atmosphere.  That punch was so hard, he threw that punch to pass through.  It was a punch, he was trying to test me.  He was delivering this punch trying to test me.

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 (Perspective Shift)

As an outsider and witness to this event, [call me K for confidentiality purposes] I was stretching on the low table when it occurred not 20 feet in full view in front of me.  I can assure you this was no ordinary punch.  It caught Calasanz just in they left eye socket as he was turning his head to speak to another student, a boxer named Nick, seated on his right.  Calasanz reacted as a blind man to a silent punch, meaning he did not react at all.  (and as we all know the first thing he'll teach you is "head movement" plus he's always made it look the best with that hair)  But no, he did not react; with vision averted it could properly be labelled a 'sucker punch'.  Without movement of his head it landed solidly.

It sounded like a car accident.

It barreled him backwards from his favourite seated position on the outside of the ring into the ropes then swaying back forward slowly.  He grabbed his head immediately, almost curling up, and did not move for several breaths.  He went to the bathroom as he was ready and re-emerged to ask me how bad it looked.  Somehow he kept his composure with student J.  There was a small cut on his eyelid which was bleeding slowly and a slightly swollen redness began to emerge around his eyes before my very own.


He would heal from this punch over the next 4 weeks or more wearing an eye patch to hide the injury.  Every so often he would adjust it to reveal a rainbow, ranging from deep purple to an almost indistinguishable yellow-green radiating outwards from the eye.  Still sometimes when he is tired you can almost see something lingering about that area.  This was no ordinary punch.

As a first hand witness observer I can assure you this punch was purposefully thrown the way that it was thrown, but I also believe the pugilist was oblivious himself as to why he performed it suchly.

Perhaps he had built someone up so much in his head, perhaps he'd seen too many Dragon Ball Z episodes and just somehow forgot he was dealing within tangible reality, facing a fallible human and not an immortal, fictitious, super-powered psychic-warrior.   The world may never know, but this was no ordinary punch.

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Taken from Audio of recording with Calasanz

Developed and Transcribed by Alan Wedell

Calasanz Splits in Two lifting 125lbs on Each Leg

 

 

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Just watching this video of super flexibility, it is something that has never been seen in Martial Arts before.  Nobody, nobody has done something like what is being done here.  The discipline, the technology, the time, and dedication necessary to prepare the body to be capable of something like that is too much work.  You have to be so precise, you have to know so much about the joints and the muscle.  But before we talk about joints and muscle let us go to the beginning.

When I first saw Bruce Lee in Enter the Dragon I walked out and knew I had seen what I really wanted to become.  And then, after coming to America, the USA, I started doing all this crazy training to catch up, to be as good as him.  In only one year I had managed to destroy my entire body.  I destroyed every joint in my body.  I went to I don't know how many chiropractors, and doctors.  They all gave me the same assessment.  "You wore out every muscle, every joint in your body."  And that was after only 1 year. 

You see, back then I was on my own.  I didn't have anybody to hold me back, so I just went for it; training intensely day in and day out.  Nobody held me back.  Now since learning that lesson on my own I do everything I can to make sure my students don't get hurt like I did.  I will tell them, don't over do it.  But of course if they keep going with very hard and very heavy training I simply tell them, "Okay maybe not now but sooner or later you are going to regret it.  It is up to you, you are an adult but I tell you, you cannot be pushing so much for so long on physical arts."  

I understand now that at that point I believed in ankle weights as an effective and viable training tool but also, I did not know yet or understand yet how to use them.  I didn't know what I should do with them.  I hadn't yet developed the science behind the use of ankle weights; but now we have it.

One day I remember, I was training with these guys who were already Gold Medalists or were training to compete in the Olympics.  Watching them and moving around with them it was easy to see that they were faster than me.  Their kicks were faster, but I was stronger.  After witnessing their speed I spent 3 days kicking with two and one-half pound ankle weights on.  In those three days I changed my kicks to be just as fast.  I did that, I changed that in just three days.  The next time I went there I was kicking as fast as or faster than any other student I might confront over there.

