Home Training vs Dojo training

Not everyone has a tone of extra time to work out at home, and not everyone can make it to the Dojo every day to train. This means you need to strike a balance in your training. The one thing I notice the most when talking to others about their home work outs and their thoughts on Dojo work outs is that a few of them have drastically different ideas of what they should be all about.

Home work, or home work outs should be working on conditioning and working no the lessons that Sensei has presented in class so he does not have to go back over it again and again with students unless it’s a new aspect or correction of a technique.

The training at home should be right out of the book…the note book you bring to class. Instructors teach a class with a specific idea and or fundamental in mind, be it rotation, movements, a specific Kata or particular techniques that needs work. They then teach a class and focus on that idea or fundamental and hope that students take that lesson home and work on it or stick about after class and work on it.

Literally take the lessons that Sensei has taught in class that week and go over them in your living room, basement or hallways as best you can. Try and figure out what the main idea of class was and push yourself to perform the class focus as much as you can. This way when you go back to class, assuming you have done your work and progressed, you can get a new lesson to work on and try to perfect.

Class time is all about new things, if done right. If the students are not moving ahead and doing their home work then it is about rehashing the old class and pushing your class to actually do the home work…in class time. Going back over old ideas that should have been mastered already and trying to build on skills that we have already gone over in class. However, when a student or whole class does do their home work, the sword starts to show its edge. The class progresses and builds on itself and soon enough the information that Sensei is handing out is worked on by the students to the point that he moves on to more advanced things.

Right after class sit down and write out notes on the class. Try and stick to what you did and not what you think the point was. Write out: Warm up (H 1-5), Kihon: Sanbon zuki, Ippon kumite Sanbon Kumite…ext. Once you have written it out go home and try to just put facts down, unless Sensei says “we are working on timing tonight” or “we need to focus on hip vibration at the end of Oi-zuki” or something specific like that.

Once you are at home go back over your notes. Read them and if Sensei did not spend a lot of time on something don’t worry about it, try and find out the theme of the night. Write notes on your notes to give you something personal to go on and then incorporate those notes and Sensei’s lessons into your home work outs. The home work out is time to really polish up and focus on the lessons that Sensei has given out thru the week.

Home training gives you the opportunity to train on your own and work on your own weaknesses as well. If you know you have a weak side kick and want to improve it you can throw that in to the mix, or if you are very inflexible it gives you extra stretching time to work on that hurdle. Karate is not about being a top athlete its about challenging your own hurdles and overcoming them. Its about working at home and the club to be a bit better than you were before…all the time.

Home training can not be the “staple” of your training however. It has some specific draw backs that one has to keep in mind. No instructor to correct you is a big one. We see a lot of self taught people with massive flaws in their techniques, and they expect them to be fantastic because they do those THOUSANDS of times…but doing it a thousand times wrong just makes it more ingrained in you…wrong!

The other drawback is you are very limited in what you can do by yourself. You cannot do impact training, sparring or some conditioning exercises that may take a partner. At a dojo you have a partner to train with and test your techniques; you have a partner to hold the kicking pads or a instructor to work on your form with you. At home you just have yourself….and that can be good for Kata work and for some work, but you really are limited in what you can do at home…that is not to say that you should not work at home, it means that what you do at home…has to be done at the club with your instructor watching and a partner to test yourself against.

If you choose to skip on or the other you are selling yourself short and wasting your instructor’s time. If he has to go back over lessons and techniques over and over again he cannot get to the advanced information that he has for you. If you are not at class enough, you don’t get to progress along with others and eventually you will fall behind or find yourself working only on some items and not progressing the way you can!

The students that I have seen progress naturally, smoothly and to the level of physical and mental understanding do both training at home and at the club. Those that just train at the club have a decent grasp of what is expected of them, but tend to be…well they are not creative. They learn the book stuff and cannot make it their own. They become cookie cutter students that look like every other student, this is not bad…but they tend to simply do what they have seen. Those that train at home only and miss more classes than they should tend to be sloppy and stray way off the curriculum and miss growing in Karate as they flounder trying to work their way thru basics and correct issues and mistakes without the help of an instructor. Ego is often their worst enemy!

Back in the old days we used to say go to class four times or more a week, however I understand the issues of family and time constraints. I would say going two to three times a week is enough to advance to a good level in Karate, and then working out two to three times a week at home is a good number of times to work on weak points and focus on what you did in class. More is often better, but the minimum time for training in class would be a solid class a week with more home training.

As I got older and family started to demand more of my night time activities I changed my six days a week at the club and once a week at home for the opposite. I now go to class once a week to work on Kumite and spend five to six times a week at home pushing thru Kata and drills to try and keep the flames going. More class time would be better, but I have to deal with modern family needs and such.

The most important thing is to not let two days between training go by. Try and do some kind of training each day, even if its just some very basic drills like block and counter basics. Try and get to the club as often as you can and push to not let a week go buy without at least one class. And remember that training at home and at the Dojo should have different focuses and they serve different purposes and not one is better than the other, they both lead to the end goal of improvement and both are equally important.

The greats: instructors that I look up to

I have now been kick’n and punch’n in my white pjs for 31 years, well approximately, for a few of those years I was busy taking Judo and other martial arts, but the majority of my 31 years was spent with Dingman Sensei training in Karate. I have noticed two things about instructor, and I have had my fair share of training with different instructors….one, they all seem to have a different view of what Karate is and is not, and the second thing…they all teach differently..and often different things!

I was engaged in a rather funny conversation with a student about the actual way to do a side thrust kick, and it went something like this “but my sensei teaches me to kick this way…and you are saying that you kick this way…are you right or is he right”?...I said ”yes”. See we are all built differently, mentally and physically….. and our experiences are all different! For instance, thought I was one of the tougher instructors in the group, I have been stabbed three times and shot at, I worked the door at several bars and have had my fair share of real life street scraps when I was younger. But then I met an instructor from a different city that lived thru an actual war, saw her family killed and lived thru many of the worst horrors of war, and even was shot in the face….Yah, I am a woose!

It’s the difference in outlook, experiences and teaching styles that make this system of Karate so great. And the variety is HUGE, we have instructors that never think of grappling or Ki energy and instructors that incorporate or focus on these things, Its literally a plethora of skill sets and teaching ability…and a few that may lack in some of those as well. So, what makes a great instructor…seeing as we have our instructor mentoring program in full swing this may help a few of them…..”Curiosity and a passion for the art”. Pretty much that’s it! Go out and study, don’t stay in your own Dojo. Get out of your comfort zone and go explore. Read about different complementary subjects and push yourself to be a better instructor…and practice your public speaking.

Variety and diversity in training are the spice of life. Trust me, as good as Dingman Sensei is, getting a different point of view is important in developing your own style and also in building your own skills. If I had not had Yaguchi Sensei and all the others to mentor me when I was younger I would have lacked in some areas. Sensei encouraged me to train in different clubs and to go to train with others, I also spent time with an instructor outside the city when my family moved outside the city. An organization cannot exist if the instructors are all carbon copies of each other. It simply will not work. The lack of variety kills organizations. The life that Diversity brings will keep the pulse of a young group going and will re-energize a new group. Dojos often burn out when all that a instructor has to share is shared….and he feels like he is simply repeating himself and not growing as a person or instructor.

