Two hundred people
sitting on chairs in the gymnasium
hold their breath as the climax of
the demonstration approaches. The
stocky man in front of them has led
his students through the usual
recital of skills of a newly
established school. The audience has
seen warm-up drills, basic strikes,
throws and rolls, form
demonstrations and self-defense
applications. Now the instructor has
come forward to show the higher
powers of the style.
Beginning with a note in
Korean-accented English about the
historical importance of
shipbuilding to the local Nova
Scotia economy, and consequently the
high quality of the nails and timber
thereabouts, he sets a 12 inch spike
into the top of a stack of one inch
boards with a blow of his fist, and
continues by pounding it with his
forehead until the topmost board
splits off.
Next, he reaches into his duffle bag
and produces an automobile leaf
spring about 15 inches long, three
inches wide and about a quarter of
an inch thick. He balances it
between two concrete blocks and
perches a folded towel on the
middle.
Launching into another of his
assaults on the language barrier, he
describes his mock-concern for the
number of cars on the streets of
Halifax and how they are a hazard to
pedestrians. But, he concludes,
"They are nothing to my hands."
He dances and screams through a
quick power form, and ends by
dropping into a long, low stance. He
slashes his right hand down at the
steel bar, and when he stands back
four chunks of steel lie on the
floor between the blocks.
To wind down the demonstration, the
instructor proceeds to prove that it
is not only his hands that are made
of steel. He produces two one liter
soft drink bottles, and after a bit
more screaming and dancing he
smashes them against his forehead.
For the finale, he drags out a sheet
of canvas and unfolds it to reveal
several square feet of broken glass,
four inches deep. This he walks
across three times. At each step he
grinds his bare foot down slowly.
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The
audience can clearly hear the bits
of glass crunching and snapping.
When he finally walks away, there
are no red marks of blood on the
polished wooden floor. The place is
the Main Gym of the YMCA in Halifax,
Nova Scotia. The man with the steel
fist is Chang-Man Yang, instructor
of hapkido, tae kwon do and judo.
The steel bar broken in the
demonstration was an automobile
spring. It was not a piece of
overhardened, brittle steel. When
asked how it is possible to break
such an object with his hand, Yang
comments that the steel is strong
and springy, but not very heavy
compared to his body. He has been
developing the same strike for 24
years with the aim of placing his
whole weight on the point of impact.
He points out that his art is
primarily concerned with balance and
movement. When he demonstrates the
blow in slow motion, it is obvious
that his whole body is rotating, and
because of his long stance and
extended position, the major
direction of the rotation is
downward.
His right hand is not the deformed
mass that would be expected. There
are no prominent callouses. The
bulging muscle on the bottom of the
fist is rock hard when tensed, but
the skin is normal and retains
sensitivity. This is not the kind of
hand you can stub out cigarettes on.
The knuckles are not enlarged.
He makes a special point of this.
When he was growing up in Seoul in
the 50s there were a lot of
big-knuckle types running around
intimidating people, getting out of
paying bar bills by showing off
their hands, and generally bringing
the martial art into disrepute. Yang
feels that enlarged knuckles give a
bad impression to the eye, and a bad
impression when you shake hands.
Because of this belief, he has
always developed the side of the
hand as his main breaking tool.
Nevertheless, his style retains a
full list of punches for combat
purposes
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