Happy New Year!

I wish you all a very happy, healthy, and prosperous New Year!

Those who can, spar. Those who can’t, do kata – Part IV

Hanshi George Anderson and me

Hanshi George Anderson was a great mentor and friend, who we unfortunately lost in August of 2009. He had created and served as head of the USA Karate Federation (USAKF) until his death. For several years, the USAKF was the official National Governing Body (NGB) for karate in the United States under the auspices of the U.S. Olympic Committee.

NGB is a significant designation. It means that only that organization – then the USAKF and now the USANKF – is approved to select, train, and field any team that officially represents the United States in international competition and to host the official national championships. If the sport or activity is an Olympic event, then that organization also decides who will represent the United States at the Olympics.

Hanshi Anderson also headed the Pan American Union of Karatedo Organizations (PUKO), the official hemispheric governing body for the Americas under the International Olympic Committee (IOC). And he was 1^st Vice President and senior member of the powerful Executive Committee of WUKO/WKF, the official world governing body for karate under the IOC. He had previously served as head of the important WUKO Referees Committee, which established and administered the rules for international competition in both sparring and kata.

In 1988, I flew to Mexico City with the US team in order to meet Hanshi Anderson and see what kind of person he was so I could determine if I wanted to be a part of the new organization. (My experiences with the old A.A.U. Karate program had been less than stellar. After Sensei Joe Mirza later took over leadership of AAU Karate, it was significantly improved. When Julius Thiery took over the NGB – I’ll talk at some point about what I consider that dirty bit of business – I supported AAU Karate and found many great people there and a great program.) I expected to spend a few moments with Hanshi Anderson in Mexico but ended up spending several days. He took me under his wing, introduced to everyone significant, and brought me to all the high level functions. By the time I returned home, he and I had become close friends, and remained so for the rest of his years.

Hanshi Anderson was a natural teacher. His mind never shut off – a quality/shortcoming we shared. We both liked to synthesize things we learned from seemingly unrelated sciences or disciplines with the martial arts. For example, he once came across the phrase “Rate of Closure”. This is an optical illusion experienced sometimes by pilots. But he applied it to karate matches. He believed that a normal fighter attempted (on average) to close on his/her opponent 8 times during a match. He brought this up while we were flying in a small plane to the Caribbean Island of Guadeloupe. We then spent the rest of the trip, and the long flight home, brainstorming ways to increase or decrease an opponent’s rate of closure – increasing or decreasing their attempts to attack during a match to more or less than the average 8. This is important as it can be used to prevent a superior attacker or defender from using that asset to their advantage. (I’ll likely go into this – including when and how to use it – in a future post.)

We often sat next to each other during long air flights, car rides, and bus trips in our travels around the world. And he would always educate me along the way. But no one was ever allowed to be simply a passive listener with Hanshi Anderson. He always asked a lot of questions to test you and enhance the learning experience. For example, he might ask “What are the ten greatest sins a sparring referee can make?” Then, if you didn’t get the answer right, he would explain what and why those were. So I learned a tremendous amount kind of at his knee.

When a particularly heavy load had been dumped on him, usually by some jerk (and there were lots of them at the world level), he could sometimes lash out at whoever was nearby, which was often me. I understood and didn’t mind. It’s sometimes the price one pays for that level of closeness to great men and women. They sometimes treat you with the same sharpness as they treat and drive themselves, which I took as a complement of sorts. I was former military so I understood well and had no problem with the kohai/sempai relationship. Plus, the martial arts are where one goes to learn to say “Ous”, which is what I would do. He was my senior and my mentor. I had no problem with that. Although he would never apologize, he would also be exceptionally kind at other times, more than making up for it.

He asked me to serve as Head of Delegation for the USA Karate Team for the World Karate Congress at both the ’88 Cairo and ’90 Mexico City WUKO championships. I had been asked to address the Congress in Cairo and speak about increasing the spread of traditional karatedo through the colleges and universities. When Hanshi Anderson introduced me to WUKO President Jacques Delcourt, the Executive Committee, and the assembled senior group of karate heads from the 144 member nations, he said “I know he doesn’t look like it, he looks more like a college professor, but he’s probably the biggest sleeper in the martial arts. He can hit you faster and harder than you can possibly imagine.” I was speechless for a few seconds, taken aback by his flattery, even if it surely wasn’t true. But that was Hanshi Anderson. We had many great times together and I miss him.

Next time, I’ll talk about what I learned from Hanshi Anderson about evaluating kata and a test so scary it gave one high level instructor a heart attack.

Again, thanks for reading my humble ramblings.

Merry Christmas!

I would like to thank all of you for your readership and support. I hope you all enjoy a wonderful holidays with family, friends, and good food and cheer.

Great Books - Eight

Kinesiology is the science of human movement. It studies efficient and inefficient movement from the standpoint of the laws of physics. In the martial arts, we need to know that our techniques are scientifically correct, that our blocks, strikes, and kicks generate an optimal amount of force (and do so safely) and that our stances provide a platform solid enough to support our techniques.

Dr. Lester Ingber is a karate black belt but also holds a PhD in Physics. His book, Karate Kinematics and Dynamics, discusses the application of the laws of physics to our karate kihon (basics) and the various ways available to us to create maximum force in our techniques.

This book was published in 1981 and out of print. New copies are very expensive. But used copies are still available via Amazon at just a few dollars.

Those who can, spar. Those who can't, do kata - Part III

A few weeks ago, I commented on an attack on a quote by my primary instructor, Soke Takayuki Kubota, posted by Martial Arts Masters Magazine on their Facebook page. The quote said “Kata is kumite and kumite is kata”. I commented that I had learned how to put kime (focused, penetrating power at the point of contact) into my oizuki (lunge punch) from doing Tekki/Naihanchi Shodan. Someone responded that I obviously knew nothing about kata, that it was never designed for use against another trained man, that a lunge punch had no place in real self defense, that a real opponent on the street would ram an ashtray into my mouth and smash my head into his knee, etc.