So, why then do some instructors want everything to be the same and why do they want us all to do things the same way….because they are scared and insecure in themselves and their skills. The change, the very act of wanting something different scares them. Watch as they scramble when changes happen in Kata, they also hate it when a new instructor starts to make a name for themselves, their juniors start to advance and it is at that point that insecure instructors begin losing students. Not because others have come along and shown them that there are other sides to Karate and Martial arts, but because that instructor becomes bitter…and everyone can see a bitter, insecure instructor for what they are….

Now, As I stated, I have been lucky enough to work with the person that I feel is the very bench mark of instructors in my training. Dingman Sensei, if he likes it or not, is the person that I look at and compare all others as instructors. His ability to teach basic movements and break them down is INCREDIBLE, his ability to coach the little things and to keep students enthralled in training is amazing and his passion….after 50 plus years of training….well its still burns brightly! He has a way with adults and kids and he enjoys teaching…but more importantly, even if he is pushing 70 he can still do it. He demonstrates the moves the way that normal humans can learn them and he understands as a teacher that he can not make some people move the way he can. He is quite and shy off the floor, but the man is simply the best instructor I have trained with. Nothing new or fancy just the very best basics I have ever seen in a person! And the best instructor I have had to train with…bar none…ever! From Dingman Sensei I try and take the passion and the individual attention he can give to each person, as well as trying to connect with students and show his passion for the art. He will always be the bench mark, yard stick and person that I compare all true Karate instructors to.

Below Dingman Sensei is Yaguchi sensei, Now Dingman Sensei would slap me for saying this and for putting his instructor bellow him, but there are a few small differences that in my mind make Dingman Sensei a tad bit better an instructor than Yaguchi…but trust me…this man is still AWSOME. As an instructor the man is firm, fair and has a great style for his teaching. He is one of the best coaches if you want to learn Kumite and to be frank….at 60 years of age he beat me soundly in kumite…played with me like I was a baby…and I was 20! The mans timing is off the chain! He also has a unique way of presenting information that allows you to not forget. Off the floor, he is a jokester. His ability to crack me up was crazy, never had I met a Japanese instructor who was so funny and liked to play jokes on people…and eat their lunch! From Yaguchi Sensei I took a lot of the old world spirit in his training. I trained with him when I was younger and the politics that got in the way of our training, I think, did me no service…but I have reams of notes from this man and I cherish every note.

I don’t think that I was ready for a class with Tanaka Sensei. He had been an idol of mine for years and I was star struck till the class finished warm ups…then I was gutted, beaten and tired…and that was just the basics. He runs classes that may actually kill you….even before you get to the Kumite. His style of teaching was to drive us into the ground with drills and push us past our limits…then just a tiny bit more…Stop and explain something in a way that was funny, interesting and had us learn..then drive us back to the brink of passing out…which a few did. While he had his “white knuckle” training of 50 step power speed attacks up and down a gym with fresh partners each trip to and frow….he had this pause in the middle that stopped us all, huffing and puffing, and explained that we were thinking to much…punching is simply straightening your arm. From Tanaka I try and take my hard core training cue. I take the drill sergeant with something to teach….and from him I also take the fact that sometimes simplicity in volume is still a great work out!

I only trained with Koyama Sensei Twice, but he is a zen machine. His training is basic as well, but he is very detailed in his mechanics of a technique and he tended to be very “spiritual” compared to Tanaka Senseis pure power style. I liked training with him and he seemed to have a very calm effect on all the students. A very good instructor, all I can say is I made the mistake of saying he looked like a bird…hey I was young…and got slapped upside the head for it from a black belt…I was a Kyu at the time. From Koyama I had to read my notes, which I have kept for many years, to appreciate his style and ideas. He is a unique instructor and someone I want to train with again someday.

A few summers ago I got the chance to train with the new JKA chief instructor, Ueki Sensei. At first I was a bit underwhelmed. He taught a very basic class, nothing fancy. But as he started to wind down the class I saw that he had just polished so many basic techniques and pin pointed many errors that we have in our techniques and had done so smoothly without insulting us, telling us we had done it different or wrong….he showed me two things, much like Dingman Sensei Basics in Karate are GOD and that being a gentleman when teaching is one of the best ways to influence others.

Now one instructor that is highly underrated in Canada is Del Phillips. Not only is he the student of My instructor but he was one of the marquee instructors at our summer camps. His take on Karate is truly unique and his ability is crazy. For a guy that looks like a bag of bones in a gi, he could toss guys around that were 50-70 pounds heavy than him and his ability to work mechanics of the body was crazy. He also had a unique take on stand up grappling that has affected my training and teaching for years. I remember after one class talking to him about a particular throw he had been teaching. It was weird that when I pointed out I learned that as the four direction throw when I took Aikido…he said he had never taken a class of Aikido in his life. He also had a great feel to his teaching, he was much like Sensei Dingman in his enthusiasm, but he was more like a kid in a candy shop than a passionate coach! His classes took me hours to write notes on because of his drills and stand up grappling that he took out of the Kata!

Another instructor I trained with whom I respect a great deal is Terry Proctor. He was my instructor when I moved out of the city, and I trained with him for several years and then again at summer camps when I moved back to the city. His techniques were not pretty, but they had lots of power. His timing was not great, but he was one of the best at foot sweeps that I have met to date. Also, and most importantly, he taught without ego. He did not care who you were, he showed up…taught you and never once said anything that suggested he was better than you. He was a bowlegged tough fire fighter that was great at Kumite and one of my instructors top students. The sad part is he left my instructor and followed politics and the flow of power. From Terry I try and take the lessons he passed on from Dingman Sensei in the old days, the lack of Ego in dealing with student and the fact that being human and training is more important than being a demi-god and having others serve you. He was a true egoless warrior!

I would be remiss if I did not mention Saeki Sensei from Ottawa, not only have I been out to Ottawa four times and trained at 5 Koyo camps with him, Tanaka Sensei and a variety of instructors, but we have hosted him twice in Winnipeg. The thing with Saeki Sensei is he is a very friendly, easy going and off the hip kind of instructor. On the floor he shows a modern and technical outlook and tries to introduce fundamentals and principles that are cutting edge and advanced, even to white belts…and he makes it easy to understand for all levels. Off the floor he is very forthright, tells you how it is and does not hold back. He also once gave me the shirt off his back…literally! I have been his demo dummy on occasion and his timing is amazing. From Saeki Sensei I hope to take his ability to introduce advanced theory to anyone and show my passion for the art!

Speaking of Koyo Camp, one of the most dynamic instructors that I got to train with at a camp was Imura Sensei, a true Kata GOD! The man moves like he is in silk pajamas and he is made of smoke! He broke down 6 katas for me (as part of a class) over the visits I trained with him and he had something interesting to show on each. Now for a man with limited, but still very good English, he had us all rolling in laughter thru his class and at the social events after the training as well. His good nature and sense of humor proved to me that even if you are seen as a Kata GOD that you are still human!

