What Handicap?

We had an adult woman join us to get some exercise. Her name is Vicky or Vicki.
She is tall slim and dark haired. A nice looking woman and mother of a small child at the time.
Vicki could not understand how she could do Kata with only one arm. Oh did I not mention that?
See none of us precieved her as a one armed warrior.
I taught her to use the empty sleeve as a distraction and also as if there were an arm in it, and so Vicky did katas that way and she looked great.
We showed her how to fight with one arm as well.
Finally the day arrived when there was an open competition and Vicky decided to compete.
When she got to the door the person registering the fighters asked her what she wanted
"What does it look like? I'm here to compete in kata and Fighting"
"Can't do that" he replied
"Why not?
"Because you are handicapped. You only have ONE ARM"
"What handicap?" she said, "I was born that way"
"Sorry' he went on shaking his head No
Vicky told him if he did not allow her to fight she would throw the biggest discrimination law suit the state has ever seen
He signed her up
Vicky took the silver in Kata and then, as a woman approaching forty with one arm, she went against young women of 19 years old to 26 years old with two arms
Vicky fought approximately 18 fights that day and won the GOLD. Not out of pity, but out of perserverance and courage, and because , DAMN, she was good.
I turned proudly and yelled
"LEGEND! Everyone, put one hand behind your backs and kick ass!" and they did, and ALL came home with GOLD
It is not that they were not as good. It is because WE believed we were better.
Vicky was our inspiration and banner

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Shihan Varon says:
6 weeks ago

Sensei;

You bring to mind of a story very similar when we trained with you at the Park Avenue Dojo in NYC. You taught us back then in that basement the realities of combat and how there was no handicap or limitations to what we could do, see , hear or feel. This was evident in our approach to anyone who dared to train with us in the metal cabinet dojo at that time. At any rate, you had asked me to take over a class one night and neglected to tell me that one of the new white belts was a man who had his arm amputated at the elbow.

I paid no mind to that detail and was leading the classes in warm stretches and got to do the part where we did push-ups.

I told everyone to do pushups but told this one student "it was ok, he did not have to do that". His reaction was swift and direct. "Sensei...are you saying I am handicap and cannot do that?" I did not know what to say and before I could respond..he grabbed a chair and proceeded to put his stump of an arm on the air and proceeded to do push-ups. I bowed to this student and apologized to him and did twice as many push-ups. It was and still remains one of the most valuable lessons in humility I learned from a person. There is no handicap. The only handicap is the lack of desire to try...osu.... Thank-You for sharing that lesson so long ago.