That same dedication, that same process, I did it with my punches, throwing punches for 3 days.  I trained everything in that same way.  That year, it destroyed me.  I was over-training my body.  I was over-doing it.

After taking the days, weeks, months to heal from that overly intense training year; going through the proper process, listening to my body, I would make the realization.  I would go back and start listening to my body.  I said to myself, "Wait a minute, I am doing too much to the muscle, now I know how I can do it, this is how it follows."  

This is what I did to be able to put 120 - 130 (I believe I can do 140) pounds on each leg without getting hurt.  This is not a thing that any one can try.  If an injury happens doing that, especially with that massive weight it is the kind of injury that will cost you many many years to heal if you are lucky and it doesn't end your career because this is VERY dangerous.

But yes, probably everybody has read about the history about how we have gotten here, how we have come up from so far and made such progress.  All of it has progressed to this point based on science.  By going slowly.  Don't go and try to get a split in one day, something like that, it takes time.  But then again, it is not just time that determines the progress, there are plenty of people working for 10 to 15 years trying to get a split but can never get there because their process is flawed and ends in stagnation.

If you come to me for 6 months and you follow the system closely, my program, it does not matter how tight you are.  I can get you into primarily a Japanese split and a Russian split and it doesn't take too long, especially if you are under the age of 30.  

Even if you give me a guy over 90 years old, as long as he doesn't have a terminal illness I can have that guy completely raised, I can have that guy build every muscle.  I can do that because I have done it.  I have done it and I have done it even with people that are sick.  One of them, John Ryan from a neighboring town.  He had an illness and I brought him from being already 3 or 4 inches hunched over, I brought him to be straight.  One of our more widely recognized trainers, Alex Sascha, from Russia trains very hard and demands a lot from his students and is not afraid to push them far beyond their limit; but within 6 months I had John Ryan go from being ill and hunched over to being capable of taking a class with Sascha.

So the facts is that there are many ways that I can help people.  I can help them one-on-one and train them in person or I can custom train someone through focused instructional videos.  For example, people with love handles I can give them videos of 4 or 5 exercises to take home, watch, learn and perform them on their own.  Someone else says, "Calasanz I want to get a split."  So we start from the very beginning and I give the first video, then the second, the third, the fourth.  By the time you have 10 videos, or whatever, in 10 months you will have the split WITHOUT getting hurt.

But what makes us unique is our approach.  Again, it is scientific, it is based on logic.  Many don't realize its important to train strength AND flexibility.  You will not achieve the same results training just flexibility without the strength or vice versa, you cannot be doing just strength without the flexibility.  If you do too much strength then you just get tight.  So it is a combination of many different aspects being put to work with our system under science.  The science means you have to follow certain processes.  

It's like a pressure point.  With a pressure point you have a circle, then you press for example in the middle, go 45 degree angle up, 45 left, right and so on.  You go pressing all the different points, that is how pressure points work.  Death Touch for example is the same way.  If you want to deliver that shot to a person you have to deliver it specifically to that pressure point.  That Death Touch or impact must be 100% precise, it has to be performed exactly the way its supposed to be done, otherwise it doesn't work.  It's just like doing a bong shou or a tan shou.  One little bit off means your center line or your chi is not applicable, it is not a proper representation or expression of the concept, or of the structure.  And the same dedication, precision and focused attention are necessary in order to train and accomplish something like that split... especially after knowing how muscle can become frail.

I experienced first hand how tender muscle can be when I was a little bit younger.  I would do a lot of pounding, stomping on concrete.  I was pounding one day from 4 in the morning until 2 in the afternoon.  Pounding, pounding with 10 pounds on each leg.  In each class that I taught I would be pounding more than the students I was training.  I remember my last student that day, his name was John Winking.  I am teaching this young guy, 22 years old, and I am pounding and pounding.  The muscle over the course of that day got so warm... its like taking a wire and you twist it, twisting, twisting, twisting.  It gets warm and then it will break.  That is what happened to me.  I over did it and my calf exploded, but again, over time I would fix it.