One instructor that had a big influence with all of us in Manitoba was Sensei Tammy…and not Tammy Dingman as I have been corrected many times…Tammy Heibert. Growing up she was one of the few Female athletes in Karate, and she blew most of the competition away…female…and male. Her skills were so good that she was often called upon to do demos in Japan when the Japanese wanted to show good form. Her ability and her skill did not lead to an ego when training, more of a persistence in her wanting others to develop. She is an easy going instructor who is more concerned with making sure you benefit from the class than worrying about how she is treated by her students. However, I have never seen anyone disrespect her and almost everyone saw her as a mentor. I remember her saying to me that I was to technical for the Kata I was working on, not big enough for the other one and would never suit the third one I tried…she suggested Kanku Dai. That is still my Kata, even if I train in Nijushiho right now.

I have had many other seniors that have taught me, from Jarvis Kohut to the many other junior instructors. They all brought things to the table that influenced my teaching. I watched closely and learned their techniques, mannerisms and watched them outside the club. My suggestion is always to find those that you respect and that have a style of teaching you agree with and that helps you and try to pick up from them not just your karate skills, but also your teaching skills.

I never stop looking to learn from instructors, even my juniors. Lately I have watched Steve Burch and Rhonda Raback teaching and I can tell you they are both very talented instructors…especially with kids. Steve shows his love for the art and his long time training everytime he teaches, and most importantly he has NO EGO. You see him making fun of himself and cracking jokes when he trains and his students love him. The other night Dingman Sensei and I were talking and I brought up Steve…right away Sensei told me he would be a success and his students love him because he does not take Karate too serious, he treats training as it should be, fun but serious….not serious only. And Rhonda is one of the best instructors with kids. This is a skill I have never really managed for long periods of time. I hope that I can show the kind of care that she does with the kids, and not be such a drill sergeant. She also shows the love she has for Karate as well.

With instructors like Steve and Rhonda the new bread of instructors in Manitoba is getting good. But with the good you need the bad I guess. I am not going to mention names…but I will point out a few Bad instructors I have trained with as a way of avoiding their follies……Most bad instructors are not bad on purpose, its problems with their ego and personality that make them very ineffective. Most, not all but most, love Karate, but they get “bent” in the process of learning. They think that Ego feeding students love them and they forget the reasons they entered into training, they forget the many lessons they learned in Karate and they become horrible to be around as they often fail and or don’t reach the expectations they have.

I have trained with one instructor, we will call her the Ego! She walked around like she was the best ever and Gods gift to Karate! But in truth she was just full of herself. Her students never met her expectations and she was never happy with them, but because they fed her rather large ego…they could stay. Training with her tested my patience all the time. When we finally got away from the organization she was in, well it was not soon enough. The horrible part was that her teaching was more “let me show off and make you feel horrible” and when she met someone that could take her in Kumite, she fought dirty and when she was scored on it was “why would you hit a woman”. Sorry, no genders in Kumite! The Ego based instructors feel like the world owes them, they are often not to bright as well because they don’t get that we are not laughing with them…..you understand the rest. We are also more often than not, not totally enamored of them, but fear them. And fear…that aint respect.

The next “bad instructor” is actually really two people with the same bad habit….The “PACER”! the Pacer is the guy that walks back and forth…normally mumbling to himself about how you suck or how no one respects him or maybe even saying what he wants you to do….put him in “street clothing” and people may actually think he suffers from a mental disorder! This instructor normally does not make eye contact with anyone and he wrings his hands and often does not throw a single Karate technique all class. One of the two would teach, if you called it that…he would bark out orders and count in Japanese while he mumbled under his breath. Once and a while…when the moon was BLUE…he would actually teach a techniques…but then you realized his ability to do Karate had long since fallen away to the ability to pace…not don’t get me wrong…that takes a lot of endurance…but this is not a speed waling class!

The next “Bad instructor” that I ran into is a weird Fellow I like to call…DISMISSIVE DAN! He is a bit like the Ego issues previous and a bit like a few of the following instructors but Dan has a problem…he thinks that NO ONE exists other than him. The few times I trained with him he did not care about 95% of the class, just the 5% he wanted to..and normally they were of the young female variety. The other issue was that if you asked Dan a direct question…he showed you “the hand” as he walked by. Now I can take being put off for a different persons question, but this was after class and he basically felt to darn good to be bothered by a lowly shodan he never met before. Hell if I was approached by a black belt asking me a question I would perk right up…but not this guy, nope this dope on a rope just walked by…and not just me…several others.

The next guy even almost graduated the instructor mentoring program in Japan. He was seen as possibly the first Canadian to have done this….if he had. But he got the boot right at the end, and after meeting this Jerk…I kind of know why. His whole class was “why Japan is better” and “why we suck” and “why the Japanese do this and that better” and….well you get the point. He was never happy with us and he was never happy with his own students, and his stories were always about how he was better and things he saw in Japan blew us away…..Yah, that would have been something else but near the end of the class…he began putting down the Japanese!!!! Lesson learned…don’t put down your students or people you train with….focus on making them better and building them up!

At one time my instructor opened his door to a visiting instructor. One such instructor was a Japanese instructor from a different organization. His whole group came thru and stopped off in Winnipeg and gave us a class. I still have a tone of pictures of them because the students were so nice. But the instructor did some stuff that I did not agree with…..like repeatedly striking his students. He did a demo were he showed off a bit, kind of like the Ego feeding instructors I know, but when he did a hook kick….it landed every time on the back of his students head…THUNK! Then he would show a Gyaku zuki and “Thunk” it went into his student like a piston and his student, even though he seemed ready…sunk around the fist. It was horrible. And the instructor did not seem to let up thru the whole class. His young student looked very ragged by the end of class. After class we talked to the students and apparently, just because he was nice, the instructor picked a different student to “Demonstrate” on every class because he was afraid of putting one in the hospital…..again!

The point is that variety is good, we have lots of representatives of what a bad instructor is, as Karate students we need to find our own path and try to remember why we do what we do. Karate won’t make you a millionaire, but it will help you live longer and enjoy your time here….if you can’t figure that part out…take up hop scotch!

What got you started in Karate….start of my martial journey

Every year, heck every month I come to my fellow students and try to get them to bring in more students to the organization. I say ‘lets do it” and we advertise and try to draw people into our weird little world of martial arts training. Often I get a tone of help, but every once and a while I get resistance and some who are even upset about being asked to try and get a few extra students. It does help me both ways! Those that try their buts off to get new students are those that probably “Get it”, those that resist…well It lets me know that they don’t.

What I mean by this is those that try understand that Karate is much more than just kicking and punching, its communion with fellows that are like minded, its physical challenge and its learning a new art. Is it a perfect art that will kill anyone that attacks you, no! But it’s a type of art that can lead to some very important personal discovery, it can help you thru hard times and it can even give you a bit of purpose when you don’t have any.

When I was a kid, the thing that got me into Karate was my Dad….so strange to actually say that seeing as he banned me from ever trying it! See, my father and uncle had both trained in the “old days”. My uncle got to his brown belt and I think my dad thru in the towel around green. But they trained in the old days, the REALLY OLD DAYS…back when men were the only real gender in the clubs, back when girls and children did not don a gi and try to defend themselves. The Students were often hobbled and hurt because the instructors drove them so hard and the sparring was so hard that injury was daily. My uncle broke both his arms in a tournament and finally bowed out when his knee was taken out and he tore three of the four major ligaments in it.