My response was to ask him what he would do in the following scenario: He’s in a heated argument with a guy who stands just outside arm or foot reach. The guy angrily thrusts his hand into his coat, as if reaching for a pistol. He’s too far away to elbow, headbutt, knee, apply kyusho or tuite, etc. What would he do?

It’s a medium or long range situation, not a close range one, requiring a medium or long range technique. A fast lunge punch would cover that distance easily, but he’s clearly missing that tool in his combative toolbox. (I’m not sure how he replied as the thread had been completely removed when I checked the next day.)

(French Philosopher Voltaire said “If you wish to converse with me, define your terms”. So I should point out that what many call a lunge punch, I call a step punch. What I call a lunge punch is a much faster accelerating technique that requires different footwork and can cover a fair amount of distance in a split second.)

In his book, Hidden Karate, Gennosuke Higaki claims that, prior to coming to mainland Japan, the top Okinawan instructors (including Gichin Funakoshi) made a secret pact not to teach the mainlanders either the true kata or its bunkai. He claims they intentionally taught them what he termed “useless kata”. He bases this on statements made by his instructor, Shozan Kubota, who was reportedly one of Funakoshi Sensei’s most senior students in the early days.

A good friend, who is very informed and well connected with most of the top Okinawan masters (including past connections with some who would have been around when such a decision was made), doesn’t believe Higaki’s claim. He thought the entire premise ridiculous. Plus, Sensei Funakoshi reportedly taught both Okinawan kata and bunkai to his early mainland students, even by Higaki’s own admission (if I remember right).

But it’s not just Japanese kata some hold as useless. They also include its defensive techniques, its longer fighting distance, and its focus on competition.

If you were a general about to engage in a major war, would you want infantry, aircraft, tanks, or artillery? Or would you want them all? A wise general would surely want all the tools he could get. And the same applies here. Why would a martial artist choose to become skilled only in close fighting techniques rather than techniques for all ranges?

Great fighters always create and maintain an optimal fighting distance when given the option. (It’s one of the things that makes them so successful and sets them apart from their less skilled and less successful cohorts.) This distance is just outside the reach of an opponent’s longest weapon. (We briefly discussed the subject of distance control in an earlier post.) Such a distance prevents an opponent from reaching out with a quick kick or punch, or slash of a knife, and hitting you before you can react. Proper distance control forces an opponent to take a step before he can reach you, making it at least a two beat action, which buys you what could be critically important time – to block, sidestep, move out of range, or hit him before he can land his technique.

Granted, establishing such a distance is not always possible. But, for a skilled, defensively-aware martial artist, it’s a viable option more times than not. When a potential attacker is allowed to get too close, it’s usually due to a failure on the defender’s part. Plus, I don’t know any decent karateka who isn’t proficient in close fighting techniques. He may not be able to name the location of Triple Warmer 17, but he knows where and how to use his elbows, knees, headbutts, eye and throat attacks, etc.

I think anyone who believes competitive training and longer distance fighting made Japanese trained karateka pushovers on the street would have a very rude awakening if they faced a large number of such karateka – Mikio Yahara, Frank Smith, Ray Dalke, Tonny Tulleners, etc.

My old dojomates, John Gehlsen and Tulleners, were cops who had many occasions to apply what they learned in the dojo on the toughest streets in LA. Both fought very successfully on the U.S. team at the World Karate Championships. (John won the Tamashii Award and Tonny placed 3^rd in 1970. And Tonny beat Chuck Norris 3 out of 3 times.) Neither ever lost a fight on the street, and arguably against some of the toughest, most motivated opponents – convicted felons who were trying to avoid going back to prison.

I agree that the bunkai for Japanese versions of Okinawan kata were stripped of much of their close fighting techniques – kyusho and tuite. Sensei Mikami personally confirmed that fact to me. But I wouldn’t agree that what the Japanese ended up teaching was useless. It may have led to a different set of qualities and skills in a practitioner than those intended in the original versions of Okinawan kata. But those qualities and skills were anything but useless. (I’ll identify what these are next time.)

I don’t see any of this as an either/or situation – either you learn close fighting techniques or you learn medium and long range ones. As with the smart general, I’ve chosen to cover myself (and my students) as broadly and deeply as possible, including all fighting ranges.

All this, of course, is just my opinion. And as Philosopher Will Durand once said “An intelligent man always harbors in his heart the thought he may be incorrect.” My mind is open and I’m learning new things and changing my position on old things every day. In philosophy, they’d say what I relayed in this post is my position at T1 (Time One). It could very well, with the right persuasion, be different at T2. The only ones, in my humble opinion, who never change are the stupid and the dead.

I’m trying to keep my posts shorter, rather than longer so the amount of print doesn’t make them look so formidable. So I’ll stop here for now. Next time, I’ll look at more of the reasons I don’t consider Japanese kata useless. In fact, they’re uniquely able to instill some very valuable qualities and skills badly needed today and found nowhere else. And I’ll also look at what I consider the value of the original Okinawan kata and their kyusho and tuite.

Again, thanks for reading the ramblings of a simple old man.

Photos and Content Copyright©2010 by Jim Mather. All Worldwide Rights Reserved!

Great Books - Seven

For as long as I can remember, I have heard the story about how the Satsuma Clan had sailed from their Southern Japanese home and defeated the Okinawans. This event, and the Satsuma’s subsequent occupation and weapons ban, was long passed down to us as the impetus for the development of an empty hand self defense art on Okinawa and for their development of weapons systems that utilized everyday work implements – bo, kama, eku, etc. (The author also presents possible evidence that this form of kobudo was taught to the Okinawans by the Satsuma.)

