I have a detail to add to my brief comment about my first fight with a gang in the night in Santa Cruz, CA in 1981. Actually a lot of detail.

The fight started as I was sleeping on a bench on one of the main streets downtown in the middle of the night. I was awoken by one of the gang members rousting me from sleep and telling me something offensive I don't remember. I immediately noticed there were several others in the gang dispersed about my position, all menacing.

I saw the danger and got up and dashed into the street below the closest street-lamp. The gang adjusted its array a bit but waited for me to make my move. I suppose they expected me to run. Instead I found myself in exactly the position I had planned for a few days before as I was practicing Tai Chi Chuan up in the Santa Cruz mountains on the campus of my second alma mater, The University of California at Santa Cruz. I wanted to prepare for the contingency of being attacked by a group of assailants. I carefully worked out where I would look if I wanted all my attackers to think I had both my eyes open, but I really was alternating them one open the other closed, then the one closed and the other open. By continuously turning in a circle I found that it was possible to monitor the changing array of attackers at the same time that I was fooling them about keeping one eye always open but them thinking I always had both closed. I found the place in my field of view that could serve as a station for this action, one along the edge of my right field of view, the other on the left. I had to learn to coordinate the direction of my turning with my cadence of left and right, open and closed, so that I could keep my sense of control to the point where I could fool my attackers. Little did I know I would be using this technique within a couple of days.

So on with the fight.

First I instinctively raised one leg while I crouched with the other and at the same time raised both my arms and bended my wrists with my fists in the form of a swan's head. As I did this I hissed loudly. The gang began to move in slowly.

Then I went into my turns and alternating eye movements, just as planned. I kept track of everyone in the gang and they hesitated to move in for the kill, seeming to be confused by my appearance, just as planned.

With those few moments to collect my thoughts and come up with my next move, I decided to make a slow walk away from the scene, through the array of the gang, which had crystalized into their positions.

The one who had woken me up got closer to me and I stopped. I needed to show some strength.

I decided to assume he knew nothing about fighting despite his offensive behavior, just to give him the chance to show me exactly how much he did know about fighting. I had taken AiKiDo at UCSC for two semesters but I had no intention of getting into a contact action with him at that point. I assumed a white belt mentality to equal him, if he would take it, and held out my hands and performed a warm-up exercise we used in class. Then I asked him, "What does this mean?"

He looked taken aback, whether at my innocence or at my boldness it didn't matter. I told him little about me and he told me much about himself when he answered, "You'ld better take the arts seriously." Of course he meant the martial arts and by his intonation I knew he wasn't a black belt. I didn't have to worry about any death blows.

So I started moving again, over to the main intersection in town, and stopped, because the guy and another guy followed me there. I separated my feet a bit and put my hands together flatly at letter high position. The two gang members stationed themselves on either side of me within striking distance. We stood there for quite some time silently as they sized me up and I waited for a non-lethal blow. Bam! My original attacker kicked me right in the crotch, with apparently all his might.

At that point my testicles had reacted to all the tension by raising up. A lot of men have experienced this, for example in the cold. Therefore the kick dissipated in my flesh without really doing much damage and I softly said to anyone listening, "I am not hurt."

My kicker guy's jaw dropped. Before he could change his attitude a much shorter guy came out of the shadows, reached out his hand to me and shook it in greeting, saying, "Welcome to Santa Cruz!"

That was the end of the fight.

A group of people, male and female, passed then quickly through the space of the final scene and as I had been suspecting an earthquake might occur within a few days, I said, "There's going to be an earthquake. A 6.0." My calculations proved fairly accurate as the newspaper reported a 5.5 a day later. (I don't remember the exact numbers but I'm representing them here as closely as I can.) As the group passed through the space, one of the females looked at me closely and said, "No, it's not him." Evidently the gang thought I was some other homeless guy who did something weird, based on a report from that girl. I also maintained the possibility that her remark was a foil to get the gang off the hook easily after being humiliated, sort of.

The next morning or so I was awake and sitting downtown when I saw an old station wagon rolling slowly down the street. It was covered with camouflage painting and the words "Earthquake America" were written crudely on its side. On the top of the roof, outside, was a square box in which were sitting four dogs, bloodhounds, arranged in a pinwheel shape, alert and sniffing the air. Then a day later the earthquake struck. I didn't feel it. I just read about it in the paper.

Okay, I also have to admit I ran into the kicker talking to somebody in a suit the next day and I lifted my leg and said to him something like, "How about a testicle massage on the other side now?" I said it really mockingly. I have to say that I did this because I considered my victory incomplete and was opening the door up to him messing with me some more. I just felt I was a more capable foe than he and believed that in the light of day, with a suit standing by, I stood a better chance than he did of surviving a gang war. Right after that, though, I just let the whole thing drop. But I know that "someone who didn't know did something terrible" as some woman told me years later, and it might have been this guy who kicked me but didn't get to enjoy it as he expected.

Thanks for reading...
enormouslock