So, what made me join after all the horror stories…..two names…Bruce Lee and Chuck Norris! Both men are responsible for me donning the white pajamas..and at one point a pair of black ones when I studied kung fu. I started off with a club I saw as I was on a bus going to a comic store with my brother….I was six. Every week end I had rented a VHS….Thats the “before DVDS” for young folk…and watched Bruce Lee in his five movies, heck I probably wore out the movies ad Adies video in their Martial arts section. Back in the day we were allowed to rent one movie a week end and my Brother Al would always walk me to the video store to get them, and I always came back with Martial arts movies…to my mothers dismay!

Those movies got me in the door, but I started at what I can only call the wrong Dojo. The instructor was good, but his bad habits spewed out of his office onto the Dojo floor and when he did show up for class he stunk of cigarettes and booze. We did not do the Dojo Kun, we bowed in and the instructor…when he taught…would say a few words then the kids class started and it was fun, but it was not what I saw in the movies. I even stayed to watch the adult class to see if we could look forwards to some good training down the road, and even their training did not look like Bruce and Chuck…no spirit in training!

After six months and a yellow belt I thru in the towel and moved on. I took to hitting a punching bag in the garage, strange for a six to seven year old but I was driven. Between that and play fighting with my cousins that was about as involved as I got in Karate for a full year! Then I watched a movie with a not so well known Japanese star, Sho Koshugi! The man played a Ninja but his Karate was very good. I watched and before you know it…and six of his movies later…I got the bug back! I was going Home and noticed this little red and white sign on the third floor of a building whose back faced the bus route. It was in an area My mother would NEVER let me go alone and it was known as tough area with lots of hookers and issues at night…and it was not much better during the day!

With my brothers help I convinced my mom to let me go check it out. I went with a friend and my brother then next week end, I was actually around eight years old at the time, but Winnipeg…heck the world…was much safer back then. We went up the three flights of marble stairs and as we got closer to the door on that Saturday morning I could hear the adult class in full swing. It kind of scared the heck out of me! The smell was something I will never forget as well. See community club Dojos don’t feel like Dojos to me, they lack the ambiance, the smell, the feel of sweat in the very air. Things that would be seen as detractors now…well those things were what got me hooked completely!

I got to the large and impressive door, oak I think and it said in simple letters “JKA of Manitoba” and under that “international Shotokan Karate Association of Manitoba headquarters” with a funny picture of a tiger or something under that. Very plane and if you did not look close you would miss it on the way up the stairs. I pushed open the door and the hot air blasted out, like it was trying to escape the training itself. The smell was stronger now, kind of musky, like sweat and hard work mixed together in a soft but present alert to you, telling you this was a place to take seriously!

After that first day and watching the adult class as they did things that would make the movies I had been watching jealous, I was hooked. I started in the kids class and trained under a few different seniors, from the instructors son and daughter to a brown belt that had been training in the club with his father. Kids classes were fun, but they had a very serious side to them. And for the first time I was taught the Dojo Kun by a rather serious Sensei Tammy. The whole experience began to gel for me. The true training was available here. And we got it in buckets full. In fact one of my jobs at green belt was getting buckets of water for cleaning the sweat off the floor after work outs. It was a different world. No dry cloth to easily tidy the floor….wet ones stick! The training was harder, hell cleaning up after the training was hard, but it was what I wanted.

Karate is, for a part, about making a life decision to find a place that you can work hard and see results that mean a lot…only to yourself. It’s a personal time, a time to experience and learn about yourself and the first few years from others. Karate is making it a life. Those that get it, they get it, those that don’t may think they do…but they wont ever get it. I learned more in the first few years of Karate about myself than I had in school or any other activity. It was a true experience. I learned how to over come being the shy kid in the corner that had a speech and learning issue and the kid that had a father as a teacher and shared his name…one that drew a great deal of attention for several reasons. I out grew the kid that was a latch key kid for the first ten years of his life and had an older brother raise him. I out grew all of that and simply learned to be. I also outgrew a huge temper that got me in trouble a lot early on.

My temper would have gotten worse if Karate was imply kicky punchy stuff. All thru elementary school I had been the shy kid with the hair trigger temper who, when provoked, would fight anyone and often did. In grade three I beat up a kid in grade seven because he hit my brother, I beat up a few friends for staring arguments and going to the “your mamma” type insults and I even went after a school teacher who got in my way when I was upset after being hit in the face by a soccer ball! Suffice it to say it is also a good thing I was almost always the shortest kid in class! If Karate had been about just making me a better puncher and kicker, I probably would be in Jail right now because my temper was that bad!

Karate taught me, thru the Dojo kun and hard work in the class as well as getting “punished” in class for stepping out of rank and order, how to control my temper and what was right and what was not right. But it also taught me much more about myself and who I am, and how to deal with loss. It was my family at Karate that surrounded me and helped me when my brother Died.

Al had basically raised me and seen me grow in Karate and to be a adult. I had been teaching at my own club after training at the head quarters, it was a grey Saturday and I had just been up to see him the night before. He had renal cancer and pretty much every other kind of weird cancer you could think of for the last four years. Actually the type of cancer he had is hard to spell and it is caused normally by working in toxic environments….which he had! He passed away just before 1 pm and I was just getting ready to walk in the door of my club and teach. The receptionist caught me as I walked in the door and I knew something was wrong…She had tears in her eyes and simply said “call your Sensei”. I had a student volunteer to come pick me up before I even knew he had passed away. They brought me to my sisters, were my family had gathered, and then had others take my classes for a week while we finalized everything. It was not because they had to…its what family does.

Karate is about the people you meet, train with and whom you share your life with, as much as it is about those that help you grow as a person. I have trained with politicians, doctors, sports stars, big business people, mechanics and guys who ask “would you like fries with that” and no matter what, when you don the white pajamas and tie a belt around your waist it is not about power, stature or success outside the club, its about what you bring to the table that day! You don’t worry about gender, education, or anything aside from what you can do that day with that group of people. What you are about to share and what you are about to benefit from.

So, I have been training for all of my adult life and most of my childhood, I have waded thru the pools of politics that infect Karate, put up with hardship and MORONS thinking they are gods and missing the point of Karate, I have been pushed to the limits often and I have been discourage and disappointed in people that I have trained with and met along the way. So, why do I still train? Well, as often as you can hear me saying politics are choking the life out of Karate and some people take far to much advantage of status in Karate…the reason I still train is simple….family. Karate has become like a family to me. I have a best friend that trains in Karate now, I have many good people I have met in Karate and my instructor is like my father….so its like family.

I still train for a few reasons, but it can be boiled down to two major events in my life and two great men. The two major events were my brothers passing away and my daughters being born! When Al died my whole Karate family circled the wagons and protected and helped me thru a rough time. The Dingmans (my instructor and his ex-wife) helped me thru the roughest time of my life. And when Emma was born the look of Joy on my Sensei’s face told me he felt like a grandfather to her. It changed something in me yet again. It reinforced my feeling about my Karate family and kept me going.

