Honor thy father

               

                The title Sensei is a Japanese term that has come to mean Teacher, the actual term however translates as “one who came before”.  The character is the same as the word Xiansheng, which is the title for a man of respected stature. In a Karate club the Sensei is often seen as the “Father” of the club, regardless of age. They are the Patriarch, or matriarch of the club. Not only are they the founder in most cases, but they are the leader and as such they command a certain amount of respect.

                The Bible, and I don’t quote this book often, says that you should honor thy father and they mother. Some interpretations say “honor” means to love and respect them, others see it as providing for them and others mean to protect them and “hold” them close. In the Karate Dojo when the Sensei says to do something the only thing that they should expect is “Yes” or “Ous” and then the student does it…within reason. However this blog is not about just blindly doing what I ask if you are in my club or what you need to do if you are in class and your instructor barks orders or asks you to do something. It’s about how others behave towards the leader of the club/organization sometimes.

                Many years ago I started seeing changes in my instructor, he forgot things, had physical issues with just standing for an hour. He would be teaching Karate and forget what he was saying. They were little things but they began to concern me. Later he would show up for class and not even change out, he would sit and watch class while I taught, I had no problem with this as my instructor was not just my instructor but a pioneer of Karate in Winnipeg. He had opened many clubs, taught me Karate for 20 plus years and he had grown his group to a huge size before he started seeing issues come up. His physical and mental abilities began to change and he was not able to teach anymore, but I honored him and respected him a great deal and continued to teach for him and run things for him. I was unwilling to commit to the inevitable and put off making any moves to ask him to step aside, even if it was becoming more and more obvious that he needed to find a new place in the organization.

                When it was time for him to step down I pushed back against the seniors that were saying he needed to retire. I fought with my wife about it and refused to cave even though I saw it. It took a few seniors coming to me to state a change was needed and we had to make for the group to be viable. One of my seniors, who has passed since, sat down with me and we had a heart to heart about my Sensei. He told me that if we did not ask him to step aside he would be tarnishing his reputation and make the whole group suffer and slowly die out.

                None of this helped me however, I was stuck! I forgot that sometimes honoring him meant being straight with him and protecting him from himself. When it was finally done I had the whole group back me up and a letter was sent to him, I honestly still could not face him to see the sadness in his eyes, it killed me a little bit to realize that he was past his ability to teach. However I knew that honoring him meant asking him to retire.

                The way things went down, I am not proud of it. I honestly hoped that he would have stepped aside himself and still visited as long as he could. Or better yet just teach till he was 110 and then stopped teaching to relax for his last 20 years of life….wishful thinking I know. But being as Sensei is a stubborn man and a very proud man, we ended up asking him to step aside and which hurt his pride, not the intended results. While this hurt me a great deal to see I take solace in the face that we are pushing forwards teaching the way we were taught by him and keeping his organization alive. But losing him that way hurt more than anything. I told my wife I had to leave Karate, but she, and a few of the seniors, convinced me that we needed this and we needed to keep his memory alive by pushing forwards. And we needed to continue to respect him and his hard work by redoubling our efforts.

                I told you all this because I want you to know I am not perfect, heck not even close! But I have a beef with some people and its simply something I have to express. I don’t like people who don’t respect their Sensei. I have been around far too many of my instructors old students who don’t respect him. They kiss up to him, they buy him things and then they stab him in the back when he is not looking. Or they Crap on him and then run up to him calling him “my sensei”. The honest truth, not once has this happened and my instructor did not comment about it to me later.

                We went to a meeting a few years back and some of his old students were present. One particular guy ran up to him and hugged him and said “oh, my sensei, how are you” and when I say hugged…I mean an octopus could not have gotten a better grip on him.  My instructor asked me right away if I could see a knife protruding from his back. This is a common thing with my instructor however, he has so many Ex-students and they all “love him” but left him and most of them speak ill of him all the time.