The Samurai Capture A King: Okinawa 1609, by Stephen Turnbull, is a great book about what had previously been a poorly documented event, the Satsuma’s attack on Okinawa. Before now, little was known about what motivated the Satsuma to attack Okinawa, how they masterminded a plan that allowed them to achieve victory in a matter of days, and the sad story about how they treated Okinawan King Sho Nei. This little book is beautifully illustrated and an enjoyable and very informative read.

As always, the name of the book is linked to Amazon, to make it easier to find it. And, if you purchase the book via this link, I am paid a percentage, which helps fund the writing of these articles and helps keep my blog going. ;-)

“Hanshi called and said it was Jim!!!”

Several years ago, I called one of my senior students at home. His wife was also a student but much lower in rank. When she answered, she asked me who was calling. I told her it was Jim. “Jim who?” she insisted. “Jim Mather,” I answered. She got excited and yelled for her husband, “Kyoshi called and said it was Jim!!!”

I, of course, am Jim. That was the name my parents gave me, who I am on my birth certificate, the name I use to sign checks, and the name that will be chiseled into my tombstone. In the dojo, I am known by the title awarded me.

Unless we, as instructors, have our heads screwed on straight and regularly monitor ourselves, it’s very easy to start believing our own hype – to begin thinking we’re actually as wonderful and accomplished as our students believe or the fluff we put in our ads. Unfortunately, too many aren’t able to do this, to keep their egos in check. And when ones ego grows significantly larger than their IQ, especially when encased in the body of one who knows he can do as much damage as a 300 lbs gorilla, you have the makings for a real pompous ass.

Many years ago, I was sitting with a couple of other competitors, waiting for our division to start. A new competitor, one we’d never seen before, strutted towards us, his nose in the air. As he passed, we saw that he had “Mr. Mullen”, or something like that, embroidered on the back of his gi top. I was sitting next to a fellow competitor who was a many time major champion. He looked at the back of the guy’s gi and said “I guess he wants to make sure we don’t mistake him for Miss Mullen”.

The guy lowered himself to amble over and speak with us, but only to say “It doesn’t look like I’ll have much competition”. Well, I fought him in the first round. He opened with an attempted shuffling side kick. I did a knee check, stopping his lead leg in mid-arc upwards, then punched him in the ribs, probably harder than I should have – but I had to cover myself in case he was actually as good as he thought he was. He fell to the floor, said I had broken two of his ribs (don’t know how he determined the number so quickly), and refused to continue. The match lasted about 5 seconds. So he was right, he didn’t have much competition.

He had obviously bought his own hype.

There was a local instructor who ran a very different kind of program. When she was in the bathroom, students reportedly had to bow to the bathroom door when they passed. When one of her female students told her that her husband was not happy about her spending so much time at the school, she reportedly told her the answer was simple, leave her husband. One of her former students told me they had to sing to her - “Our grandmaster, she’s so bright, she’s our ever guiding light.”

As I said, it’s very easy to let your ego get out of whack.

Students bow to us. They defer and humble themselves to us. When we walk into a room, they stand at attention. When they enter the dojo or walk onto the dojo floor, they bow to us.

But they’re not bowing and deferring to us, they’re bowing and deferring to the head of school, a black belt, a senior martial artist, and so on. Although we may be superior to our students in martial arts knowledge and skill, they may be far superior to us in education, social accomplishment, etc. We need to always keep that firmly in mind.

One of my favorite stories about this came from the head roshi of a Zen monastery. He was giving a journalist a tour of the grounds, showing him the many duties done by the different monks. He pointed at one who was tending the garden. Another was repairing the shed. Yet another was planting a tree. But as they continued the roshi glanced around as if intending to share a secret. He leaned in close to the reporter’s ear and whispered “But I save the best job for myself.” His curiosity peaked, the reported asked what that was. “Cleaning the outhouse,” was the roshi’s answer. “Why would you consider that the best job?” “Because,” said the roshi with a smile, “it keeps me humble”.

Humility has always been one of the qualities of a superior man or woman. We need to be ever watchful that we keep that in mind.

Los mástil que puede. Los que no pueden, no kata - Parte I

En los viejos tiempos, todo lo que quería hacer era larguero. Se mantiene el ojo agudo y afilado mis reflejos. No hemos tenido mucho uso para kata en los años 60. Los hombres de verdad discutido. El dicho fue "Aquellos que pueden larguero. Los que no pueden, no kata. "Pero a medida que fui creciendo, me llegó a apreciar el valor de la tradicional japonés / kata de Okinawa, tanto para mi propia formación y la de mis alumnos, y por qué los viejos maestros que se celebró en tan alta lo que se refiere - y gracias a Dios los dejó para que sus voces aún podrían instruirnos.Practiqué sólo kata Shotokan y Gosoku en aquel entonces. (Gosoku Ryu es el estilo de mi instructor de primaria, Soke Takayuki Kubota Desarrolló varios katas único -. Como Tamashii, Getsu Denko, Rikyu, etc - que contienen muy rápido ashi y tai sabaki, que lleva directamente en la creación de más de ritmo roto en la lucha.) El kata Shotokan se han vuelto más refinado con el tiempo, más precisa. Pero en aquel entonces, sus acciones seguían siendo grandes y purificador. Sensei Nakayama los comparó con la explosión de una granada de mano - nada y luego en una fracción de segundo hueso triturado, el poder de ladrillo de última hora se desata. Y me gustó eso. Golpear y penetrar.Considerando que el kata Gosoku eran muy orientadas a la práctica, el bunkai Shotokan en aquel entonces fue siempre un poco sospechoso - manos lanza al plexo solar, y cosas así, cosas que nunca usaría en una pelea real. Cuando yo estaba volando de regreso de los Campeonatos WUKO en El Cairo, Egipto, en 1988, tuve la suerte de estar sentado junto a la legendaria Takayuki Mikami, uno de los grandes Shotokan de todos los tiempos. (Fui nombrado pronto uno de los entrenadores de EE.UU. y viajó a menudo con él, ya que fue el entrenador de alto nivel.) Fue un vuelo largo y hablamos de muchas cosas, incluyendo bunkai. Me dijo que no había bunkai real en kata Shotokan en ese momento, que para aprender el bunkai cierto que tendría que mirar al Shorin Ryu jiu-jitsu o, lo que hice.Durante muchos años, antes y después de ese incidente, yo estaba muy involucrado en la competencia - como competidor, instructor de los competidores, el entrenador nacional, y co-director del Comité de Entrenadores de Educación Nacional. Me encontré con ese lado de karate muy interesante y desafiante - la preparación personal para la competencia a mí mismo, preparar a mis estudiantes a hacer bien, la preparación de los miembros de nuestro equipo nacional para representar a nuestro país en la competencia internacional, y también la preparación de nuestros entrenadores, me mantuvo en mi dedos de los pies . (A menudo sacamos un inexperto equipo de EE.UU. que tuvo que luchar mucho más duro y más experimentados luchadores internacionales. Así que mi objetivo era a menudo se les enseñan técnicas de neutralización para que no te maten.)En el próximo par de tramos en este tema, voy a entrar en algo que me sorprendió de cómo los competidores principales kata capacitado y sobre el enfoque actual en bunkai y Kyusho Tuite y (los ataques de punto de presión y agarre).Gracias de nuevo por leer mis divagaciones humilde.

