By Richard Bustillo Compiled by John Little (Taken from “Knowing Is Not Enough”, Fall 1998) When Bruce first held his open house for the Chinatown school there were only a handful of people, maybe 24 or 25, who were invited to show up. He said, “This is going to be the class; this is what we’re going to do.” He gave us an overview and orientation of his class. And when we showed up for the first day of class, there were only 12 of us that he selected. I was fortunate; I was one of the 12. I was like most karate students of the day, pretty steeped in the traditions and cultural beliefs that went with the art, and I naturally showed up in what I assumed was the martial art attire that would be the right mix between comfort and tradition: barefeet, karate pants and a sweat shirt. He came up to me and said, “Mr. Bustillo, this is the 1960s, right?” I went, “Yeah, it’s the sixties.” I wasn’t really sure what he was getting at. He said, “In the sixties, we wear shoes, right? I said, “Yeah.” He said, “And most times if we get in trouble we will have shoes on, right?” I said, “Yes.” Bruce then stepped back and fixed me with his eyes. “Then why don’t you wear shoes?” he asked, before adding, “We don’t train 400-year-old stuff here. This is the 1960s, we train with what you’re likely to encounter now.” With that he turned to the class and said, “Sometimes we’re going to wear jeans in here; sometimes we’re going to wear boots and sometimes we’re going to wear other street clothes and sometimes we’re going to wear suits so that you’ll get to know what your limitations are in all of those.” Needless to say, in the very next class I made sure I was wearing my shoes. And it made sense; if you train with comfort in mind, should you get into trouble when you have your jeans on, there could be some restrictions that you’re not aware of – and you could end up losing the fight because of it. |
