Do the victors write much of the history of our arts or the losers?

They say history is written by the victors. And in the old days, that was generally true. Whoever controlled things, decided what the official story would be. But in recent times (especially since the advent of the free press, multi-channel TV, the internet, Wikipedia, etc.), it has often been written by anyone, including people who may know little about a given subject, who have an agenda that slants their telling, whose egos float astronomically higher than their IQs and knowledge, and so on. This has been especially true in the martial arts, where history was often based more on legend, mythology, and writer bias than fact. I think Bruce Haines’ Karate’s History and Traditions was the first book I read in which the writer actually did an academic investigation into things. It was flawed but not for lack of trying.

Until recently, most martial arts history was passed down via word of mouth. Philosopher Karl Popper called this “subjective knowledge,” knowledge that often changes with each retelling or personal slant and would disappear with the death of the last person to hear it.

“Objective Knowledge” is knowledge put into some form of hard copy (books, magazines, video files, pdf, etc.) that enables it to be Googled or microfiched or whatever and accessed by students or researchers possibly forever. This can be a good or a bad thing.

There are a few qualities a person must possess it they are to undertake certain tasks. If they want to be a security guard, they can’t be blind. If they want to become a piano tuner, they can’t be deaf. And it they want to write a history, they can’t be less than honest and truthful to a fault.

Several years ago, I was asked for assistance from a writer who was putting together a book on the history of karate in America. I supplied him with a fair amount of info he didn’t have and some rare photos, if I remember right.

In our last conversation, he asked me about a local martial artists who I had had problems with. A woman had enrolled her son in his school but quickly left, referring to them as “hokey”. She brought her son to us and, after being with us for a few months, she wrote me a note that said “Karate at CKA (my dojo) was the best thing she ever did for her son.” I asked her if it would be okay if I used her quote in an ad for the dojo. She said she was happy to recommend us.

I ran an ad that featured her quote and placed her name under it. It was a great ad that brought us many students. After some period of time, our local competitor ran the same exact ad, with her quote and name in it. She was livid. I sent a letter to the guy, explaining the situation. I figured he would do the right thing and stop running it. I was wrong. He said he had been given the ad by a management company, who said I had given them permission to use it. It was trademarked and I never gave them permission. In fact, I had told them they couldn’t use it.

When he refused to stop running the ad, I had my attorney contact him and politely let him know it was illegal for him to use it. He got an attorney, who wrote back that they would fight us and that we would lose because of some technicality. I had a student who oversaw the hiring of proprietary attorneys for a major corporation. He referred me to an attorney in San Francisco who was considered the top expert in the field. She sent the instructor a letter that shut down his attorney. The guy stopped running the ad, although only because he had to, not because it was the right thing to do.

The book author got very defensive of the local guy. He thought he was the greatest martial artist in the world and I was obviously a jerk for not seeing that. So when his book came out, in which he listed the credentials and accomplishments of most American martial arts instructors, the only comment associated with my name was “martial arts administrator.”

What’s the big deal? Well, if a future writer (maybe next week, month, year, ten years, or a hundred years) researched this era for an article or book, my name and role could be deemed inconsequential, or diminished, based upon what had been written about me – either rightly or wrongly. And this is not just some theoretical fear I have about something that might possibly happen in the future. Next time, I’ll discuss a case in which I was attacked in a history book because of something I never said or did.

Thanks again for your continued support.

Karate and the Olympics

Thanks to Sensei Claudio Iedwah for the following on Delcourt and Nishiyama efforts relative to the Olympics. http://www.eurokarate.eu/02recogn/040220.htm Lots of interesting stuff.

