 Gold, blue
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Martial arts master showsgridders hand skills, will BY BOB HERTZEL The Dominion Post A West Virginia football player's introduction to Jeff Davis goes something like this: He stands before them, a wiry 6-3, 170 pounds, long black hair pulled back into a ponytail, and selects the three to five biggest men in the room. In the case of WVU players, that's usually Tanner Russell and Rick Gilliam and a few other 300-plus pounders who spend half their lives pumping iron. Davis asks them to line up one behind the other, as if they were a railroad train. Then he has them put their hands on each other, the lead man with his hands on Davis' chest. Davis then instructs them to push him backward. They huff and puff, all 1,500 pounds of them, and they can't budge him an inch. Master Jeff Davis, martial arts instructor, 5th-degree black belt and proprietor of the Tao-Shiu-Kuan Jeff Davis School of Martial Arts, here in Morgantown, has their attention at that point. He has shown them it isn't how strong you are that matters. It is technique, concentration and will that matter. Can kung fu and football mix? Indeed, they can. "It has become common in the pros," Davis said. "The colleges are just catching on."
'It helped me focus' Actually, WVU has been cognizant of the mix for a long, long time. Offensive coordinator Bill Legg found it to be a valuable tool when he played, in the early 1980s. "I really needed it," he said. "I was smallest guy on the offensive line, just 265 pounds. It helped my technique and it helped my concentration. I found that against Penn State, I concentrated better than in games where there were less distractions beca use it helped me focus." Davis actually started working with the Mountaineers in the early 1990s, brought in by offensive coordinator Mike Jacobs. "When he left (for Ohio State), my position was dissolved,'' Davis said. Legg went to strength coach Alan Johnson with the idea of bringing him back. "Football now, especially inside, is played so much with the hands,'' Johnson said. "There's so much holding, there's so much pulling. We were thinking for more than a year that the game is not all about strength. It's not all about lifting weights. Part of the game is functional movements.'' That's technique. The idea was that Davis could teach WVU's offensive linemen how to better their hands to deliver a blow. "The thing we try to do is make them better football players. We're not trying to get them ready for bar fights downtown," Johnson said. "I don't want the kicking and all that. I want to teach them to use their hands more effectively."
Better hand speed The training started slowly. "We brought him in on a limited basis, like one day a week,'' Johnson said. "Over the summer, it was twice a week. Now, the days they're not on the field he comes in and works with the offensive linemen two days a week, 25 minutes a pop.'' "It helps hand speed, hand coordination," Davis said. "What it is is 'dynamic hitting.' On the first step, they blow the defender out of the water. They put a hole in him." Before a season begins, Davis meets with the coaches. "I tell them what I'd like to do and they tell me what they want to accomplish. We meet in the middle and I give them the tools to get the job done," Davis said. Martial arts is not just hitting and kicking. There is a mental side to it, perhaps the most important aspect. "I wanted to do this for concentration," said Legg, who was presented an "honorary black belt'' by Davis for his ability to break boards. "To play offensive line, you have to be on an even keel. You can't be too high, you can't be down in the dumps. You get too high and you forget what you're trying to do. "I can do it with my hands and with kicks," Legg said. "That head stuff isn't for me."
Iron will To address the mental side of the training, Davis gave Johnson "about 18-20 what we call 'iron will' exercises, exercises to train the heart." One such exercise is called "The Iron Horse," and it has nothing to do with Lou Gehrig. A beefy offensive lineman is told to stand with his back against the wall, his feet about two shoulder widths apart. Then he is asked to squat until his thighs are pa rallel to the ground. This exercise probably shouldn't be tried at home because you may need help getting out of the position. To test if they are doing it right, a rod is laid across the thighs. If it rolls onto the ground, the thighs are not parallel. "I have an 11-year-old girl in class who can get into this position and stay there three minutes," Davis said. "It tests one's will." Davis' martial arts background is impeccable. He began martial arts training at 8 with Grand Master E.F. Thorner, who had arrived in Morgantown 30 years ago from Okinawa. "He is more than a mentor to me," Davis said. "He is a friend. He was the best man at my wedding." Davis was hooked on martial arts. He attended Morgantown High but didn't play organized sports. Instead, he went into competition and for 17 years was a force at the national level. "The young wolves, instead of wanting to beat you, they now want to take a bite out of you," said Davis, who at 39 is in semi-retirement as a competitor. The players have taken well to Davis' instruction but deny that the pregame meal will be changed to rice, although Johnson does have one suggestion to help some of the heavier Mountaineers get into shape.
"We could require the guys who need to lose weight to eat all their meals with chopsticks," he said.
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