The two men are My instructor Sensei Dingman and another man that brought me back to feeling good about running an organization here in Winnipeg, Saeki Sensei of Ottawa. I was about ready to toss in the towel before we rejoined his group. I was discouraged by politics and the fact that some seniors in the world of Karate feel like they deserve special treatment, money and other things simply because they have been around for long enough. Saeki Sensei reversed this and basically told me that my thought of Karate by the students for the students is the way we must go. Those two men are bright shining lights in the often dark world of Karate!

What got me interested in Karate was Martial arts movies, what kept me going was the feeling of family in the Dojo and the feeling of kinship with others in Karate. What inspires me to teach and share is what I get back. In my life of Karate I have seen far to many people leave or pass on to the next life. It saddens me to think of the many faces that have paced thru the club and simply faded out of site. But stories about little girls bringing helicopters to the city….ask me later…and kids asking if a pig eating bacon is cannibalism….again, ask me later….all add to the reasons I do what I do. Yelling at kids for wearing all their underwear into the lake at once, people trying their best to do something and failing in a completely new and funny way, training on docs in the summer, in the lake, in a dojo that feels so muggy you can not breath, running 5K for a warm up before a class with Sensei Tammy, summer camps, Koyo Camps, Meeting masters, Meeting new students, Learning a new Kata…taught by a world champion…all of these are why I keep doing what it is that I am doing!

I hope you sit down and think for a minute about why you started Karate, major events….good and bad…that effected your Karate and also the things that keep you going. Karate is not just about kicking and punching, winning and losing, politics and power….its about people and the lives we choose to share while wearing white PJ’s and a colorful belt! That’s My Karate!

Getting blood out of a Gi: and other new skills!

I have been training in Karate for a long time now. Three Decades of training in Shotokan and the longer I am here the more I realize how crazy the early days were of Karate. I see that we get weird looks when students who have been doing it for five or so years tell others they do Karate…and trust me its not justified. The Karate we do now is so much different from the original classes I took and the Karate of the 80’s and 90’s…and yes I have been told of the very different Karate of the 70’s and 60’s.

I hate doing the “When I was young” thing that made me roll my eyes when Dad did that, but to be frank, the older I get…the more I understand why he did that. Our training was so different that the only thing you can really look at today and identify what we do now with what we did then…we were the same white Pajamas!

When I started training it was a crap shoot as to what kind of injury you would get at the Dojo that night, and a pleasant surprise when you were not hurt at all. The nature and feel of classes was very different, heck the structure of a class was very different. To start with…back in the day…no warm ups! We got to class and our class started at five, we bowed in right at five and the class began with basics. Not the kind of basics that we do now were some kids and adults flick their limbs out with no purpose and then after ten or twenty they get to rest. Nope, we did 100 Choku zuki with purpose. Everything Sensei saw a weak techniques he started counting over again.

After the crazy basics, 100 punches, 100 front kicks and a variety of kicks and punches…we moved on to Kata. 25 Heian Shodans back to back was normal. No rest, the walls would be covered in condensation and in the summer pools of perspiration and condensation would sit in the low parts of the hard wood floor. More than one Bassai Dai ended on with the student slipping and falling to the floor.

We did Kumite and this is the spot that we got scared. We blasted in techniques like we meant to kill our partner…we would try and run them over and try to push our partners as far as we could…because we knew they liked it and the fact is we wanted it right back!

I think my Mother and grandmothers all thought I was crazy! On more than one occasion I had to ask how to get my own blood, or my partners blood out of my white uniform. My father told me I would get killed if I kept “playing” Karate or break my arms or legs. My uncle had broken one arm and a leg 20 years earlier at a tournament…but I would not quit! And I learned how to get blood out of a uniform!

It became common place for me to come home with bruised and bumpy forearms and sit icing my legs as the shins were black and blue! At first my mom was very concerned with the state of my arms, but after a few months of training she pretty much shook her head and walked away. Actually, it became a bit of a competition with her. She could get a nice blue and green bruise by walking past the corner of the wall, so every time I got a bruise to show her, she had one to one up me!

I think the competition ended when I broke my first toe….or maybe it was my Orbital bone? Anyways at some point my mother stopped trying to keep up with the bumps and scrapes and started to get worried about the broken bones and torn ligaments. But I showed up at class and took on all the challenges every class I could make it.

Getting injured in Karate became so common place that I started doing stupid things like cutting off casts from broken ankles and going back to class months before I was supposed to…and getting “the look” from my mother when I did this. I also cut a hand cast off early because I was going stir crazy at home and trained with sixteen stitches in my leg, arm and armpit from a work incident…I did not tell sensei however and incurred the wrath of the Dojo secretary when she found out!

Back in “the Day” that kind of thing was pretty normal for hard core students. We also had a unique way of waking up students that had been knocked out in class….and don’t get me wrong…this did not happen every day, but the two times it did while I was their…once being to myself….we pulled guys (me in one case) into the rest room and dumped buckets of cold water on them till they woke up…then back to the floor to train…if the nose did not need straightening first!

I also took Judo at the same time, and it was equally as crazy hard core! Many a finger and toe would pop out of joint during training…..it was so common we had a nick name for it! We used to tell the coach we had a “tweeky finger” Normally, if it had not popped back in on its own he would grab it…put traction on it and not so gently slam the joint back to were he felt it should be, we would tape it and go back to training.

One time in Judo my partner and I were doing Randori, he was taller than me and basically picked me up and tossed me with a perfect shoulder throw..and I have to say that until I landed it was beautiful…then I landed on my shoulder and neck with feet in the air….shoulder came out and I writhed in pain on the ground. With out checking to see if any major damage to my spine had been done…the instructor ran over, gripped the wrist of my damaged shoulder and pulled. The shoulder popped back in…sounded like a giant knuckle…and I was sent to the hospital in a sling to get checked out…to the horror of both my mother and the doctor!

Thankfully this never happened to me, but I recall a gent that trained with us that was round house kicked in the face during Kumite, he turned spat out his teeth and returned to sparring. That was just the attitude of training back then. You were not dead so you continued on. We may not have been tougher, but perhaps a bit dumber than we are now.

I stopped keeping count as to the number of busted noses (okay more than 13) and cuts I had or bumps and things needing taping. I also developed a knee disorder thru Judo that cause bleeding into my knee joint and swelling. It hurt, but I still showed up to train at the Dojo night after night. I also learned the hard way that broken ribs….are not taped anymore and you should NOT watch a comedy when you have them!

I became very good at wrapping injuries with ice bags, taping fingers and toes, putting on balm and liniment to bring down swelling, and “annoying injuries” like sprains and shin splints, or raw feet and scrapes form gis became just that…annoying…things that keep people away from the dojo now were simply a bump in the road back then.

Were we tough at the old JKA, Hell yeah, and our instructor was one of the toughest. I saw him do things that would put most men to shame…and at 70 he still does. He would train along with us and on more than one occasion sweep the floor…often literally…with me and other students. No one could come close to him physically…for a guy of about 5’3” he was scary! He also did weird things like rub your arm and get rid of a bad bump…and we are not talking a hard rub to push it down, just a light rub and it was gone…weird things like that were common with him!