Those who can, spar. Those who can't, do kata - Part II

In the late 80s and first half of the 90s, I was one of the national coaches and co-chair of the National Coaches Education Committee, all under the USA Karate Federation (USAKF), then the official national governing body for karate competition under the U. S. Olympic Committee. Other designated coaches included Head Coach Don Madden (Tokey Hill’s instructor), Senior Coach Takayuki Mikami, and Ridgely Abele (who we sadly lost last year).

I normally only worked with the national kumite (sparring) team. Another group of coaches worked with our kata competitors. Since the kumite and kata athletes would assemble for training at the Olympic Training Center (OTC) in Colorado Springs at different times of the year, I was disappointed that I had never had an opportunity to see how top kata competitors trained.

But, in preparation for a major international tournament, Hanshi George Anderson, USAKF President, required both teams attend a joint training session at The Springs, enabling me to watch the kata team’s training sessions. And it was a great learning experience.

Hanshi Nakazato leads his students in kata. Kyoshi Hargrove is to the right.

I had always believed that fighters had to be at the top of the conditioning ladder. After all, they had to be prepared to fight one match after another, against tougher and tougher opponents, and with less and less rest in between. (In the 60s, I had a student who tired after winning 13 matches in a row at Ed Parker’s International Karate Championships and lost his 14^th, keeping him out of the finals. I came back and made sure that never happened again, that my fighters were far better conditioned.) Plus, karate matches are made up of a series of explosive, extremely high intensity actions, where energy stores are taxed to the maximum both anaerobically (utilized oxygen stored in muscles and expended first) and aerobically (utilizing oxygen you breath during the activity).

But the amount of conditioning done by the U.S. Women’s Team Kata Team was a revelation.

Our women’s team kata team was one of the best in the world at the time. They had placed 2^nd in the world at the WUKO/WKF World Karate Championships two or three times in a row in an extremely demanding and precise event, synchronized kata. The team was made up of the Tang sisters (Mimi and Debbie) and Melanie Genung and coached by former top world kata competitor Kathy Jones.

While we worked with the kumite team on one side of the large Olympic Training Center (OTC) gym, the kata coaches worked with their people on the other.

Much of their activities didn’t surprise me – repetitive kata practice, going over and over difficult moves, with a coach correcting the most minute of inaccuracies – in wrist position, foot placement, timing, and so on. This was standard procedure for kata competitors at all levels.

Several years ago, one of my young students won the gold medal in kumite, gold in kobudo, and silver in kata at the USAKF National Karate Championships. He was upset with himself for not winning three golds. So his mother spoke with the mother of the youngster whose performance of Bassai Dai relegated her son to second place. She asked how often her son trained. Twenty reps each day of Bassai Dai, she answered. In addition, he took two hours of private lessons each week to improve it. And he trained at the dojo five days per week. That’s over 500 reps per month. Most karate students don’t do 500 a year… and this was a seven year old.

As I said, what amazed me about our women’s team training session was the amount of conditioning they performed.

With Coach Jones monitoring their every rep (and the male kata competitors looked on), the three young ladies got down into a perfect push-up position. And in perfect unison, they did 150 push-ups. Then, they rolled over onto their backs and knocked off 150 sit-ups – also perfect in execution and unison.

The entire U.S. team (kata and kumite) was doing three workouts per day over several days. When the kata women returned for their midday workout that day, they did another 150 perfect push-ups and sit-ups before working on improving their kata performance. And, they came back for the late afternoon workout session and did the same. That obviously means they did 450 push-ups and sit-ups that day. (Plus, after the late afternoon workout, they went to the OTC’s extensive weight gym and worked out there.)

I was busy with the sparring team and didn’t get a chance to count the number of reps they performed the next couple of days. But the fact that they could do such a large number in any single day testified to their superb level of conditioning.

But it all made perfect sense. If we look at other athletes who have to have comparable control over their bodies – gymnasts, ice skaters, ballet dancers – their approach is much the same. In fact, Kathy Jones, before getting involved in karate, was reportedly a professional ballerina. So what she did with the team was apply the same demanding approach used to train top ballet dancers.

Well, I’ll stop here for this installment but will discuss my thoughts on the value of competitive kata as well as what I’ve learned about bunkai, kyusho, and tuite next time.

Again, thank for reading my humble ramblings.

Those who can, spar. Those who can't, do kata - Part I

In the old days, all I wanted to do was spar. It kept my eye sharp and my reflexes honed. We didn’t have much use for kata in the 60s. Real men sparred. The saying was “Those who can, spar. Those who can’t, do kata.” But as I got older, I came to appreciate the value of traditional Japanese/Okinawan kata, both for my own training and that of my students, and why the old masters held them in such high regard – and thankfully left them so their voices could still instruct us.

