Just after reading yet another Ranmafic using non-standard martial artist
characters, I came across the following article from the Jerusalem
Report about a a
very non-standard martial artist. Please forgive the formatting and
enjoy the
piece.
The Master of Ki
Erik Schechter
(April 24, 2000) How a Jamaican-born Bratslav hasid became the only
Israeli qualified to teach a complex Korean martial art "I�m really
quite a harmless soul," says Yehoshua Sofer, stirring honey into his
herbal tea. And he looks it - with his slender physique and his
Bratslaver hasid�s collar-length sidelocks.
Potentially, though, Sofer is capable of wreaking considerable damage.
He�s a master of one of the world�s most complex martial arts, the
Korean Kuk Sool Won, which incorporates ancient tribal, Buddhist and
royal court fighting techniques - 3,608 of them, to be exact. Sofer,
42, holds a sixth-degree black belt in the art, one of very few
non-Asians to have achieved such prowess.
The soft-spoken hasid, who stresses that his discipline is about
self-defense rather than initiated violence, is also authorized to
teach Kuk Sool Won - which he does in afternoon and evening classes at
a dojang (the Korean term for a martial arts arena) in the gym at
Jerusalem�s International Convention Center. He gets all sorts at his
$600-a-year courses (reductions readily available to those of limited
means) - male and female, ultra-Orthodox to secular. And he says he
sees himself, and the skill he teaches, as "a bridge between people and
a way of trying to serve Hashem.
One student could be a leftist and another right-wing, one
ultra-Orthodox, and another Conservative or Reform. I don�t accept
those classifications. They are illusions."
The dojang walls underline the teacher�s eclectic background: Korean and
Israeli flags, the blue banner of the Korean Kuk Sool Won Association,
certificates tracing his rise through the ranks, and a bumper sticker
bearing the Hebrew inscription "Na-Nah-Nahma-Nahman-Me�uman" - the
chant which invokes the name of Rabbi Nahman of Bratslav, the sect�s
late founder, great-grandson of the Baal Shem Tov.
On mats in the center of the room, a dozen, mostly white-belted
teenagers in black uniforms are practicing breaking falls. Next, they
dive over a wooden staff held aloft by a brown-belted instructor.
Finally, they work on bringing their partners to the floor with a twist
of the arm. Sofer looks on approvingly. When addressing him, the
students call him "Master."
YEHOSHUA SOFER WAS BORN into the Bratslaver sect, but his childhood was
atypical. He spent his early years in Jamaica, where his father was an
ombudsman for aluminum and bauxite workers. Jews have been on the
island for centuries, but the Sofers� Orthodoxy contrasted with the
more assimilated local Jews. Community leaders, Sofer recalls in English
that still bears a Caribbean lilt, were "incensed that my dad wore a
yarmulke and that he insisted on a kosher meal when he met with the
governor general" on work matters.
Sofer learned his first Eastern fighting skills, at age 4, from an
elderly Chinese gentleman in a Kingston parking lot. He and his friends
would play there, under grandfatherly supervision. The Chinese
pensioner, a bench regular, got talking to him, opined that the Jews
"were all from Asia anyway and were �good and decent people,�" and
showed him some Chinese boxing moves.
In 1963, the family moved to Los Angeles, and the young Sofer, appetite
whetted, took classes in Tang Soo Do, a Korean version of Karate. His
father - who had evidently concluded that he wasn�t rearing an
outstanding Torah scholar - reluctantly allowed him to attend, provided
he still found time for Jewish study. "On Shabbat," he says, "I had to
study extra Gemarah, Mishnah, and hasidism."
Sofer was a natural. He got his black belt at the age of 10, after just
5 years of study, and started looking for a more challenging
discipline. When Kuk Sool Won came to the U.S. in 1974, introduced by
its Korean founder, Suh In Hyuk, he began taking lessons, and never
looked back. What�s unique about Kuk Sool Won, he enthuses, "is that it
includes meditation and breathing techniques, kicking, joint locks,
throwing and grappling, as well as traditional Asian medicine." To the
faintly familiar observer, Kuk Sool Wan, with its graceful, circular
moves, looks akin to a speedier Tai Chi, itself a gentle, meditative
Chinese martial art. But it is also "a very reliable self-defense
system," Sofer notes.
At its heart, he elaborates, is a focus on something called "Ki" -
defined variously as a universal life energy, or simply internal
physiological control - as a source of physical power, in addition to
muscle and mass. To demonstrate how Ki lets him govern the flow of blood
through his body, Sofer holds out his right hand, palm up, fingers
gently curled: remarkably, his palm whitens and his fingertips turn crimson.
If faith in "Ki" sounds unlikely for an ultra-Orthodox Jew, Sofer sees
no contradiction. Instead, he contends that the Asian concept is a
cultural import from the ancient rabbis, via Jewish traders in the Far
East. Likewise, he believes that samurai is a Japanese corruption of
the Hebrew shomrei, "my guards." That word reached isolated Japan, he
contends, through settlers from the Korean peninsula who came to the
islands in the third century BCE.
Sofer�s novel take on history, clearly informed by an affection for the
East, extends to similarities he perceives between Koreans and Jews
today. "They don�t mix with outsiders, and they don�t abandon their
homeland," he notes of both peoples. "They live in a rough neighborhood
and were conquered many times."
As Sofer perfected his martial arts skills in the 70s and 80s, he worked
as a bodyguard and a sparring partner for kickboxers. He moved to
Israel in 1989, and has been running his school - the only one in
Israel - for the past two years, still leaving his mornings free for
Torah study.
He says his sights are now set on emu-lating martial arts aces like
Bruce Lee and Chuck Norris, and landing himself in the movies; he
mentions talks he�s been having with a Hollywood stunt choreographer.
But then he adds that, however prized the role, he wouldn�t be prepared
to shave off his sidelocks for it. "I wouldn�t want to dese-crate God�s
name," he says.