Now we were tough, but probably not to smart. Not many guys lasted past Shodan. Three years of hard training and they either left and opened a club of their own…to avoid training….or they simply left! Down town training was a nightly gauntlet. It was scary and we got hurt a lot!

Those that stuck it out were tough and loved Karate. I can think of a lot of the guys from the old days that I still look up to, but a lot of them had heath and physical issues that developed, bad knees and the like.

The training that we do now is more family friendly, and to be honest most of the guys, even the tougher students in the club, would get eaten up by the old guys. But the one major change and benefit that we see now…given ten years of training, the students of todays generation will be much more healthy than us old time students. Their joints will be much more healthy and they may not have the Stories to tell but they will be around to tell them.

As far as the old time hold outs, I only know of two of us still kicking around, and I was VERY young during that training so my body is still not as beaten up as the other students. The training we do today does not break you down, it builds you up. While you wont learn skills like how to get blood out of your gi, you will learn skills like how to stay healthy while learning a very basic and dependable way of defending yourself.

To me a lot of the training of old should be brought back, but tempered to make sense and not destroy joints. We need to not swing so far into some of the family Karate we do today, respect and bring back some of the old ways, but be cautious about the training we do bring back.

Karate has to evolve, but if we move to far away from our roots, we risk losing the whole ball of wax all together.

I hope and pray that the new students learn the same kinds of skills I did with out the stupidity and bravado we had!

Lost but not forgotten: Past instructors

Back in 1987 I was training in the Head quarters down town and we got a bulletin that our chief instructor had passed away. I still remember feeling gutted, he was the chief instructor for the JKA world federation and by all accounts one of the few true icons and innovators in Karate. I remember this mainly because of my own stupidity. But hey I was 15-16 when he came to Winnipeg and at the time I thought that he was just another instructor and I missed his class at the head quarters club.

To this day I kick myself and think of all the times I could have gone and trained with masters and did not for various silly reasons. Hey at the time they seemed like valid reasons, but as I got older I started to realize that a lot of that knowledge they had was going to be gone, and I would never have a chance to learn some things from them. Now I am lucky, I have one of the best instructors in north America as my Sensei, but the classes I messed with these men I will never get back.

About the time I was 20 I started getting really interested in the history and past instructors, those men that I would never meet and those men that had contributed one way or the other to the style that I train in today. I researched them for over 20 years and want to touch on some of the greats that we have lost. If not to give you a spark of interest to read up on these men, then to ensure that you learn from my mistakes and take every chance to train with any instructor that you can. The benefits for your Karate will shock you.

Funakoshi Gichin

By all accounts Funakoshi was an relatively adequate student of Karate. He was not dynamic or very large, but he was dedicated. He was also very well educated and organized mentally. Both of these qualities made him innovative and a good instructor because he could communicate his ideas clearly.

He came from a fairly wealthy family, but most of their money was spent by his father. He was a school teacher and had trained in presentation of information. Most of his students said he was very quiet and very passionate about Karate, but also extremely proper even for a Japanese/Okinawa gentleman.

His Karate was a mix of his two instructors, so he was the first innovator of Shotokan Karate. His style was both quick and explosive as well as strong and powerful, his own ability was very good and he proposed a shift in Karate training to a more cerebral act. This allowed him to spread Karate to people of all back grounds.

Because of his innovative approach and his great instruction, Funakoshi Gichin, the school master from Okinawa with a Samurai family became known as the father of modern Karate and his style of Karate survived world war two and became one of the most practiced style of Karate in the world.

Funakoshi passed away at the age of 88 in Tokyo after starting a Karate revolution.

Itosu Anko

Before Funakoshi Sensei could pass on Karate he had to learn Karate. The instructor that influenced him the most was Itosu Anko. Itosu Sensei served as the secretary to the last king of Okinawa and was a military liaison for him as well. Itosu was born into a Keimochi, or family of position and was raised with a good education and brought up knowing he would be a member of the government.

After the government was dispended and he retired from government, Itosu began innovating the Karate that his instructor had taught to him. He created the Heian Katas (Known as the Pinan Katas in the Okinawan dialect) and also created the Sho versions of Kushanku (Kanku) and Passai (bassai) as well as creating a system for teaching Karate in schools (which the Heian katas were part of).

Itosus influence over Karates spreading cannot be over looked. Not only was he Funakoshi Gichin’s instructor, but he taught him how to spread the style of Karate and was one of the first real innovators of Karate from the island of Okinawa. While Funakoshi Sensei is known as the father of Modern Karate, perhaps he is more appropriately titled the father of Japanese Karate while Itosu takes the title of father of modern Karate.

Itosu was known as a shy and quiet man with lots of Karate power, he once used a sandal tied to a brick wall as a makiwara, and within a day the brick wall was destroyed. He passed away at the age of 84 in the town he was born in Shuri, Okinwa, with perhaps one of the most famous student bases ever.

Funakoshi Gigo

Gigo or Yoshitaka Funakoshi was Funakoshi Gichins third son. Gigo lived in Okinawa with his mother until he was 17. While in Okinawa, Gigo trained with his father’s two most influential instructors Azato and Itosu Anko. He also trained with other visiting instructors that both men had coming in from time to time.

When Gigo moved to Japan to train with his father he began to shape and rework the style that his father had created. He first trained with his father to understand how he merged the two styles that he had learned from his instructors and then be began to make adjustments.

Many of the newer ideas that he brought in were from his experience with other instructors his father’s age who had different instructors. Shotokan began to take on a different appearance and his influence can be seen in our longer stances and our half front facing and higher kicking. He also made changes to the way we did some techniques, like the higher knee chamber in Kicking and the longer distance striking, before Gigo made the changes most of the karate techniques were close range and had joint locks involved.

Gigo also brought in free fighting. Prior to this the only partner work was done in drills. He introduced the concepts of moving in fast, hitting and moving out of the target area, thus creating an need to train in understanding distance. His classes became famous for people passing out and he said that he expected his students to train harder than they would have to in a real fight, his thoughts were that if they over train now, they will be able to fighter better in real confrontations.

Gigo unfortunately contracted TB at the age of seven and while many doctors told his mother he would not live to be an adult, he lived to 39 and passed away after the hardships of world war two weakened him, however he was training up to the week he passed away.

Obata Isao

Obata sensei was one of Funakoshis most prominent students. He also helped finance and form the JKA after world war two. Obatas father owned several silk mills and his family was very well off. He was one of Funakoshis first students and also helped spread Karate to the US when he went on a world tour with Aikido and Judo instructors teaching at military bases.

Obata Sensei was also one of the main influences in University Karate. His interest in spreading Karate and the money and time he put into training and spreading the art helped the JKA spread outside of Japan and gave rise to the JKA and its world influence.

Nakayama Masatoshi

When one thinks of JKA style Karate they are thinking of the creation of Masatoshi Nakayama! Nakayama was a descendent of the Sanada Clan of Samurai, a clan well known for their Kenjutsu skills. His family was a medical family with his grandfather being a famous surgeon in Tokyo and his father being a physician as well. His grandfather had also been a very saught after Kenjutsu instructor and his father a famous Judoka.

