The passing of a Karate silent sage!

The passing of a Karate silent sage!

 

This past week end I was asked to officiate and help with the service of a great man. It was very strange for me as I am a bit socially awkward and used to playing the part of the drill sergeant not the part of a funeral lead, but I accepted the second his wife asked me to do it. I accepted because of my history with my big brother in Karate and knowing that he would have first gotten a kick out of me doing it, having known how hard and nervous It would make me, and secondly to honor him as he was a great man.

 

 I struggled to not say too much or talk for an hour and I struggled reading other peoples words about this man and realizing that I would not be able to chat ironically about this with him later. My friend Scot was a unique guy. He was not what you would call the typical Karate guy, but in a lot of ways that’s what made him so damn special. Physically he struggled with his weight and joints to make his Karate work, but he worked so hard at the details that he made it work. He was a big guy and a lot of people would write off training with someone like him, but he was dangerous when you would spar with him. He studied Karate, he did not just do it!  Karate was NOT a sport to him, it was a field of study!

 

Scot was a philosopher king! He could have a conversation with you about various different things, He would chat with me for hours about the policies struggles in the states, our own politics, health care, nutrition, Karate, Bruce Lee, flying, Motor cycles, his family and oh how his family was his favorite topic.  He would listen to me as I would break down over family issues, my daughters health, missing my brother Alan, who ironically in this case die of Cancer as well. He was a man with a great big heart, and while his Karate was violent and efficient, he was gentle and kind.

 

I really don’t think that his loss has hit me yet. Its kind of surreal, normally you get hit when you go up to do the eulogy or when you see his urn, but its not really their yet! I know it will hit me out of the blue the first time I set foot on the Dojo floor and realize I don’t have Scot to help support me or to assist with a class, to lend a hand or a comment during a class or seminar. I wont get to hear his Harley as he bikes into the city to take a class. And I wont get to sit and chat with him after class.

 

I first met Scot in the 80’s when we both started taking Karate under Dingman Sensei. At first, being the shy kid that I was, I just observed the “Cool kids” in the class, and Scot was about 10 years older than me and one of the cool kids. He trained with the team in team classes and came out to the evening classes. Later on when I was in university and made my class times set up so I could zip off to a lunch class and then take an evening class I got to train a great deal with Scot at lunch. That’s when we started talking a lot and training even more together. I liked Scot, far more than I liked a lot of people who were part of the “cool kids” group. I always felt that the “Cool kids” were looking down on the rest of us, but I saw something in them, the fact that once sport was gone for them…most would leave. But not Scot! He was in it for the passion of it.

 

I formed a tight bond with my instructor at this time and took up learning how to teach under him. I opened my own club but trained daily at the Hombu and got to see Scot a great deal. He was humble, and while he could rip most of us apart on the floor he did not. He would not make it easy for you but he was there to help you grow, not embarrass you. He was good with kids, new students and those of us who had years under our belts. He was patient to a fault and had a soft, sometimes gravelly voice that just kind of calmed you, but he had this kind of misfit in him that came out once and a while. A smile that said it was time to play hard and have some fun, and if you were lucky he may let you stay vertical. Being as he was a black belt in Judo he could sweep or throw almost anyone in the Dojo and if he got his hands on you he would shake you playfully letting you know that he could pretty much do whatever he wanted to with you.

 

Years rolled on and we trained with each other a great deal, a strange reversal happened as he had graded for his Nidan and I my shodan, then he left for a bit. We moved from one club to another and he trained sporadically and was missing for most classes at one point. He came back hard when we landed at Clifton community center. We often talked about how the old Dojo should have gone on and kept going, but family issues with Sensei and the changing economy as well as the change in mentality of people in general made it hard on Sensei to keep his beloved Dojo. But Scot was back and wanted to help out as much as he could.

 

Scot and I both had a dream of a standalone club that would honor Sensei and his passion, we both thought we had it with a club that one of our juniors had opened. We both pitched in and taught or trained and we both tried to guide the instructor who owned the club, but after a few years of trying very hard and feeling like it was home, the instructor informed us he was leaving the JKA and joining another group.  I was mad, but Scot said it was okay, this was obviously not the right path for us at this time…”when something comes easy it is often not worth the effort” Scot said. He was very sad but it was time to move on! He was mad at the situation, but as it was Scot he said someday we can forgive the other instructor for his actions, just not today he would say.

 

We promised each other we would take the summer off a bit, train on our own, he was wanting to do some hard core traveling with his wife and “reconnect” with the road! He was told a few weeks later that he had liver Cancer. I remember when he emailed me, he said he wanted to tell me face to face because he remembered my brother Al was taken by Cancer. But his emails were as patient and calming as his voice often was. He assured me after telling me about how he had found out that he was up for the fight and his wife would help him out, his ever present hope was there in that email.

 

We emailed back and forth a great deal that month. I would drop him a line about how stressful things were and how mad I was that I did not have a Dojo of my own, and he would calm me down. I would ask how he was doing and he would tell me as always he was fine, tired…but hey he was “Dropping some pounds” as he said. Scot had this unique way of being slightly self-deprecating and trying to use that to make you feel better.  Over the month we both focused on totally different issues, but we threw short emails at each other and the last one I got from him was an endorsement of sorts, I asked him to sit on the board of directors, rather my Kohai had sent him the email.  He replied simply “whatever Sensei James requires I will endeavor to accomplish”.  

 

One month after telling me he was diagnosed with Cancer I was at home stretching out and drinking coffee on a nice summer morning, I got a frantic text from my Kohai asking me to call her right away. I ventured outside and a million things ran through my head as to what the crisis could be, I actually thought my Sensei had passed away. I took my coffee and went outside, sat down on my patio chair and called her. Her voice was shaky and she gave me the news.

 

The world began to spin for me, Memories of me chatting with him, his big smile and his HUGE hands as he would throw me around the room and more so his presence just kind of sat down on me and her words kind of trailed off into the distance as the realization that Scot had passed hit me. My rock was gone in Karate, the one person that I knew would give it to me straight, support me no matter what and help me guide my Sensei’s organization to the future was now gone. I can say that I trust few people in this world and anyone that knows me will tell you I don’t make friends easily. I’m stubborn as hell, loyal to a fault and often extremely socially awkward. Those I count as friends in Karate are “ride or die” kinds of friends. Losing one is hard and hurts a great deal. Scot was one of those “ride or die” kinds of people.

 

I am a Karate Purest and a bit of a Karate Snob, I hate Karate sport and I even tried to keep the JKA/MB pure and away from sport. It was Scot who convinced me that we needed to get back to tournaments. When the instructor left us recently I was very upset and used the term Hate a great deal. Scot talked me down and convinced me to let it go. When Sensei got sick and could not teach anymore it was Scot that told me it was my job to take over and he would support me and help me, but to lean on others as well. When I told him that I was scared we would lose the tradition in Karate and that it was becoming some kind of farce, he was the one that said “Do what you do, those that come and enjoy it will stay…those that don’t will leave”.  

 

Scot was going to be the first person in the door of the new club he said, and then when we rebuilt enough and started with the new stand alone in a few years he wanted to be the one to cut the ribbon. Now I am not a religious person but I feel that he honestly will be the first on the floor in spirit and I will continue to train and teach the way that he liked and keep the tradition alive for him. To honor him and my Sensei and I will try and reflect as much as I can on Scot when planning out the future of the JKA/MB as its his heritage as much as it is my instructors or mine.

 

Ous!