Good evening and welcome to an exciting extravaganza- part enterteainment, part celebration, part rite of passage.

Oh, let me get this out of the way at the start - don't try this at home - at least not until you know what you're doing.

The martial arts has a tradition of peaceful intent - the peace that comes from strength, confidence and the 'benevelant heart'.

we must acknowledge that there will be times when we need to kick butt ... sorry, help people find an alternate road to their own enlightenment.

But often aggression can be deflected by a quick wit, a clever tongue, and a willingness to improvise outside the box.

For example -- someone stops you on the street and threatens violenc unless you give them all your money.

First strategy -- compliance -- it's only money -- "Take my money - this is really good watch -- Not enough? Do you take cheques?"

Pity - you wouldn't rob a poor old man, would you -- oh, the age thing was why you picked on me?

Pretend to be a well known rap artist - [singing] - "I'm Slim Shady, I'm the real Slim Shady. Won't the real Slim Shady please stand up, please stand up." They'll ask for your autograph and leave you alone.

Pretend to be an old acquaintance -- don't I know you from high school -- boy, those zits have really cleared up.

Frighten them -- my mother knows karate -- be warned that I have black suspenders ... no, black shoes ... no, black underwear ... no, no, ... oh yes, a black belt -- but it's at home.

Sometimes a certain look, a projection of calm confidence, a certain body position will let them know that perhaps there are easier prey out there.

But sometimes, just sometimes, maybe if we just ignore them they'll go away.

So imagine the scene. It's a beautiful evening in October, the air is warm and the moon is full -- so you decide to practice your patterns on the front lawn of your home -- the one with the very pretty white pickett fence.

This could get ugly -- you have to watch but I came prepared. [places paper bag over head and starts pattern]

2 Thugs enter from behind and start to harrass the artist. [I left it up to Fred and Norm to improvise the dialog]. Boards were broken over left thigh and right forearm simultaneously or in close sequence, then over abdominal area from both sides. And finally over left shoulder.

Artist finishes pattern, bows, takes off bag to reveal wolf's head mask and turns to look at thugs, we take off scared witless.

Sound:

At the first sound of aggression from assistants a medium volume single wolf howl is heard in the distance. After the fifth board is broken there is the sound of 3 - 4 different howls gradually increasing in volume until the perps take off.

Props:

One halloween full head mask of wolf, one paper bag large enough to cover mask. 6 'boards' in simple standing structure to form white pickett fence.

Boards: The problem was to find something that would break without injuring me that also was impressive enough to impress the unschooled masses. Since it had to be a stick, we'd be breaking against the grain. I found some 5/8" x 11/2" clear cedar and cut it into 4 foot lengths. For the Board Mark I a single board was broken. That went OK so we bumped it to 2 boards. There was still some problems with flexibility over that length so Mark III was 2 cedar boards glued together with 11/2" x 3/4" pine separating them for 6" at each end. Boards were then painted white and flowers painted on them.

Random Advice:

As with all performances consider safety first. If you don't know, or unsure about whether something will break - don't do it!

Pick you assistants wisely. We had a number of practices to ensure that they knew where and when to break. Some potential assistants, for one reason or another where unable/unwilling to hit me hard enough for the boards to break.

The actual body of the pattern is relatively arbitrary as long as the places/stances where the boards are going to be broken are well defined. Now I know that a true master would, presumably, not care over what body part or when the boards were broken - I'll get back to you when I reach that stage.

Be aware that not being able to see the boards coming for the strike adds more variance than one would expect to the experience - and due to nerves or stage fright the impact during the performance was about 50% greater than it had been during materials testing. Also be aware that you might suffer some collateral damage from the flying wood.