I practiced only Shotokan and Gosoku kata back then. (Gosoku Ryu is the style of my primary instructor, Soke Takayuki Kubota. He developed several unique kata – such as Tamashi, Denko Getsu, Rikyu, etc. – that contain very quick ashi and tai sabaki, which carries directly over into creating broken rhythm in fighting.) The Shotokan kata have become more refined over time, more precise. But back then, their actions were still large and full powered. Sensei Nakayama likened them to the explosion of a hand grenade – nothing and then in a split second bone crushing, brick breaking power is unleashed. And I liked that. Hit and penetrate.

One of my early black belt students, Mike Moti, scores an obvious point at the California State Championships.

Whereas the Gosoku kata were very practically oriented, the Shotokan bunkai back then was always a little suspect – spear hands to the solar plexus, and such, stuff you’d never use in a real fight. When I was flying back from the WUKO Championships in Cairo, Egypt, in 1988, I was fortunate to be seated next to the legendary Takayuki Mikami, one of the all-time Shotokan greats. (I was soon named one of the U.S. coaches and traveled often with him, as he was senior coach.) It was a long flight and we spoke about many things, including bunkai. He told me there wasn’t any real bunkai in Shotokan kata at that time, that to learn the true bunkai I’d have to look to Shorin Ryu or jujitsu, which I did.

For many years prior to and after that incident, I was very involved in competition – as a competitor, instructor to competitors, national coach, and Co-director of the National Coaches Education Committee. I found that side of karate very interesting and challenging – the personal preparation for competing myself, preparing my students to do well, preparing members of our national team to represent our country in international competition, and also preparing our coaches, kept me on my toes. (Often we took out an inexperienced U.S. team who had to fight tougher and far more experienced international fighters. So my goal was often to teach them neutralization techniques so they didn’t get killed.)

In the next couple of installments on this subject, I’ll get into something that surprised me about how top kata competitors trained and about the current focus on bunkai and kyusho and tuite (pressure point attacks and grappling).

Thanks again for reading my humble ramblings.

I Invented Karate!

The other day I was teaching a class of beginners at a local private elementary school. It was composed of kindergarten through 4^th grade students. The school has a high percentage of students of Indian and Chinese ancestry, many actually born in India or China.

I told them karate was believed to be over 2,000 years old. Then, I asked them if they knew who invented karate?

“You!”, one of the young girls blurted out.

I told them I was old but not that old.

So I asked them again. Most thought it came from Japan but a few offered China as its point of origin. I explained that they were all right. It had traveled to Japan from Okinawa. But before that, it had traveled to Okinawa from China. Everyone seemed satisfied with that.

“But do you know where it came from before China?” I asked.

They all shook their heads.

“India”, I told them, wanting our Indian boys and girls to take pride too in its evolution. I explained about Bodidharma and the Shaolin Temple.

I asked if any of them knew who Alexander the Great was. Several did. So I told them about the theory that it traveled to India via Alexander the Great, making my single Greek student smile.

I think even we in the arts forget our lineage and our debt to those who contributed to the body of knowledge we now take for granted. As with our genetic makeup, our arts and styles draw from all of our predecessors to be what they are today. There are great men and women in pretty much all arts and styles. We should treat each other with due respect as we are all brothers and sisters of the same lineage.

Just my 2 cents.

Thanks for reading my humble ramblings.

Great Books - Seven

I'm re-reading a great book by Thomas Cleary, The Japanese Art of War: Understanding the Culture of Strategy. In it, Cleary presents a very insightful and revealing discussion of Zen, unusual in its assessment of what is real and what is pseudo Zen. He discusses what Zen is and what it isn’t and how it applies to the martial arts, as seen through the eyes, minds, and writings of a major Zen Roshi – Takuan – and three major samurai – duelists Musashi and Yagyu and warrior Shosan, who fought in many major, pre-peace battles. He discusses Japanese fighting history and how the samurai used Zen in light of Buddhism's complete opposition to the taking of life. The chapters include A Martial History of Japan, Zen in Japanese History, Bushido and Martial Arts, The Way of the Zen Warrior, Schemes of the Samurai, etc. Cleary came to my dojo many years ago and spoke with my seniors. He’s a brilliant guy who has translated many major Asian religious and martial arts works – including Sun Tzu’s Art of War and Musashi’s Book of Five Rings (which he calls Book of Five Spheres).

First Living Martial Arts Treasure Recipient

I was asked to discuss our USNKA Living Martial Arts Treasure Award recipients and why they were selected. I'll occasionally post stories about each, starting here with our first.

Soke Tak Kubota (right) and student, actor James Caan (left)

Soke Takayuki Kubota, 10^th Dan, was the first to receive our award. I first met Soke at Ed Parker’s 1965 International Karate Championships in Long Beach. A few months later, I hosted the United States Karate Winter-National Championships in San Jose. He drove up with John Gelhsen and demonstrated (along with Bruce Lee), as he had at Parker’s. I soon began training with him at his LA IKA dojo (flying down on my one day off and returning that night). I consider myself his student to this day. He is one of our greatest fighting tacticians, has a great sense of humor, and is very down to earth.

Raised in Kyushu, the southern-most of the old Japanese islands (not counting Okinawa) during World War II, he began training at just four to defend his homeland. He said they didn’t train for form or physical fitness. They trained only to fight for their lives barehanded on the beaches – as there were no weapons or ammunition left at this point in the war. He describes the training as being “real kill karate”. So at this young age, he and the others trained with deadly seriousness each day, including punching the makiwara 500 times per day and kicking a bag filled with sand an equal number.