Nakyama Sensei entered into Takushoku University with the intent of studying Chinese and becoming a diplomat prior to settling down and earning his medical degree. However a chance meeting with the Karate program at the university set him on a slightly different path.

By the time that world war two broke out, Nakayama was already a Nidan and after the war Nakayama along with Obata and several other students reformed the old Karate club and started the JKA. Ironically none of this was done with Funakoshi sensei, as they thought he had died in the war. Several months later the JKA secretary found Funakoshi and brought him back from northern Japan after Funakoshis wife and son had died.

Nakayama was forward thinking and a lot of the changes that we see in the JKA Karate came from him. He had studied other styles in China and had also trained with other instructors and let their styles influence him. He pushed for tournament style Karate knowing it would draw in new students. He also implemented some technical changes and was part of the great exchange that Funakoshi had arraigned with one of his peers in Karate, Kenwa Mabuni.

Nakyama was a genious when it came to Karate and while he did not enter into medicine he did study sports and athletic training considerably. All of the training he received from his seniors, Funakoshi Gichin and Gigo helped him to develop the Style of Karate we know as JKA style Shotokan Karate. He was also influential and had the forethought to realize that each instructors should be allowed to put their own twist on his style and still call it JKA style Karate. Unlike other strict and ridged styles, we have many flavors to Shotokan and yet we still have enough style flexibility to call it Shotokan and we can all still be JKA. This is thanks to the founder of JKA style Karate and the JKA itself, Masatoshi Nakayama.

Nakayama had a major accident when he was teaching skiing while in his 60’s and was caught in an avalanche. His doctors told his wife he would not live. When he did, they said he would not walk. When he did they said don’t dream about him doing Karate at all or living more than a few years, when he did…he outlived two of his surgeons and continued to spread Karate until he passed away at the age of 74.

Nishiyama Hidetaka

Nishiyama Sensei was born to a well off family. His father was a lawyer and kendo master and as was tradition, Nishiyama Sensei entered into Judo and Kendo himself at a young age. He infact received his black belt in Judo at the age of 14 and also received his Sandan in Kendo. Nishiyama began training at the JKA and earned his second dan before the war broke out. He stated that training was about 80% Kata and 20 % kihon, no kumite. Funakoshi Gichin and his son Gigo had split the training load evenly between the two of them.

Nishiyama enrolled at the Takushoku university and became the Karate Team captain shortly their after. He received a masters in economics and graduated, joining the SAC with his senior Obata Sensei to spread Karate via the US military exchange program. Along with top instructors from Judo and Aikido he traveled to military bases in the states.

Nishyama traveled back to the states and began teaching in Los Angeles and helped spread Karate in the US and north America at the request of one of his juniors, Tustomu Oshima.

Nishyama passed away in 2008 after a long battle with lung Cancer. After he passed his organization gave him the rank of 10^th Dan. He would never have agreed to the rank while he lived. He said that the 10^th dan was perfection and receiving that rank meant that your life of learning was over.

While I have never trained with Nishiyama and much of his influence over modern JKA is limited as he was more of an associate after moving to the US. Nishiyama had many interesting ideas and if you ever get the chance to watch some of the taped classes or read any of his writings you should take the chance. He was steeped in great Karate knowledge and his ideas are very advanced and may help your own Karate.

Kase Taiji

Next to Tanaka Sensei, the instructor I had admired the most was Kase Sensei. Kase Sensei’s father was Nobuaki Kase, a famous Judo instructor who held the rank of 5^th Dan in Judo. Kase had followed in his fathers foot steps and by the age of 15 he was a second dan in judo and very well know. He read a book by Funakoshi sensei that changed his life. Kase continued to train in Judo, but focused his training on Karate. He trained with four influencial instructors, the first two being Gichin and Gigo Funakoshi, and after Gigo passed away he trainined for six years under Genshin Hironoshi and Tadao Okuyama.

Kase was known as the protector of Shotokan Karate because many “challenge matches” were brought to the JKA by young Karate students of other clubs and styles and it was always Kase who was selected to deal with these challenges. Known for his power and ability to quickly end fights, Kase earned a reputation in Japan as a man not to mess with.

He soon moved to Europe and spread his own style of JKA Karate while maintaining his own HQ in France. His influence has been felt in many great masters, and one of the reasons for this is his non-political view of things. He maintained ties with both side when the JKA split, he helped with ITKF members in Europe and in the end he refused to bow to his juniors in Karate who wanted to run things. He kept an open mind and a happy demeanor.

In 1989 Kase sensei had a heart attack, but appeared to recover and even went back to teaching. He fell ill in 2004 and again seemed to get better, but he passed away Nov.6^th of that year. His style became known as Shotokan Ryu Kase Ha or “Shotokan with Kase’s personal touch”. His style was very well suited for actual combat and his movements in the videos, even at his age and physical condition, show great power and speed. Most who trained with him even near his death at 75 said that his blocks were like being struck by lightning.

Enoeda Keinosuke

Enoeda Sensei studied Judo and Kendo like most children but transferred over to Karate when he endered the Takushoku university. After his university years he entered the JKA and trained under Nakayama and Kase Sensei. He is well remembered for his fighting skills and they also earned him the nick name “Toro” or Tiger because of his attitude during sparring.

Enoeda settled in England and opened a dojo on Marshal street. That club produced some of the most noted instructors and competitors in English Karate. In fact his team was so strong that it often challenged the Japanese team and won on several occasions.

Enoeda sensei had battled cancer for a few years and thought that the issue was under hand when he traveled to Japan and had a surgical procedure. However he passed away in 2003 at the age of 67.

Two of my favorite books in my library are the Shotokan Advanced Kata books one and two, I swear that If I ever find a copy of three I will cry with Joy! The books are well laid out and his ability to show the techniques in Kata is bar none the best I have seen in a book. The thing I really like about Enoeda was his spirit, I can imagine what it must have been like to have been in a room with him, his books give off enough energy to impress me, training with him would have been awesome.

Asai Tetsuhiko

Asai sensei began training with his father in Sumo and Judo. His father was a policeman and felt that martial training was very important. Asai entered the Takoshoku university and began training with Funakoshi and Nakayama Senseis. Upon graduation his instructor suggested he join the JKA and become an instructor. He graduated from the JKA instructor program in three years and became the first instructor to introduce Karate to Taiwan. He also traveled to Hawaii and taught their for five years.

When Nakayama Sensei passed away he did not leave an successor. Instead he left many that felt as though they should be the successor. However the way he had the JKA set up that was impossible. After a long legal battle, Asai sensei split from the JKA and formed the JKS, a group dedicated to spreading his Karate.

Asai Sensei had said that much of the ill will and hostility left the older instructors after Kase and Enoeda passed away, with the passing of Shoji he said many of the older instructors were shocked back into reality. He said he actually got on very well with some of the other instructors who were not in his organization and were from the old group.

My thoughts on Asai and his Karate are very open, I think that for me 200+ Kata is just a bit to much, but I also think that I get it. His Karate was not about the Kata. It was about redefining human movement and teaching his students how to move the way he wanted them to. His relaxation and speed were beyond the norm and his ability as natural and I think cannot be taught to everyone. I would say that his Karate was “Naturally elitist” and not for every person. It got further away from Karate for the average person and became Karate for the full time athlete. His ability is with out reproach and his natural movements were very unnatural for most of us.