After that happened I knew what I was supposed to do with the tendon.  And that was when I started combining strength and flexibility training simultaneously into my exercises.  Before that I had the flexibility, but I did not have the strength necessary to manage that flexibility.  Now we have both.  But that is a perfect example.  The explosion of my calf, I've never seen something like it before.  My calf exploded such that it swelled to probably 5 times bigger.  But I knew exactly at that point what I had done, that I had overworked it.


Some of our students they pick up on that very quickly.  These pupils have an understanding of what they are doing and the meaning behind Physical Art.  They can understand the meaning.

(I asked him then...)

How long did it take you to develop to the point to accomplish the ability to do a split like that with so much weight?

 

 
(Paraphrased response)

"I would say that to get to that point, if I wasn't working and could completely devote myself to that... I could have reached something like that in 4 years or less.  But working, having to rest, having to be careful.. it can take someone up to 10 years to develop up to that.  You see, if you push too hard trying to get it faster, faster, faster you are going to burn out or get injured.  You will be healing for 2 years doing nothing.  Nothing you can do for 2 years or more, that is a big set back.  This is the science behind it.  It takes 10 years or maybe more but just because I work, and sometimes I am so sore and burned out from doing something like that... Just understand, that when I did that it took me around 5 weeks to just come back and be able to do it again because the muscle is so internally, and the last thing you want is to go and pull that muscle, that going in cold or without developing you are going to get hurt.  So, I would say not working, just doing that, doing a camp or something dedicated, someone working like that trying to accomplish it and safely can probably do it in 2 years.  But again, working teaching on top of attempting that accomplishment it takes longer.  It's like me trying to do this fight.  I could have done this fight in 1990 but I couldn't because I had too many problems in other areas; so now I am building what I need to do to do that fight slowly... But I would love that I wouldn't have to do that, that I could have enough sponsorship that....  I did have enough sponsorship back then but again, too many problems so I have to go slowly, building.  It might even take me another 10 years before I say, 'I am ready.'"

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Transcribed from an audio recording of Calasanz

Provided by: Calasanz


Transcribed and Developed by: Alan Wedell

Closing the Gap

Transcribed From an Audio Recording of Calasanz

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When I first came to this country I started exciting people immediately.  I was blocking all sorts of attacks and techniques even from those experienced, well practiced, well established expert instructors and championship fighters.  Those who were in attendance and witnessing me do this were often even confused or baffled.  You see, back then people were so strict to the tradition and the technique of their style that as they would go through their forms or techniques in practice they neglected to focus so much on learning how to be in a fight.  

When a strike comes towards you it is not so important that your form and technique be completely perfect.  It is more important that you actually block the strike.  Taking it a step further, if you go and throw the proper and traditional block during a fight, while it may be the most perfect form and the most perfect iteration of the technique, if that strike gets through to make solid contact then you haven't actually blocked at all.  That is part of Bruce Lee's meaning in his famous quote  when he said, "be like water, my friend". (quote at 4:42)


People would ask me, "How is it that you are doing Karate?"  They were expecting me to block with what they call "middle block" or that I would block by doing a "high block" or whatever.   But no, instead I was doing it in such a unique way that no matter if I blocked like that or not still I would not get hit.  I was doing something that many of them had never experienced, seen or even thought about before.  What was I doing?  Simple, I was doing something called "closing the gap".  

For example, a guy throws a punch at me.  I raise my front leg in front of me, both elbows in to protect my center and both hands open, light and soft to protect my face.  There were countless students and even more challengers who would come at me with a front kick or some other kind of kick but all of them, they would find that it was like hitting a wall.  The knee was up, hands and elbows in the center, fully protected, totally safe, and un-phased.  This is how we built the name of having the best defense.

