What Should Have Been But Never Was : Cuevas -vs- Palomino.

After a while I started to understand how Helmut was practicing; he wanted to
become more free and more alive, without reacting to his opponent and
without using any muscle power, weight or swinging motions.
Helmut himself was always training with some senior students.
He was always exploring to find a way of movement that would be the most
effective with the use of least effort or movement. He would kick for example,
and then asked them if they could see it coming, and then try again and again
until his kick became unstoppable for them. Or he would practise throws with
the very least of effort possible.
Was it a hard training?
It was not too hard for me at that time. Helmut did a lot of fighting with his
Seniors.
They should attack him in whatever way they wanted; his goal was not to react
to it, but to stay completely relaxed and awake and to respond directly and
without any compromise with his own movement.
He always got very, very irritated when he noticed any muscle movement in
himself that came about from the attack of the other. Because that would
create a reference point or a striking point for the other. He always became
mad with himself when he did not control his own reflexes.
His movements where fast or slow but it was always incredibly effective.
He was always practising the same things over and over again; he was really so
into it and he let others attack him over and over until he had dissolved all his
own reflexes completely; he was and still is a perfectionist.
How did his way of training affect you?
I was very intrigued with his way; it was of course very unusual. I started to
realize that it is possible to fight and to win without needing force, mass or
bodysize. And it made me train in this way too. It was difficult for me but very
Interesting.
In the beginning of the 80ties when I was 20 years old, Helmut Barthel started
a school in Heide where about 20 people came who where also doing other
kind of martial arts. From then on I trained twice a week And then my teacher
started to work with me personally where I also had to attack him.
How did his technique work on you?
I got very scared because I was not able to do anything against him whatever I
did; he always had me completely under control. He hit me harder and threw
me harder so that I would get accustomed how to deal with pain.
We also learned some kind of Taiji set that was used as an instrument to
explore movement. How we could deal with our own pressure and resistance
in our own movement. Again we learned how to dissolve pressure.
We learned how to feel our body and to feel into our feet. I was mostly feeling
pain because it was so strange and impossible to do it.