The Beast

Et ecce equus pallidus: et qui sedebat super eum, nomen illi Larry McCraw, et infernus sequebatur eum.

I started working when I was thirteen, legally when I was fourteen. I started at $1.50 an hour, then $1.75, then $2. What did I do with this abundance? I spent it on food, my motorcycle, my increasingly demanding girlfriend, and karate.

I started studying Kenpo at fifteen. Larry McCraw was my teacher. He was perhaps five feet eight inches tall and weighed 140 pounds. I was big and strong, but I was never a champion. Larry was a champion. He was fast, and he was driven.

Larry with Joe Louis, the world heavyweight karate champion.

Kenpo is not a gentle martial art. It is a combat martial art. If karate is the US Army, Kenpo is the USMC: its job is to break things and hurt people. Let me be clear about what that meant with Larry: if you put Bruce Lee, Steven Seagal, Jean-Claude Van Damme, and Jackie Chan in a room with him, the only man walking out of the room would be Larry.

Our karate studio was next door to Dumont's Tavern, a biker bar. The last time I looked, the bikers' clubhouse was still two blocks north of where the studio had been. Sometimes they had a little too much to drink and wanted some friendly combat. They would come into the studio, a little blood would be spilled, and we would part as friends, until the next time they felt ornery.

Once Larry tore his Achilles tendon doing karate exercises. His leg was put in a full cast that kept his knee bent. What did he do? He completed 27,225 sit-ups, breaking the previous record of 26,000.

Candie Wozniak reported the feat in The Daily Californian. He started at ten at night and finished at nine-thirty the next morning. Eleven and a half hours, with his leg in a cast. For weeks beforehand, he had been doing 6,000 sit-ups a day. By the time he finished, the heel of his cast was worn through. Larry was, and remains, unstoppable.

“Karate teacher does 27,225 sit-ups,” by Candie Wozniak for The Daily Californian. Read the full-resolution article.

At twenty, I had to stop training. The demands of San Diego State University and a full-time job were too much, and I was also working at my mother's motorcycle shop on weekends. Something had to go. Karate was what went.

Larry kept going. He was one of Dick Willett's successful black belts. In 1988, he and Terry Crook, Orned “Chicken” Gabriel, Steve “Nasty” Anderson, and Steve Fisher won the US Open Karate tournament as Willett's team. Larry is a member of the Kenpo International Hall of Fame.

When Larry left California for Oregon, he became a mountain man for a while. Here he is with his horse.

Larry with his horse in Oregon.

Years later, when Larry was sixty-seven, I wrote to him. In his reply, he told me he had a powerlifting gym on his own property and was the “stand up” coach at a professional MMA gym. We had both had back surgery. This is what he said about his:

Like you, I had back surgery but mine was in 2004. I didn't believe I would be able to lift heavy again. To my surprise and utter joy, I am able to. Tonight, I deadlifted 715 lbs. x 6 reps. That is better than my competitive years!

Seven hundred and fifteen pounds, six repetitions, after major back surgery. That is more than five times the 140 pounds he weighed as a karate champion. Better than his competitive years. I told you, the man is a beast.

And after telling me all that, he wrote, “I am proud of you.”

Larry a few years ago, deadlifting 400 pounds with one hand.

Larry squatting.

At seventy-three, Larry is still lifting and fighting MMA. That is incredible. I look at these photographs and think of the small, fast karate champion who taught me when I was fifteen. He has transformed himself into a true beast of a man. His life has been one of drive and excellence.

I have seven artificial discs in my spine now. My fighting days are over, and I probably will not be able to lift like Larry, but he is still an inspiration to me.

The next time I am in Oregon, I plan to look him up. He will probably want to spar, but I am wise enough to turn him down.

When I think about my life, would I rather be a distinguished professor of engineering, or Larry McCraw? Most days, I would rather be Larry McCraw.

Be like Larry. You can achieve anything you put your mind to.