Japan was devastated from the constant bombings. So when an American bomber crash landed, the local people rushed out to vent their anger on the American crew, intending to lynch them. But Soke’s father, Denjiro, intervened. He made his neighbors take the crew to his small factory, where he locked them in a storage room. Three times each day, Soke would take the crew food prepared by his mother, Semo. After the war ended, the crew returned to thank his family for saving their lives and caring for them. They would return on occasion and bring Soke gum and candy and tell him about life in America.

Many Japanese were literally starving to death at the time. So, at thirteen, Soke made the difficult decision to move to Tokyo to find work and ease financial pressure on his family. But Tokyo was filled with people with the same goal. He was forced to eat out of garbage cans and sleep in the park until a police sergeant took him in, in return for him teaching the sergeant taiho jitsu, police defensive and restraining techniques. (Soke’s father had been a high ranking expert in the art and teacher to the Kumamoto police department.) In Tokyo, he trained directly under Gichin Funakoshi, and then 10^th Dan Kanken Toyama, direct student of legendary grandmasters Itosu and Higashionna. An article appeared in Black Belt Magazine about Soke’s work as a bodyguard for the American Ambassador to Japan. It also documented an event that occurred while he was working with the Tokyo police, in which he broke up a prison riot single handedly. I once asked him how he was able to stop so many people by himself. He basically said he had messed up the first guy so badly that no one wanted to be number two.

Like me, karateka Harvey Eubanks, training lieutenant for Los Angeles Police Department, read the article and arranged for Soke to come to the United States in 1965 to train their training personnel. They also helped get him the necessary papers to remain here. So, while training LAPD and the FBI, Soke opened a dojo here and taught his Gosoku (Hard and Fast) Ryu style of karate. Since then, he has trained some of this country’s top competitors. Tonny Tulleners and John Gehlsen were selected to represent the United States at the first WUKO World Karate Championships, held in Tokyo in 1970. There were no weight or belt divisions. Tulleners placed third in kumite, while Gehlsen received the Tamashii Award. Tulleners, Gehlsen, and George Byrd were selected to the U.S. team for the 2^nd championships, held in Paris in 1972. Val Mijailovic and Boban Petkovic have represented the U.S. very admirably in many championships over the years. (Chuck Norris also trained with Soke to learn hand techniques. Another big-name American martial artist wanted to train with him too but had such a bad attitude Soke refused him.)

I was fortunate to be allowed to study with many of the world's top martial artists over the years. But had I not, Soke Kubota would have been far more than enough.

Great Books - Six

One of my favorite novels of all time is James Clavell’s Shogun. It is the story of John Blackthorne, an English ship pilot who’s shipwrecked in feudal Japan in the 1600s, not long before the famous battle of Sekigahara. As Blackthorne struggles to survive in a very hostile, completely alien land, while picking up enough Japanese language and knowledge of their customs and etiquette to save himself and his crew, we also gain greater insights into Japan during this critical period in its history.

Clavell masterfully handles all of this, drawing us into the battles facing would-be shogun Toranaga in his attempt to unify Japan and become shogun. (Toranaga is fashioned after a real life shogun, Iyeasu Tokugawa.) The story is based on a true event, when William Adams, became the first Englishman to land in Japan and be named a samurai - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Adams_(sailor). The movie, The Last Samurai, borrowed heavily from it, but didn’t (in my estimation) achieve anywhere near the book’s drama and insights.

Once you get into the story, you won’t be able to put it down. I’ve read it three times over several years and enjoyed it each time. The first time, I was intimidated by its length, almost 1200 pages. But by the time I reached the end, I wished it was twice as long.

Again, clicking on the book name, Shogun, will take you to Amazon’s order page. I think all Japanese/Okinawan martial artists should read this book to better understand the culture from which our arts arose.

How would you answer this question?

How has your life changed for the better as a result of training in the martial arts?

I think it's an important question to ask yourself, as it often reveals far more benefits than you may have imagined.

This is also an important question to ask your students – and the parents of your young students – as it enables them to more clearly see the value of your program.

Give it a fair amount of consideration. Perhaps write all of the many benefits you've hopefully gained, as I have. It would be interesting to see what you guys come up with.

Back in the Land of the Morning Calm

As I mentioned before, trying to remember distant incidences and events often causes others to pop up out of nowhere. At other times, a recent event will trigger a flood of old memories.

I saw an article a couple of days ago about the possible stationing of American troops in Australia to assist in checking what some (apparently everyone but the Chinese) see as Chinese expansionism in that region. Newscasters were commenting on problems that have arisen in similar situations in the past, reminding me of a few more events from my time in Korea.

I’ve tried to stay more closely focused on just martial arts related events. This one gets into several that are not. Please let me know if you’d prefer I stick to just my martial arts experiences.

Also, writing these events down as I remember them is very helpful for me. If I don’t, they may well slip back beneath that dark water and never surface again.

I tell people that your hair sucks the gray matter out of your brain as you get older. And, as my hair is now almost completely white, I likely don’t have a lot of gray matter remaining inside my head; it’s all moved to the outside. So I need to write these things down as I remember them. Did I say that already?

“Koreans are tough little bastards who don’t like anyone who’s not Korean. I’m not even sure they like each other all that much.” Newsweek Magazine

The above quote was from an article that appeared in the national publication, Newsweek, around the time of the Seoul Olympics. But although I too found Koreans to be a tough, hearty people, I also found most of them to be very kind and hospitable. They were tough because they had to be. Life there, when I was in Korea in the early 60s, was difficult.

Once, while qualifying on the rifle range, which was located far out in the countryside, we had just moved back to fire from a more distant point when something caught my eye as I was about to fire. What I saw amazed me. Several people were crawling across the firing range, between us and our targets, as bullets whizzed over their heads. They were collecting our brass (spent bullet casings) to resell as scrap metal.

Several women and old men worked in a field beside the range. As we prepared to leave, a distraught, spindly-legged old man struggled past us with a very pregnant woman on his back. We asked one of the Korean soldiers what was going on. He told us the old man was carrying the woman to a midwife, as she had gone into labor. Apparently, it was common for poor women to work in the fields until their babies were coming before seeking medical assistance. One of our drivers drove her into town.

