John Gehlsen - Part II

John Gehlsen fights an unknown opponent, with a
young Fumio Demura as referee and me as one of the corner judges.

If you could select one person to accompany you in what could be a deadly fight on the street, who would you pick? For some, they might think first of some of the karate greats. There’s an entire category of jokes about Chuck Norris and his imagined prowess. (“When the boogeyman goes to sleep, he checks his closet for Chuck Norris.”) But having the skill to win at tournaments doesn’t always translate well to skill on the street in a serious, life-threatening fight.

For me, the person I would have selected back in the day would likely have been John Gehlsen or another old friend, Jim Harrison. Not only were both great tournament fighters but (because of their professions in law enforcement and the number of “death matches” they likely fought on the street when working undercover) they were perhaps even greater street fighters. (Professional Karate Magazine did a five-part series on Jim Harrison’s experiences several years ago. They were great reading. Hopefully, the articles are still available.)

(Just to put John’s skill in perspective, he generally bested his IKA dojomate Tonny Tulleners, who placed 3^rd at the first WUKO championships, won his black belt division at GM Parker’s tournament, etc. Tonny easily beat Chuck Norris all three times they met, when Chuck was at his peak. I saw most, if not all, of those matches and don’t remember Chuck ever even scoring a point on Tonny.)

It always struck me as a bit funny when Gehlsen and the other cops who trained at IKA headquarters would enter the changing room, remove their service revolvers, and lock them in their personal lockers. I, of course, realized that the people they often faced in the line of duty were armed. And I had no illusions about the likely outcome in karate versus gun battles. But it always made me chuckle nonetheless. Gehlsen with a pistol seemed something akin to Superman carrying one.

John was a bit of an acquired taste. He was hard to get close to and it took a while before I felt accepted by him. Something I had learned along the way was that many cops tended to divide the world into two types of people – cops and non-cops. (Cops and “Assholes” was actually how most phrased it.) This helped prevent emotion from making it difficult at times to do their jobs. If a person wasn’t a cop, he or she were often considered a perp who hadn’t yet been caught. (Many years later, I was asked by San Jose’s Chief of Police to speak to his captains about how to prevent their officers from abusing the power entrusted in them. And I looked at the side-effects of this view of the public, essentially the objectification of anyone they might have to confront.)

Once, I was at the dojo when a guy came in. He waited for someone to help him. John eventually strode over to the man and asked what he wanted in a less than welcoming tone. The guy answered that he was interested in learning karate. John told him they didn’t need any more students and the guy left. (The truth was they did need students at the time.) He looked fine to me. But that was John. He was a pure karateka. The guy hadn’t look serious enough to him or something.

John and I were talking once about his job. He told me about a fight he had gotten into a few years earlier while working undercover. He had gone in on a drug bust and chased one of the suspects into a high school shower room, where the guy tried to fight him and failed. John said he was at the supermarket recently, buying groceries, when a man approached him. “Do you remember me?” the man asked. John shook his head. The guy asked if he remembered the incident in the school shower room. John said “Yeah.” The guy asked, “Do you remember beating the crap out of the guy you arrested?” John said, “Yeah,” his voice and nervousness rising. The guy said “Well, I’m that guy.” John said “Yeah?!!” his hand going into his coat for his revolver. Then, the guys said, “I just wanted to thank you. Getting my ass kicked that bad made me straighten up. I never want that to ever happen again.” He offered his hand and John shook it.

I’ll likely write at least one more post on John before moving one. If anyone has any footage of John’s fights, please let me know. (I should have some but have yet to find it on the many films I shot years ago and Val later converted to DVD.) I intend to talk next time about his unique fighting style and tamashii.