THE WAY TO FIGHT

Gary was unimpressive at first glance.
Somehow, he looked ‘compressed’: short, broad shouldered and a little bit chubby.
The only element about him that stood out was his green eyes, which had the steady, penetrating gaze of people who have an inner long-wave focus.
Everything about him was loveable — the internal, steady peacefulness he had, wrapped by his somewhat small and roundish appearance, radiated a calming presence. Nothing about him felt like a threat.
Gary was ever willing to help, and nothing seemed to be able to shake or to shock him. Although he faced some challenging moments as a navy officer under my command, his calmness was always available, soothing many difficulties around him.
He did not talk much; he was economical with his words, as if he did not want to be loose with his energies.
It was one of those nights, after we lead our soldiers through a difficult trek. On that night, Gary experienced a dramatic event with his platoon — one of his soldiers broke down psychologically, in the middle of the trek, in the midst of a steep uphill run. The event was accompanied by shouts of distress, penetrating the night’s darkness, with much agitation and fear in the air. Yet, in some magical way, although the situation could have easily deteriorated, as stress and anxiety have an adhesive nature, Gary managed to contain it and to keep his soldiers intact.
We were sitting together in the Command Tent, waiting for the After-Action Review, quietly sipping our coffee, allowing our aching muscles some moments to regenerate.
After a few silent sips, I turned to Gary and asked him:
“How did you do it?”
“How did I do what?” replied Gary, clearly not seeing what was evident to all of us.
I tried to be more specific:
“How did you manage to stay calm and to keep everybody calm during the drama tonight?”
“Ahh”, he replied with a smile. “I think it may have had something to do with Karate…”
It was a strange answer. I hadn’t noticed any Karate movements that night.
Gary noticed my puzzlement and continued: “I’m not sure I told you, but I’ve had a black belt in Karate, since a young age”.
Well — he hadn’t told me about it until that point. Being a man of few words, he probably didn’t find it necessary to mention the fact until I asked.
I then remembered that prior to Gary joining my unit, I read in his personnel file that he grew up in one of the roughest neighborhoods in a peripheral city. I knew people had to be very tough in order to survive such experiences as teenagers, so I told him:
“This explains a lot. You probably had many opportunities to use your Karate skills during neighborhood gang-fights, didn’t you?”
“Well”, he replied. “Actually, no”. He paused, looked at me with a mischievous grin, measuring the impact of his words, and continued:
“It was everyone else who was fighting. I only needed one strike!”
I was still puzzled.
Gary felt the question in the air and continued:
“Although there were many street-fights around me, I never got involved. Only once, when someone attacked my best friend for no reason, I felt compelled to respond, but even then, I felt no need to fight:
“I just hit with one strike, and that drove the message home”, he said. “After the other guy was taken away by an ambulance, I discovered that nobody else ever tried to involve me in a fight again”.
We sat in silence. Looking in Gary’s eyes, and listening to his story, I could now see where his calmness came from.
There is something unique about real strength — it relieves a person from the need to show it by using external force.
In fact, what I learned from this goes far beyond Karate:
In times of need, when you are truly strong, you only need one strike.
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