So life was very tough for many Koreans.

They had been dominated militarily several times over the centuries by people who didn’t treat them very well. When I was there, there were still huge gouges in the earth throughout the country from WWII and Korean Conflict bombs. And its dramatic mountain ranges were barren of trees. The Japanese had reportedly cut down all the beautiful Korean pine trees near the end of the war to extract pine oil to fuel their planes, ships, tanks, and trucks.

The weather in Korea ran from one extreme to the other. It was bitterly cold in the winter – 30 below zero with a 30 mph wind at morning formation. In the summer, it was very hot, well over 100 degrees, and humid.

Then the monsoon hit and the days of pouring rain washed everything unsecured – including the contents of thousands of outhouses – down the steep main street of town and into the army base. We woke up the first morning to find our foot lockers floating in two feet of foul water.

Many Koreans went well out of their way to be kind to me. Once, I was taking the train back to camp. For some forgotten reason, I caught the small electric train at a station farther from the center of Seoul. Apparently, they saw far less non-Koreans there as a crowd gathered around me while I waited for the train. They were not threatening, just curious and growing in number. The station master hurried out of the control room and escorted me inside so I wouldn’t be bothered.

Another time, though, people gathered around me and a friend in a not so friendly or curious fashion. PFC Mills and I were on our way back to base from somewhere in town. He had been in the Army for several years but was still very low in rank because he kept getting into fights. He had been told that if he got into another one, he would be spending time in 8^th Army prison, which was why I was with him – to try to keep him out of trouble.

As we walked down the hill towards the main gate, he accidently knocked over a bicycle that was leaning against the front of a small weight lifting gym. Two stocky bodybuilders rushed out to see what had happened to the bike.

Very few people had cars back then. Almost everyone rode a bike. This bike, as with many of them, was homemade out of heavy metal tubes and clearly the larger of the two men’s pride and joy.

He snatched the bike up and lifted the heavy bike into the air a couple of time with one arm to impress us, then switched arms and did the same with it. He set the bike down and gestured for Mills to see if he could lift it.

Mills grabbed the bike, pressed it into the air easily, switched arms and started to lift it… then said, “Screw this” and threw it down. It hit the sidewalk, flipped over, and landed in the street.

The big guy went berserk. He head butted Mills in the face, grabbed his ankles, and knocked Mills to the sidewalk. Then, he quickly sat on Mills’ legs, locked his own in place, and hung on as Mills tried unsuccessfully to buck him off.

Although Mills couldn’t get up, he could sit up, which he did… and slugged the guy in the face with all of his considerable might.

The guy scoffed at him and said in broken English, “You can’t hurt me, I’m Korean”. Mills hit him again, harder this time. The guy repeated that he couldn’t be hurt as he was Korean. This went on a few more times, with the guy repeating the same thing each time he was punched. Pretty soon I began to believe him – and think even Mills was becoming a convert.

The guy’s face was a mess. And an unhappy crowd of people started closing in on us. I figured we had to get out of there quickly or it could turn ugly. So with a big smile on my face so as not to antagonize anyone, I moved in behind the guy and used a soft choke to get him off.

Mills got up and we started down the hill towards the gate… but not alone. The big guy picked up a big rock, lifted it over his head, and ran after us.

We ran hard for the base entrance, with the guy hot on our tails.

We flashed our passes as we sprinted through the pedestrian entrance. The guy kept running at full speed, obviously intending to follow us into camp.

As he reached the guard shack door, the MP stepped out and stuck a cocked .45 in his face. He stopped.

The next day Mills and I got summoned to the main gate. The guy, his face swollen and stitched up, was there with his attorney. Also there was the camp commander, Colonel Bowie.

The attorney presented the Colonel with a bill for the guy’s medical treatment and “pain and suffering”. Mills scoffed at the amount. He told the guy he would give him a chance to go Double or Nothing. The Colonel wasn’t amused. He asked me what had happened. After I explained the details, the Colonel told Mills to pay the guy some amount far less than the guy wanted but far more than Mills considered right… but he paid it. More importantly for Mills, he hadn’t started the fight – although he could have done more to prevent it – so the Army didn’t incarcerate him.

After teaching my English Conversation class one night, a student wanted to talk. By the time I got to the front doors to the large, two storied brick provincial high school, they had already been locked and chained. So I had to go out the back.

This meant I had to walk up a long, steep, very narrow, and poorly lit alley that ran between one of the school’s outer walls and the office building next door.

As I got about half way up it, a man on a bicycle turned and headed down the alleyway. His eyes quickly locked on me and, instead of stopping or slowing down so I would be able to pass safely, he peddled harder. And heading downhill, he quickly picked up a good deal of speed.

I was trapped.

We had practiced a jump side kick at Sensei Brown’s dojo. I had never seen much use for it…until then. I took my left leg back and waited in horse stance.

As he was about to hit me, I jumped up and kicked, knocking him off the back of his bike. I landed on top of the fallen bike and twisted my ankle but got into a stance to fight in case he pushed the matter.

He grabbed his bike and scampered down the alleyway. And I limped back to base.

In order to keep U.S. currency from getting into Communist hands, the military issued paper money known as “script”. No one was allowed to carry greenbacks or even possess them. All transactions on base were done in script. All transactions in town were supposed to be done in Korean won, their currency, which we were required to buy on base.

But because it could be counterfeited for easily than greenbacks, the military changed the script every now and then. This happened once while I was there. They blew the base alert whistle, calling all military personnel back to base, where everyone had to report to their individual units and be accounted for. At the same time, all of the relatively large number of Korean civilians were escorted off base. Then, we exchanged all of our old script for script of a different color, making old script worthless.

Usually the locals knew about what was going to happen long before we did. The working girls in Seoul, who dated high ranking U.S. military officers, would hear about it and pass it down the line. But this caught everyone by surprise.

