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.

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