                One such occasion I met an ex student of Sensei’s as my wife and I went out for dinner. The student uncomfortably sat down at a table near us and began talking Karate, something my wife LOATHS when we are out on our “date night”. I was polite and greeted the person and then proceeded to focus on my wife. However as the dinner went on the ex-student began talking Karate again and soon the conversation turned to Sensei. The comments turned to how “bull headed” he was and then it got ugly. I was polite but honestly I simply wanted to leave…or punch him in the mouth. We said our good byes at the end of the night and I left steaming mad that someone could train with Sensei for so long and then be so rude to him behind his back. I know Sensei is not perfect but I honestly could not imagine doing something like this to him.

                A while later I was with Sensei and we ran into this student, who was sucking up to him and saying how much he missed the old days and respected him. I have a few people I simply hate, I know hate is a bad word to some but these people are not worthy of my time, they have done horrible stupid things and don’t see it. I don’t loath them, I mean they are not Hitler, but they are not good people and honestly I would leave a room if they were in it. One of the ways to get on this list is to disrespect someone I love and respect, then deny it and suck up to them, not just be nice, but suck up to them. You just lowered your status with me1000%.

                One other thing I don’t like, and Sensei and I used to laugh about was people who suck up to authority to get ahead. As a leader in Karate in Canada my instructor used to get people who sucked up to him. He once said to me that he liked the way I treated him because I respected and loved him (he was like a second father to me) but I did not suck up. I helped him run several clubs over the years and I shared a lot of time with him over the years, but I was real with him. I saw seniors come in, buy him things, suck up, and then expect things like rank advancements, students having an easier time at grading or a “seat at the table” when it came time for him to change the board or other things. I never expected anything like that and once told him that I never wanted to run things or be the boss, which is why he wanted me to run things.

                Sensei used to say the loathed people that schmoozed their way into things, and felt false friendly people were a plague in Karate. Far too often the leadership of any given organization is filled with “used car salesmen” who want to politely stab people in the back till they get ahead and then they demand adulation. They are false people however and honestly do not deserve the attention. I am lucky in that my new organization is run by level headed people with a passion for Karate and their students and not a bunch of glad handing jerks that will be nice to you, but disrespect you when you are not there.

                It is easier sometimes to do as the others do and just go around trying to work the system and politically glad hand your way to the top and disregard those that helped you make it to this point. AND its far to easy to use your instructor for the political gains you think you can get from them and not respect them enough when they are not present.

                So, how do you actually honor your instructor? Well first don’t stab him in the back! Second, be honest with him. I really hope that when I am unable to teach and need to step away that I have prepared a replacement for my teaching spot and they respect me enough to ask me to take a seat.  Also, when your instructor is not present don’t say things about him you would not say TO him!  Don’t treat him/her like a whore and pay for them to show up so you can use their name! Respect them enough to just have them around, visit them and have them out to the club. Teach what they taught you and remind students that your instructor is part of your lineage.

                My goals for honoring my instructor include teaching his Karate, honoring him in my lineage and preparing the next generation of Karate people so that they can take over and continue on teaching his Karate. I am not going to use his name after I left him or kicked him out. And I am going to grow and continue to evolve as an instructor and remember to get back to the basics, which is what my instructor preached to me daily when I trained with him. That is how I am going to honor my Sensei!

What ever happened to being a Moral Martial arts instructor?

 

                Every time I open my Google news feed and look for Karate news I end up finding out about another “Martial arts instructor” who has been charged or is being investigated with sexual assault, mostly of young children, and I get sick to my stomach!  When I was growing up in Karate I thought that the title Sensei was held by someone that was not just to be feared but more so to be respected. A Sensei or  “One who came before” was supposed to be someone that you could look up to and someone that would help you grow as a person. They were compassioned but firm, wise but still learning and honest with everyone about who they were.

                We look to martial arts instructors for direction, we send our kids and we go to them to find out things about ourselves, to learn the skills of Martial arts, which are a tad dangerous if you don’t know what you are doing….so we again need to trust them and respect them. Martial arts are not just kicking and punching, even if I have had this argument for years with kick boxers and those that think Martial arts are simply kicking and punching. The training that we go through should be forging a better person, physically and to develop better character.

