The old installer in Dayton told me to kick the stretcher into the corner instead of stretching from it
He watched me fight a Berber for 40 minutes in a hallway off Needmore Road last Tuesday, then walked over and said "quit pulling it, push it" and showed me his knee kick move I'd never seen, and I still think about how calm he was about the whole thing so I'm wondering if anyone else had a guy like that early on who just flipped your whole approach.
My first mentor just watched me struggle for like 20 minutes and didn't say a word until I was sweating through my shirt. Guy looked at me and goes "you know it's not supposed to fight back, right?" Still think about that one. Sounds like you found a real one though, that knee kick trick probably saved you hours of your life.