Hanshi George Anderson

Hanshi George Anderson

A few days ago, November 25, would have been Hanshi George Anderson’s birthday. He died on August 6, 2009. I was fortunate to have had Hanshi Anderson as a friend and mentor for many years.

Hanshi Anderson held many significant positions within karate. He was President of the USA Karate Federation (USAKF), which was then the national governing body (NGB) for karate in this country. Each Olympic sport has an NGB – whether it’s track, gymnastics, curling, skiing, or one of the martial arts. These are designated by the US Olympic Committee as the official voice of that sport’s participation in international competition. When another country requests the United States send karate athletes to participate in an event, it is the designated NGB that trains, selects, and fields the athletes who will be sent to represent this country. At that time, our NGB was the USAKF. In addition, Hanshi Anderson was also President of the Pan American Union of Karatedo Organizations (PUKO), the organization recognized by the International Olympic Committee (IOC) as the official governing body for karate competition within this hemisphere. In addition, he was also 1^st Vice President of the World Union of Karate Organizations (WUKO), which had been designated by the IOC as the official world governing body for karate. (WUKO was later renamed World Karate Federation, or WKF.)

I held several positions within the USAKF (Coach, National Coaching Staff; Co-chair, National Coaches Education Committee; Director, Media Relations Committee, etc.) as well as with PUKO. I was issued 7^th Dan certificates from USAKF, PUKO, and WUKO.

Hanshi Anderson and I traveled many times together to many parts of the world. I learned a huge amount from him. And learning with him was always a very active activity. He didn’t just talk and you listen and learn. He liked to ask questions and challenge you. He also was able to get people, even life-long enemies in karate, to work together for the common good, to share information with others and fight to get karate into the Olympics. He was a perfect model of Rough Rider/U.S. President Teddy Roosevelt’s admonition to “Speak softly but carry a big stick.” Sometimes he achieved success through diplomacy and sometimes threat of the stick.

On one trip, we stayed at 2^nd home owned by the head of karate there. The first night, Hanshi Anderson and I ate alone. His wife brought us plates. On it was an almost black sausage and another that was gray and smelled fishy. I looked down at my plate, not sure what it was. Neither looked appetizing to me. I asked Hanshi if he knew what it was. He said it was fish sausage and blood sausage. Not being a lover of fish or fan of eating blood, I asked him if he was going to eat it, hoping he had an exit strategy I hadn’t thought of. He took a big bite of the blood sausage and said “When I’m traveling abroad, I eat whatever they set in front of me, even sheep eyes.”

Another time, he and I took the USA Karate Team to Costa Rica for their Olympic Sports Festival. I was the designated head coach for the U.S. team. When a national team was invited to compete by a host nation, the visiting team generally paid their own travel expenses and the host country paid all in-country expenses – rooms, meals, transportation, etc.

We were picked up at the airport by the host group, headed by an attorney who was the designated national chairman and country rep under PUKO and WUKO. It seemed to take a long time for them to get us registered at our hotel in downtown San Jose, across from the government building. But it was eventually worked out and we were shown to our rooms. As was usual, everyone shared a room, even Hanshi Anderson and I, to keep expenses down.

One of my students, Ron Vick, won his division and was named Outstanding Competitor. The team competition went well too. We placed higher (2^nd or 3^rd) than I feared we would, considering we had problems fielding a team. We ended up with three black belts and two green belts. We beat some teams made up of all seasoned black belts. So I was pretty proud of them. (Perhaps, I’ll talk sometime about the tactics and strategy I used to prepare green belts to hold their own against black belts.) We met some great people in Costa Rica. A party was held after the competition. While there, a group of senior local karateka approached Hanshi Anderson and I, wanting to talk to us privately.

They told us that the host group hadn’t paid our housing expenses. They (the people we were talking with) had had to pay it to save face for their country. They said the head of the host group (let’s call him Mr. X) told them “They can pay for their own rooms. They’re rich gringos.”

Well, the next night, the host group took Hanshi Anderson and I to a restaurant for dinner to celebrate our birthdays. (Hanshi Anderson’s and mine were three days apart.) Mr. X and his wife and daughter were seated across the table from Hanshi and I. He kept trying flatter Hanshi, obviously wanting to finesse a high level position for himself in PUKO or WUKO. The wait staff kept bringing drinks of guaro, their national drink, and a long list of toasts were made. As the night wore on, Hanshi’s eyes narrowed and he locked them onto Mr. X. I knew Hanshi well enough to know what was coming. “I know you think we’re just a bunch of rich gringos,” Hanshi said, loud enough for everyone at the table to hear. Mr. X’s eyes flared in fear. “A lot of uneducated people think that. But there are no kings in America. We got rid of them a long time ago. None of us are rich lawyers (like Mr. X) or government fat cats (like the rest of those at the table). We’re just regular, hard-working martial artists.” It got very quiet.

Mr. X must have realized his desire to be named anything higher than ring-boy was heading rapidly south. As his aides (two of the high ranking government guys) drove us back to our hotel, I noticed we weren’t going the right way. When questioned, they told us they were taking us to a “special hotel,” where there were many beautiful women. Hanshi thanked them but said we didn’t have time for that type of thing. He was expecting a call from someone involved in trying to get karate in the Olympics and needed to get back to our room. Reluctantly, they dropped us off at our hotel.

He was a smart, tough guy, mentally and physically. Just being with him and watching how he did things was hugely educational. My life would have been significantly lessened had I not had the great fortune to know and spend so much time around him.