We all have moments in our lives that humble us.
Sometimes it’s because of something that we did or didn’t do. Other times, it’s when we experience someone or something that just blows our minds.
One of those experiences happened to my brother, Mike, and me in the year 2000. This was before we were teaching Merpati Putih and before they had allowed us to open up a school. Mas Pung and Mas Budi, both of the 11th-generation heirs to Merpati Putih came here to Utah along with Mas Amos, one of the 12th-generation heirs. They arrived with a contingent of Vibravision® demonstrators, including a blind person.
We had to go through our movement tasks and initiation, and then we had the opportunity to fight. In Merpati Putih, we fight with bare knuckles. We don’t use pads. We’re in a parking lot at the Wolf Creek Resort in Eden, Utah. We have all these Vibravision® obstacles set up around us, they’re all over the place.
And then, Mike and I had the opportunity to fight people who were blindfolded.
Mike had been involved in the martial arts and was an undefeated fighting champion for six years in various competitions in Utah. He knew his way around. He knew how to throw punches and kicks, and how to get out of the way. I didn’t have nearly as much experience in sparring and fighting, but it didn’t matter. It didn’t matter. These guys smoked BOTH of us in an obstacle course with their eyes taped shut and a blindfold on. It was truly humbling in a way that I have never been humbled before or since.
It was truly a WTF moment every single second of that experience because they never hit a pole. They were going backward while Mike and I were attacking. They were weaving through the obstacles while blocking our attacks and even counter-attacking us. They never knocked over a single pole. The only poles that had gotten knocked over were the ones that WE knocked over. The two people who could see. To this day, this story lives with me as one of the most profound experiences I’ve ever had with Vibravision®, and Merpati Putih’s application to combat and self-defense and awareness.
Vibravision® is so much more than helping blind people to be able to detect their surroundings. It is used in military forces, not just in hand-to-hand, but in live-fire and search and rescue missions.
It is truly an amazing thing to behold.
(And my ribs don’t hurt anymore from those kicks that landed, so that’s good.)
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