What I know about karate and the Olympics - Part IV

One of the first martial arts books I ever read (and reread many times back then) was Nishiyama and Browns’, Karate: The Art of “Empty Hand” Fighting, which was published in 1959. I still have a copy in my extensive martial arts library. It was a great, elegantly published work for that time. In hindsight, it had little on kata and lacked a lot of the detail that would be included in later Shotokan books – one of my favorites being Sensei Nakayama’s Dynamic Karate, which I used to reread at least once each year to pick up technical details I had missed, forgot, or misinterpreted. (Two other memorable books I read and reread in the earliest days were Mas Oyama’s What is Karate? and George Mattson’s The Way of Karate.)

I only met Sensei Nishiyama on a couple of occasions. I never spoke personally with him as I was fortunate to do with several other Shotokan greats. So, I was never able to form any kind of direct insight into what kind of man he was or what drove him to do what he did.

Ron Marchini (right) ref-ed my match with Francisco Rameriz in the late '60s

I once asked old friend, oft-time mentor, and great karateka, Ron Marchini, about a particular martial artist, who he knew but I didn’t. “There are great martial artists and there are great guys. He’s a great guy.” There are also, of course, those who are great martial artists and great people. I’ve met a few of these along the way. But, unfortunately, I’ve met far more who were great martial artists but not very good people. (And I’ve met a bunch who were both bad martial artists and people.) I can’t say where Nishiyama would fall on all this. He obviously had great knowledge and technical skill. That can’t be denied. I just don’t know what kind of person he was.

Even when we lack direct knowledge about someone, we can often derive a fair amount of insight via indirect means – their behavior, the opinions of those who did know them, etc. (Juries often convict people accused of crimes based solely on such indirect or circumstantial evidence.) The fact that some very great American karateka trained under him for many years, knew him very well, and decided to leave him (including Frank Smith and Ray Dalke, arguably two of our all-time greatest), says a lot, in my opinion. I met Smith only once but knew Ray for many years and have great respect for him as a man of honor, a karateka, and a teacher. If they left him, a man they obviously greatly respected, then there had to be something very wrong. Neither of these men are the disloyal type. In fact, they were reportedly loyal for years under conditions most would not have tolerated for any time at all.

In the mid-70s, I was asked by the editor of Samurai Magazine to write an article for them. The magazine’s publishers (the money behind the publication) were two LA doctors, who I assumed were also Nishiyama students, as everyone knew Samurai was Nishiyama’s publication. At the time, I considered it the best martial arts publication on the market as it dealt only with traditional Japanese karate and traditions and was very professionally done.

I forget the timeline but at some point the magazine went rapidly downhill. I think the last copy I received was printed on a copier and hand stapled. I asked a friend who was highly placed in Nishiyama’s LA organization what happened. He told me that one of the doctors/publishers had died. When the surviving doctor informed Nishiyama, he reportedly responded, “Where will we get the other half of the money for the magazine?” There was no “I’m sorry to hear that,” or “That’s terrible,” or “My condolences to his family.” According to my friend, the surviving doctor told Nishiyama he had better worry about where he was going to get all of the money and pulled out. I don’t know if this is true or not, as I got it second-hand. But it came from what I considered a very reliable source and someone who was on Nishiyama’s side.

Alone this tells us little, as we don’t know the actual circumstances or even if it actually occurred. But, if true, it would seem to give credence to the general opinion that he was a man on a personal mission, who didn’t care who or what got hurt in the process, even karate.

There are many other stories out there. I’ll leave those for others, as I don’t know the truth of any of them. (Some of these are outlined in Jon Evans’ piece, mentioned in Part III.) I will be probably soon post an article, perhaps more, written and sent to me by Soke Patrick Hickey on the subject of karate and the Olympics. I also have copies of letters between the various parties – Delcourt and Nishiyama, et al. I will likely be posting them as well.

Thanks again for your support. I greatly appreciate it.

Black Belt Article - 1970 WUKO Championships

While I work on my next post on karate and the Olympics (a bunch of documentation is still coming in which I would like to pass on to you guys), here's a great article on the first World Karate Championships in Tokyo. It appeared in the March 1971 issue of Black Belt Magazine.