Jack said he’d lost track of how many towns he’d lived in over his 16 years of life. However, he knew it was 5. His dad was career Navy, and since his last transfer, found himself off the ships and serving as a Hospital Corpsman in South Korea.
Seoul South Korea? Enough was enough. Jack had spent the last 4 years of his life studying HAPKIDO, a Korean self defense system, and His Kwanjang (school owner) had actually trained in Kuri-Shi, not too far from where he was staying.
Jack’s dad was pulling a double shift, so he hoped a subway, stumbled through signs, mostly in English, and read the Hangul (Korean writing). Kuri-shi, that’s it! That’s the small town inside Seoul that his Kwanjang said his master’s Dojang (dojo) was located.
It was getting late and as Jack left the subway station he was immediately met by a group of tough looking boys about 17 or 18 years of age. There was 3 of them, and they immediately walked up, and greeted him, “Hi, my name is Han!” What’s your name? He answered back, “I’m Jack.” As the subway train pulled away Jack DISCERNED he was alone, and something told him he shouldn’t be there.
All at once he was shoved from behind, and then a hard push to his shoulder threw him off balance. Jack knew he had only one chance…As he stumbled sideways the one called Han threw a really fast roundhouse kick to his ribs. He DISCERNED right away these guys were up to no good, he was in trouble, and Han was a Taekwondo fighter!
Immediately Jack blocked the kick, caught his leg, painfully aware how powerful this guy kicked, and pushed him backward on the cement. Just as quickly he saw the taller one throw a huge axe kick coming straight down towards his head, Jack stepped slightly in came up under his fully extended leg and thew him backwards almost off the loading area.
The third one sort of froze saying, “ani, ani, ani-yo!” which ends “no” in Korean. Just then the next train was pulling up on the other side of the platform, and Jack hurriedly stepped aboard. He was happy to see them not bothering to follow.
After getting his bearings straight Jack arrived in time for the sparing session. Each time he was up to fight his opponents smiled, and were more than happy to take selfies and exchange numbers at the end of class.
In self defense DISCERNMENT is essential! Had Jack not DISCERNED the intent of his attackers he might not have made it home. By the same token, his DISCERNMENT had him laughing and playing with his new found buddies even through the sparing resembled his subway encounter just 30 minutes before.
In life, we are always DISCERNING everything. It’s a function of being human. Unfortunately our DISCERNMENT skills seem weakened. Maybe it’s the screen time, or lack of direct encounters. Maybe it’s in person practice we are missing from isolation, or all the masks…In any case, human interaction is changing very rapidly, and millions of years of direct, interaction based evolution has made us who we are today.
The answer is not simple, and communication methods are following Moore’s Law these days, which translates to human evolution vs microprocessor evolution. In order to survive we must learn to do something microprocessors can’t do…DISCERN.
Our very lives depend on DISCERNING what is being communicated and reacting to it powerfully. “What is that person saying?” Listen deeply to what is really being communicated, and DISCERN…. Become a WARRIOR of LIFE and DISCERN!
Allen Hughes
Warrior Way Life Defense
#lifedefense #discern #allenhughes.
https://anchor.fm/allen-hughes/episodes/DISCERN-and-Evolve-e19hs1h