You see, when I came to this country I had already understood the concept of protecting the center from learning Goju Ryu Karate in the Dominican Republic under the late 'Father of Karate' Tameyoshi Sakamoto.  Little did I know, prior to my coming here, that this was just part of Wing Chun.  When I came here to this country and I discovered Wing Chun I immediately began drawing parallels between the two styles, Goju Ryu and Wing Chun, and I instantly picked up on their similarities.


Going back now, when I was younger, a kid about 115 pounds and standing up across from me was Rafael Martinez.  So there we were; me ready there and Rafael in a karate stance just waiting to unload.  He was at that time like a heavy-weight boxer, very tall and big.  I was standing there looking like just a kid.  He came at me with some sort of kick and at the moment he launched his attack at me I closed up and BOOM! I followed up with a counter-attack.  Every time he attacked I closed up and countered him.  

Following our little bout immediately Rafael Martinez started asking "Who are you?.. Who are you?"  In both excitement and bewilderment.  Rafael told me, "No, no, no you cannot be here getting taught by these guys, these brutal karate lessons, you will kill yourself."  And it was soon enough that he took me to Tameyoshi Sakamoto.  Thankfully Rafael saw that I did not deserve to be in the brutal class like that.  

So, the time came that he took me to meet Tameyoshi Sakamoto.  I remember the first time I saw him there he was sitting down just watching the other people sparring.  The first thing he put me to do was to move around with this kid Victor.  Victor was very short but stocky; built like a truck.  Sparring with him that day I learned a lesson I will never forget.  That was the day that I got kicked.  Victor hit me with a kick I had never seen before and simply could not expect at that point of my training.  The kick was almost a Capoeira style kick.  The kick was, he turned around putting his hands to the ground and as he turned he extended his leg behind him, strong and straight.  It was delivered directly into my abdomen and chest with the heel.  That kick hit and landed so hard that even 3 months after I didn't even know where my stomach was in my body.  It was just sore in certain ways... I don't know how to describe it.  3 months after taking that shot someone could bite my stomach and I would not feel it.  He paralyzed my abdomen for 3 months with that kick.  I mean, it was a shot that could kill somebody, powerful enough to kill anyone, and I took it.  He connected that kick on me and today, all I can say is 'Thanks' because that kick was the best lesson I could have gotten at that point.

As time went on and since I was already just a young kid trying to help and was so competent in working with people they would ask me "Why don't you start teaching?"  Hearing people say this put those other instructors and more advanced students at unease, especially considering the relationships that they had built over the weeks, months, and years of training there.


So, eventually I did start teaching there and after a period of time training this guy, a wrestler, wanted to challenge me even though I was his instructor already.  Everybody showed up there and I had to fight him to decide which one of us was going to take over training the club.  Me or him.  He wanted to defeat me.  His name was Belo.  That day was the last class that Belo ever took in martial arts.  When he came to jump at me I turned around with that same kick that Victor had gotten me with.  But instead of it landing into his stomach, I landed it into his head.  After taking that strike he was bleeding out of every orifice in his head: nose, mouth, eyes, ears.  To my knowledge that was the last time Belo ever participated in martial arts training.

Now, people who saw that kick would keep trying to get me with it, but I had already learned that lesson thanks to Victor.  They could not hit me with it.  Why?  Because of "closing the gap".  Lifting the leg, elbows center, hands up.  Its the only thing that could stop or block that kick... and it was just as simple as closing the gap.

And that was when everybody started really seeing me perform.. somebody throws a back fist, ... close the gap.  Somebody throws a round kick, ... close the gap.  Somebody throws a left hook, ... close the gap.  No matter the technique somebody threw at me, it was a simple solution.  Close the gap.

I remember when the movie Ong Bak came out.  This is very good for you to understand.  I was getting so many calls, everyone said "Calasanz, you HAVE to see this guy!" (Tony Jaa) "The only person we can compare him to is you because of all those kicks!" and because of the way he was closing the gap.  Swinging the leg to block inside, and outside blocking two kicks, then grabbing the guy by the nose.  ... You see, that's the sort of thing you can do with closing the gap that's how much you can do with that simple technique, that simple principle.  