Korean money lenders and those running businesses in town who illegally accepted script ran to the base fence. They threw bushel baskets of old script over the fence, asking anyone they could see to exchange it for them and they’d pay them handsomely. But no one was allowed near the fence. So many in town lost huge amounts of money.

Not long after that, another event occurred at the fence, one that still makes me laugh.

The Vietnam War was just getting started. As soldiers were drowning there as they tried to cross its many rivers and streams, the army passed a regulation to combat this problem, one that utilized our rain gear (ponchos) as flotation devices. We were instructed to strip down to our white army boxer shorts and wrap our weapons and clothing in our ponchos. Then, soldiers who could swim were paired with those who couldn’t. The strong swimmer would then pull their gear and partner across.

The day came for us to be tested at our base swimming pool. As the pool was located next to the fence and the local red light district, all the women who worked in that trade came out to see what was going on.

The flamboyant and boisterous group of ladies who lined the fence would yell and wave at any customers they recognized. And it got worse – and funnier.

When the very thin fabric of our boxers hit the water, they essentially became transparent. As each pair of soldiers climbed out of the water, the ladies would let out a hoot of approval or ridicule. The memory of the ladies partying at the fence and hundreds of us standing in our skivvies still makes me chuckle to this day.

Thanks, again, for reading my humble ramblings. I should now be done with my time in Korea, the beautiful Land of the Morning Calm, and ready to move on to my next adventures.

(As I mentioned above, if you’d prefer I stick to just my martial arts related incidences, let me know and I’ll try to do that – and paste the non-martial arts stuff into a separate file for possible use should I ever get around to writing that book.)

How we select those we name USNKA Living MA Treasures

As I mentioned in my last post, I receive many suggestions for our USNKA Living Martial Arts Treasure Award as well as questions about how we select our recipients. Let me go over what I take into consideration when making a selection.

First, they must be someone who has made extraordinary contributions to the martial arts, not just someone who has been a skilled practitioner or high dan. A film director doesn’t receive a life-time achievement award for making a movie. He receives it for making many great movies.

Second, in all past cases, excluding a couple of recent ones, I personally knew or had first-hand knowledge of each recipient’s skill and knowledge. In the cases of those I didn’t personally know, I had recommendations from people I greatly respected and trusted (and personally knew over many years), plus a large amount of confirming documentation was also often available. But I generally place the greatest weight on my own first-hand knowledge, acquired through both public and private encounters with the person.

Third, their contributions have spanned a significant number of years, 50 or more years in many cases. None have been young men. A couple have been middle aged. More have been in their 60s, 70s, and even 80s.

Fourth, in every case, their credentials were impeccable – received from highly respected martial arts masters and organizations which utilize high technical standards and appropriate minimum age and time-in-grade requirements. And the credentials of each reflects continuity from dan grade to dan grade, not switching from instructor to instructor, or organization to organization, in order to pick up each promotion.

Fifth, they were all men of great honor, gentlemen who demonstrated – both publically and privately – the very best qualities of a martial artist, someone our young people could and would be wise to emulate.

Sixth, I also take recommendations from our Living Treasure recipients, and others I respect and have known for many years. As their names will be linked with anyone named, the recommendations of our Living Treasure recipients go a long way.

Seventh, I need to have some level of contact with a proposed recipient. I sent out an email this morning, asking a high ranking sensei if he was in a position to award a certificate to one of our proposed recipients or could supply an email and mailing address. I need communication between myself and the proposed recipient (or a close associate), to make sure the award would be welcomed by them, the name they would prefer appeared on the certificate, appropriate title, etc. I also ask them to supply photos of themselves for the announcement.

And eighth, they have all been deshi of the martial arts. A deshi is one totally devoted to the martial arts, not just a student. They are all martial artists 24/7. They buy every book they can find on the arts, attend every workshop in the early days, seek out and train with the very best, regardless of distance and time necessary to do so, and so on. A student is someone who is a martial artist when they don their uniforms. A deshi is always a martial artist, whether in his or her uniform or not.

I am presently looking to present more Living Treasure awards to deserving martial artists around the world. So far, they have only been presented to those in America, UK, Canada, Japan, and Okinawa. There are many great men and women out there and I’m attempting to identify them. So stayed tuned.

Living Martial Arts Treasures

As most of you know, the United States National Karate Association (USNKA), which I am honored to serve as its President, just recognized legendary karateka Hirokazu Kanazawa with our Living Martial Arts Treasure Award. If you haven’t seen the post, photo of Hanshi Kanazawa with his award, and clip, here’s the link: http://www.facebook.com/home.php?#!/group.php?gid=151512381539463.

In recent months, I’ve announced several Living Martial Arts Treasure Award recipients, with a few more to come. Hanshi Kanazawa joins other extraordinary martial artists Ronnie Colwell, Harry Cook, Patrick McCarthy, and Phillip Koeppel who have received Living Treasure awards during the current period. (This is still secret but the next USNKA Living Martial Arts Treasure Award recipient will be legendary UK karateka and jujitsuka, Hanshi Terry Wingrove. We are merely awaiting the arrival of his certificate to make the announcement.)

Several other martial arts greats have been designated as Living Treasures since the award’s initiation in the 90s. These include Soke Takayuki Kubota, Hanshi George Anderson, Professor Sig Kufferath, Hanshi Zenpo Shimabukuro, WUKO/WKF President and Co-Founder Jacques Delcourt, WUKO/WKF Co-Founder Ryoichi Sasakawa, Hanshi Tatsuo Suzuki, Hanshi Shugoro Nakazato, Hanshi Richard Kim, Hanshi Ryuko Tomoyose, and Hanshi Walter Todd.

I’ve been asked how we decide who will receive our Living Treasure Awards. As I work on my next blog installment of my life in karate, I will soon post an outline of the qualities they must possess to be considered. Thanks for following my humble ramblings.