To answer the question: Who is the most impressive martial artist I have ever seen? Let me tell you a little story.
One day I was at Mr. Parkers house for a lesson and he pulls a wickedly beautiful fighting knife out of its sheath, holds it up around eye level, and rotating blade slightly, he says weÂ’re going to work on knife techniques today. DonÂ’t mind saying that scared the crap out of me!
Then he set the knife down, picked up a piece of blue chalk, and proceeded to coat the edges of the sheath with chalk. He then put down the chalk, hands me the sheath and tells me to attack him with it. Relaxing considerably, I figured “Sure I’ll play your little game, but don’t come complaining when I actually stab you with this thing.” (Those of you who have ever worked out with Mr. Parker know that when he tells you to attack him, he means ATTACK.)
So, I launch in with some semi-fancy, totally dumb, knife attack as Mr. Parker whips the knife away and turns the tables. I dodge, duck and maneuver to the best of my ability until Mr. Parker stops attacking me. Then he says, “How do you think you did?” Not feeling anyplace where he stabbed me, or pealed any skin off, I said I thought I did pretty good.
He smiled, then told me to go look in the mirror. To my shock, and amazement I see two blue streaks – one each slicing across both sides of my neck. Then Mr. Parker says to look under my arms and between my legs – where I find four more streaks of blue chalk – one each on the fleshy soft undersides of my upper arms and two more on the inner sides of my upper thighs.
The most impressive martial artist I have ever seen – and felt - would have to be Ed Parker.