Now, back to the topic.  Closing the gap... there are so many areas.  Just for you to understand... the concept, in principle, has no limitation.  Change the angles, maneuver the guy.  It's fluid and then its just a matter of closing the gap to get inside.  You can do it to any one if you set it up and do it in the right way.  This is why in the 90's nobody wanted anything more to do with me in the ring, because it was so easy for me to hit somebody; that combined with the power I was building through physical art, it was scary.  I would get inside by closing the gap and ...

In the ring, yes it is useful, but even more-so in the street.  These guys, they just couldn't understand what was happening, they didn't know what was going on.  Again... there are hundreds and hundreds of techniques you can perform while closing the gap, it all just depends on how much you see.  Closing the gap is just beautiful in its simplicity.  Even facing a guy with 3 times your training you can out maneuver him with this principle, this concept.  

But what follows after the gap is closed?  Following that of course is counter attack.  But even sometimes just by closing the gap you end up blocking and striking at the same time.  This is the same concept behind Bruce Lee's intercepting fist.  If you really have great balance and great technique and then you use closing the gap, you can be someone very hard, very difficult to deal with.  Especially on the street.  If a street fighter comes throwing wild punches at you there is nothing better to use than the closing the gap technique because it is an easy, easy way of defending yourself, and probably you end up just smacking the guy without hurting the guy and embarrassing him.  

With closing the gap you can do anything, and when combined with the simplicity of Wing Chun it just becomes so natural that at some point you will end up having the guy by his ear or by his nose.  He punches, you close... then you are very near, that is learned from the dummy, this is learned by learning the dummy and it all follows through.  

This is why when you think about Wing Chun it is something still that unfortunately the Chinese try to hide it.  They try to stop it from being taught as a fighting style (like Bruce Lee started to do with "jeet kun do") just because it is so beautiful.  Understand, the Chinese are very bright, very smart, and Wing Chun is indeed beautiful, but it is just as deadly as it is beautiful when applied universally and correctly.  

But then you take a look at the Japanese guys who are preparing for 5 years getting ready for a fight, conditioning the body and really getting ready.  Meanwhile the Chinese are doing Wing Chun forms without contact for 20 years just in case some day they get into a fight on the street.  That is different.  The guy on the street doesn't get ready for 10 rounds.  The guy stepping into the ring, he gets ready for 10 rounds.  Now the Wing Chun guy is going to have problems because now he is in a competition; something he hasn't been training for.  

Wing Chun was not designed, it was not discovered for competition.  It was designed to kill.  It was developed towards efficiency of movement, practicality and intended to be all inclusive using the entire body as a complete, comprehensive and cohesive human weapon without limitations.  A Wing Chun guy overwhelms the average street fighter, but he cannot do that in the ring without further training.  So that is the point.  

Still up to today there are not too many people who speak clear.  This is clear.

 
If you are learning traditionally you may not be able to step in the ring, but you can dominate any fight on the street against an agitated, normal, everyday kind of guy.  First of all, the guy who wants to fight you on the street probably knows nothing.  You as a Kung Fu guy if you meet a guy on the street that wants to fight he must be stupid or drunk.  If you end up in a discussion with the guy who knows something, with a person like that, with a person who is really a black belt or whatever, or a Kung Fu guy, you are going to end up as friends.

[The conversation would go like..]

"Oh!  You do Kung Fu and you want to fight me?  Are you crazy?!  We don't train Kung Fu to fight!  Let's shake hands.  ...Who is your master?"

"My master is this guy with wild hair in Norwalk, Calasanz.  He is Loco."

"AH!  That is my master!  And you call him loco!  Yeah, I agree with that!" 

 

 With no other training someone who knows how to close the gap is already defending themselves better than most trained fighters.  It's an amazing concept, a beautiful concept.


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www.calasanz.com

Calasanz Physical Art
507 Westport Avenue
Norwalk, CT 06851






Recording Provided by Calasanz

Developed and Transcribed by Alan Wedell