| I doubt whether most martial arts training halls, be they | | | | me with murder in his eyes, I suppose he didn't want to |
| Gung Fu or Shotokan or Hapkido or whatever, have | | | | look at Mud Car because he would kill him, and he |
| ever had a crazy guy in their school like Mud Car. We | | | | blurted, "Hit your leg with a lead pipe...that'll make the |
| called him Mud Car because that's what his license | | | | pain go away." |
| plates on his car said. That vehicle, more than just | | | | I suppose the ability to drive other people crazy is the |
| about anything else, summed up the muddy auto. | | | | deciding factor in this matter of whether a person is |
| He had tied parachute webbing across the insides of | | | | insane or not. At any rate, Mud Car never made it to |
| his car because he felt that that material was best for | | | | Black Belt. He just didn't have the mental maturity that |
| holding his car together on the inside. He had fire | | | | denotes a black belt. |
| extinguishers fastened to every surface on the inside | | | | One day, however, a new instructor came to the |
| of his car. He had a dial on his dashboard to give extra | | | | school, and Mud Car was promoted to Black Belt |
| power to his tail lights, and he turned it whenever he | | | | within a month...and then he left the school. He had |
| faced away from the sun so that drivers behind him | | | | achieved his goal, and that was all he wanted, and the |
| could see when he braked. | | | | new instructor knew that was the best and most |
| This was just the surface of Mud Car, though. The | | | | efficient way to get rid of Mud Car. Yet, I missed Mud |
| most impressive thing that the muddy auto did was | | | | Car. |
| commit to memory the times of all the stop lights in the | | | | He was nuts, but so is the guy who attacks you on |
| whole town of San Jose. He could travel across that | | | | the street, so if you could last a session with Mud Car |
| large town without ever having to stop for a light. | | | | without getting hurt, you knew your art was effective. |
| Unfortunately, when it came to the martial arts, he was | | | | Furthermore, there was a shift of standard here, for |
| just as crazy. He couldn't stretch, couldn't control what | | | | Mud Car had been given a black belt because he |
| his body was going to do, and, because he had no | | | | could drive people nuts, not because he was good. |
| control, it hurt to work with him. Just being around him | | | | Finally, I think that is where the True Art started |
| you could feel the firecrackers in his mind exploding | | | | disappearing from the martial arts training halls...schools, |
| into the cosmos. | | | | even schools like traditional Karate or Tae Kwon Do |
| One day he interrupted the instructor to complain | | | | or classical Wudan, did not administer soothing discipline |
| about a pain in his leg. "It doesn't hurt me that much, but | | | | to the insane, they just promoted them to get rid of |
| it keeps nagging at me, do you know how to make | | | | them. |
| the pain in my leg go away?" My instructor looked at | | | | |