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The Piper Challenge: Some further considerations
Terminology is important. Just look at psychology and psychoanalysis. The moment you label someone as being manic-depressive or as being schizophrenic, you immediately “know”, or think you know, what you are dealing with. Some words are automatically associated with a whole complex of meanings.
Piper, in its origins as a tool used by gang members, was NOT some form of machismo-oriented competitive event such as bullfighting, in which the bull had been replaced by an opponent who also had a “stabbing tool”.
The knife was a tool. The techniques were tools. Both were used to express and enforce the intent of the gangster. The intent was a laser-like focusing of his will so as to get whatever he wanted. Money, drugs, rape, whatever it was that his black heart desired. The only way to stop him was with greater intent or greater force. There is no place for morality, mercy or compassion in this world-view. All the “softening” elements of civilisation have been stripped away. The gangster’s world is a jungle and his knife is the equivalent of other predator’s claws and fangs.
The idea of “sparring” or of “sporting competition” is nonsensical when seen from this vantage point.
The non-contact “sparring” with live blades engaged in traditionally in Piper fulfills a number of purposes. It desensitizes the young gang-member to the naturally scary idea of facing someone else wielding a blade. Invariably, in doing this, he bleeds sooner or later and this becomes a part of his rite of passage. First you see some of your own blood shed, then you shed the blood of others.
It teaches elements of adjusting your footwork to that of a moving enemy and awareness of the enemy’s blade. In that sense it reminds me a little of the “mirroring” shadowboxing partner-drill my boxing coach Lakis Campanis used with us often.
It is, however, not “knife fighting” or “knife dueling”. It is a two person drill, a sparring game, call it whatever you want but understand one thing: YOU CAN ONLY KNIFE-FIGHT WHEN YOU…..KNIFE-FIGHT ! A knife-fight implies bad intentions, severe blood loss and the threat of imminent death.
The Piper Challenge is NOT an invitation to a knife-fight. If you want a knife-fight, dress up to look like money and take a taxi to a township shebeen. The likelihood that you need to use your knife in a desperate attempt to survive during the night is fairly high. If you are still around, let us know what happened and how things worked out for you.
At the Piper Challenge there are rules. Protective gear is worn. Proceedings will be stopped if you are clearly unable to continue. Yes, you will obviously have to sign an indemnity form but it is hopefully unlikely that you will experience more than pain and lots of bruises.
On the other hand, I most definitely do not want to turn “Piper” into a sport, a kind of “Cape Flats” equivalent of Olympic fencing. In the ongoing Disneyfication of the world, even hot-dog eating has become a competitive event, a “sport” of sorts.
This is not a sport. Just as in the street, there will be no weight, size or level-of-experience categories. There will be no winners or losers and there will most definitely be no medals or trophies.
It is a learning game, an opportunity to learn more about yourself, physically, mentally and spiritually. It is an opportunity to sharpen your attributes. It is a motivating factor to get you to train harder by setting a specific time and opportunity at which you will need your skills to be as well-honed as you can make them.
As practitioners of the Piper system, we are not criminals or gang-bangers. We have no intention of injuring or killing anyone. Nonetheless, one day, if you live in South Africa and carry a knife on you, chances are high that you will end up facing one of the “original” practitioners of Piper, i.e. a gangster who may only know two or three techniques but has used these to injure or kill and has the intent to use them on you, unless you give him what he wants. Some things you may be prepared to give him, others not.
I must admit that I get highly irritated when smug so-called “experts” in nice, air-conditioned First World Countries sarcastically say something like: “Come on, get real. What are the chances of anyone ever being in a knife vs. knife scenario?” Well, where we live, if you carry a knife, the chances are good.
The Piper Challenge is thus also a part of our strategy to create an equalizer, something that will at least partially offset the criminal’s superior intent and experience.
Initially I was very tempted to do what the Dog Brothers do, simply substituting a wooden knife for the stick. The question then arose in my mind whether this would really serve a purpose when it comes to knives. It certainly works in terms of stick fighting and my admiration for the Dog Brothers and what they have achieved made it tempting to go that route.
Personally, it would definitely slant things in my favor. At nearly two meters tall and close to 260 pounds, with a love for the clinch and a more than passing acquaintance with ground grappling, I could simply “crash-and-bash” my way into the clinch, take my opponent down and proceed from there.
I asked myself though, and also discussed this with some of my friends, in a knife scenario, would you really want to grapple and clinch? Piper as traditionally used by its larger exponents uses a lot of pushing, grabbing and unbalancing techniques, but these only last for a split-second or two and are meant as set-ups to create a better opportunity to stab the other person without getting stabbed in turn.
Piper is all about intent, speed and deception. It’s about getting in, doing damage and getting out before the enemy has a chance to retaliate. By bringing ground grappling and extensive clinching into the equation one would be changing things from a speed orientation to a power orientation. And this change would only be possible because a knife-length stick was being wielded rather than a sharp, pointy piece of metal.
A good grappler with non-existent knife skills could enter the event and feel that he was doing really well, whereas in a real situation he would have been stabbed twenty times before being able to secure that arm bar.
Rules will thus have to be implemented that prevent this kind of thing from happening. Possibly something such as that holding onto the opponent for more than, say, five seconds is not permitted and that, should both parties end up rolling around on the ground with each other, they are stood up and separated after a similar short period of time.
We have plenty of time to establish the parameters we will be using and I would appreciate any feedback from anyone on this.
There will be no winners or losers, but a positive outcome would be something in the way of having hit the opponent repeatedly without having been stabbed yourself. That would be very much in alignment with both the original usage of Piper and what one would hope for in a life-or-death situation.
I have seen footage of some of the heavily padded-up participants at world stick fighting championships standing close to each other and whacking away merrily whilst the opponent does likewise. This sort of thing does not translate well to the knife. The fact that I have “won” by stabbing you forty times whilst you have “lost” by only scoring thirty means that in real life I have five minutes to get myself to a hospital before I die, whilst you only have three minutes.
So, to summarize: I am happy that we have a whole year to refine this concept, as there is still quite a bit of thinking and planning to be done. At least we know what it is that we want. We want a learning experience that benefits ALL the participants. For Piper exponents, it will be an opportunity to get together, learn from each other and have some fun. For South African practitioners of other knife usage systems it will be an opportunity to see how their techniques and tactics work against a more civilized version of the same animal they will realistically come up against on our streets. If you cannot handle a Doberman or a Rottweiler, how do you expect to handle a wolf?
For anyone motivated enough to visit us from overseas, it will give them the opportunity to be exposed to a great deal of Piper in a very short period of time. Finally, to those who dismiss Piper as “useless” or “non-functional”, it would give them the opportunity to see whether they are right.
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