Asai Sensei spread his brand of Karate the old way, he taught parts to one person and other parts to other students. Many people feel they know his Karate but they know the part that he taught them. I have now conversed with three people that studied with Asai and were lucky enough to learn from him directly, and all three give very different views of what his Karate was. I think Andre Bertel has the closest to what we see on Asai videos as far as styles, but again, he is another very gifted person that seems to train more than most can.

Asai Sensei had liver disease and cancer and diet suddenly at the age of 71. Right up to the last class he taught he demonstrated great flexibility and speed. His natural ability is something that most of us only dream of.

Asai Sensei left behind a big mess in his organizations. Much like Nakayama sensei, When Asai Sensei passed on he left no clear successor, he left several. Kagawa Sensei is generally the most recognized student of Asais, but many other instructors were left feeling that they were left to run his style of Karate. Much like Kase, Asai sensei had put his personal stamp on Shotokan and while grounded and based in JKA Shotokan, it is easy to say his style took on a life of its own.

Shoji Hiroshi

Hiroshi Shoji is one of my favorite instructors to read about and watch. Not as physically gifted as Asai Sensei and not as powerful looking and athletic as Enoeda Sensei, Shoji had that common man look that made him my hero. He was not very tall, but his spirit was HUGE. He won the all Japan Shotokan championships with Unsu on several occasions and many said that despite his apparent disadvantage over the more athletic and boisterous competitors he demonstrated a quiet kind of Karate that had lots of appeal.

Shoji sensei was the chief instructor at Chuo university and had a reputation as being very quiet, shy and never wanting attention outside the Dojo. He never pushed for public rank advancements or wanted to run an organization. He was just happy with his training and teaching at his club and the JKA. However, he was also known as a very tough instructor who turned out great students.

Shoji took over the classes from Mori Sensei when he left for the States to live and teach. The change in instructors was at first taken hard by the students. They were used to Mori Sensei and his hard attitude during training. But when they first saw it was Shoji Sensei, a senior who was known as the smiling instructor, they were very happy. Till his first month of classes were done and he was then known for his hard classes and multitudes of repetitions.

The most outstanding thing about Shoji Sensei was not his techniques, which were very good from what I am told, and not his amazing Kumite skills…which I am told were equally good, but it was his attitude and approach. He was not overly stern, he tried to show people how to be humble and modest and he only took what was offered to him. He never tried to run more than his club and even then he was very generous. It was often said that his wife and him fed most of his clubs at one time or another. His charity did not end there. Despite being a hard instructor he was also the one that would spend hours with students to ensure they progressed.

From researching Shoji Sensei I think I found a model of modesty and hard work that I tried to strive towards as a student and instructor. Born in 1931, Shoji lived thru the hard WWII years and stayed in Japan to teach. He passed away quietly in 2003. But despite not making any major waves in Karate or in the organization his passing rippled thru the Karate world and everyone he had touched knew of his passing within days. His influence, even though he did not seek the lime light, was in fact greater than some who had strived to be the leaders of organizations.

Shoji Sensei left behind one book “Road to Karate” it is one that my library is looking forwards to holding one day.

Yamaguchi Toru

Toru Yamaguchi Sensei was born in 1936. Yamaguchi Sensei was born Toru Iwaizumi and born into a family with three older boys and a very busy father. His father was a home surgeon during the war and spent most of his time working with soldiers that were injured. When Iwaizumi Toru married in 1960 he was asked by his wifes family to adopt her last name so that the family would have a heir to the Yamaguchi name. Toru Sensei agreed and when he was married he took on his wifes name and soon after they had their first son.

Toru Iwaizumi entered tion Ibaragi University near Tokyo and studied Literature and social sciences while participating in track and field. Upon seeing a demonstration of Karate he began training with Nishiyama. Soon after he entered the JKA instructor training program and became a full time instructor at the JKA.

Yamaguchi Sensei entered Karate tournaments and found success competeing for over 10 years. His style was unique and he was never easy to spar against because he was known for his unique and unexpected attacks and defense. His style was very aggressive and he was known for leaping in the air one minute then falling to the floor the next.

In 1971 Yamaguchi sensei opened his first club called the Sei Kan Ku or the Success Karate Club. He later formed his own Shotokan organization he called the Todokai. He formed the organization officially when Nakyama Sensei passed away. Mostly popular in France and Canada, the Todukai has clubs in South Africa, Morocco and other countries.

Yamaguchi Sensei passed away in july of 2010 at the age of 74. He had suffered ill health for the last few years and when last I spoke with his student Alain Faucher he had passed on a invitation to train with Yamaguchi Sensei. While I grew up reading and rereading his exerpts in Best Karate I had never dreamed I would get the chance to train with him. Alas, I could not go and Alain had told me that the last training Yamaguchi Sensei had given was very sad as he physically was not the man he was years before.

Yamaguchi had passed away and much of his physical ability, much like Asai Sensei, will never be seen again. It was a natural and unforced dynamic that no one can fake or learn. But I am still sad I did not get the chance to train with this great man.

Ozawa Osamu

Ozawa Sensei lived a fairly quiet life in Reno and Las Vegas. He started his Karate training under Mabuni of Shito ryu but quickly transferred to Shotokan in University and trained under Funakoshi Sensei.

Ozawa Sensei, by all accounts, should never have made a big impact in Karate. In 1944 he was recruited into the Kamakazi corp as a pilot. His plan never made it off the run way however as it crashed upon take off. The planes used for suicide bombers were not exactly the best quality fighter planes the Japanese military could muster up. He was in a full body cast for months and if he had not been he probably would have committed suicide like many of his fellow pilots did when the war ended.

He went back to university and after his punctured lung and other inuries healed up he restarted his Karate training as well. He graduated with adegree in economics and Ozawa Sensei was part of the group that helped form the JKA and he even because a regional director in Kobe. He became a famous TV director.

In 1964 Ozawa came to the states for business reasons, trying to sell a film he had made. But things did not work out the way he had wanted. He tried to make ends meet teaching private lessons to celebrities like Natalie Wood and Rock Hudson. In 1974 he moved to Las Vegas and opend a dojo in Vegas were he also worked at a local Casino as a black jack dealer.

Ozawa Sensei held one of the most popular tournaments in north America. He set up the Las Vegas Ozawa “Annual Traditional Karate tournament international” a two day tournament that often hosts more than 1200 competitors and has 25-40 countries participating. The event also holds 15-20 demonstrations. This tournament is now just as popular today as it was when Ozawa Sensei ran the event. It has come to be known as the Ozawa Memorial Cup.

Master Ozawa was a very interesting person and someone I respect a great deal because of his life. He went from almost dyeing in a Kamakazi plan to running one of the biggest tournaments in the world and bringing together over 20 different courtiers to compete in a friendly event in Vegas.

The point of this little walk down histories land and write up on all of these men is this. Don’t ever turn down a chance to train with other people. You never know when someone you miss training with will not be available for you to train with again. That and looking into instructors that have passed and history is a great way to motivate your training now.