                Each Martial art has their own version of the Dojo Kun, a code of conduct that we should aspire to follow. Our Kun is basically five phrases that encourage a person to be better. It’s a guide that all practitioners should be following, not just doing a “Do as I say….” Kind of thing. It’s not a sales pitch, it’s the core values you should be aspiring to as a practitioner, instructor or not.  The problem is that many martial arts instructors do NOT see the oath that their clubs house as being something they must follow, it’s just a few phrases that are said at the end of class (in our case) to sell the parents on sending their kids to train with you.

                Growing up in Karate I have witnessed a whole bunch of issues and things that hurt others, as well as instructors behaving poorly, hell I have been treated rather poorly by people in Karate who forget the Kun or who have their own interests pushing their actions over the moral oath that they say at the beginning and end of class. I have seen instructors cheat on their wives, abuse them and their kids, act like idiots in public and abuse substances (mostly booze) to the point that they behave like morons. I have found out so much about people when others gossiped about others, which was both enlightening and disturbing. I saw some instructors who “shared” their spouses and I have witnessed instructors groping students and others at social events when they got so drunk they lost control and showed their true selves. I have also been told about instructors taking money that was not theirs to take, committing crimes to cover up the theft and I have spoken to instructors who bragged about dating younger girls…while they were married.

                Now, I am not an angel, I tend to speak my mind to much, I argue politics with some of my students when I know I should not and I have been known to speak before I think. I am not a saint to be frank, but I won’t drink to excess, I don’t do drugs, I don’t touch my students in any way that would be seen as sexual in nature and I am not attracted to children…something I cannot say about others. I am also the first one to say I get jealous, but I encourage my peers, juniors and others to succeed higher than me….and I don’t take money that is not mine…and IF I have taken money that others felt was their money I sure would not burn down my office to hide that fact……

                Over the years I have lost a great deal of respect for a lot of the instructors I have met and trained with when I was told about their faults. Now everyone has faults…but for god’s sake you train in a art that focuses on building your morals up and has its own moral code. I know of a few Nidans that have done things that were against the moral code we say at the end of class, and a few who have done things that would, to me, negate their rank as they call themselves instructors and yet cannot live up to a simple 5 phrase saying that they say every class. However, as sad as these people are….I know that they are not so far gone morally that I would say they should go to jail, in my opinion I would not send someone to learn from them as they would get ½ the training that they need to as a martial artist from these people…and in some cases less. But they are not in any danger as far as their safety goes from them.

 

                Recently I was reading about two Winnipeg instructors that illustrated to me who should NOT be able to teach Karate or other arts.  First off is Manuel Ruiz, a Japanese Jiu Jitsu instructor who is now charged with assault on (a few?) children.  Last year I read about this guy, I had known of his club for some time and when he took it over. He was a big guy, strong looking with dark hair and someone I would say is charismatic in his teaching from what I was told. Seemed like a not so bad guy. Then I read he has been accused of raping children! I was actually gutted! Not because he was a friend, I have never met him, but because people see this and think that martial arts instructors do this type of thing. Adding to this thought was the sentencing of King Yeung of Kangs Academy in Winnipeg to 10 years in prison for systematically sexually assaulting several young students over years of teaching. From what I was told he was popular, skilled and an interested instructor. He however had been grooming and raping young women at his Tae Kwon Do club over the years. Made me sick to my stomach and I was again afraid that our organization may have been seen in the now dimmed light that King and Mauel had brought to the Martial arts world.

 

                It got me to thinking about the issues we have as martial arts instructors every time one of these idiots do something like this and I was wondering how bad it was…I did a 20 second search on Google and laid out articles for 5 instructors and read the articles to see if there was a common thread in these cases. First I read about a Toronto Karate instructor who was 57 and was charged with sexual assault of a 9 year old girl. He  taught a program with an after school component and even picked up and dropped off the kids. Then Anthoney Gonzales- a Bronx martial arts instructor arrested for sexual assault of 2 kids. The children were in a program that often saw them left at the club to “baby sit” them as parents came to pick them up. Shane Morrow , a Squamish instructor, received 4 years in jail for sexual assault of a girl under 16. The girl was enrolled in a program that often saw her spending more time with Morrow to train for tournaments and this left them alone for greater periods of time than other students had access to Morrow. The common link, the instructors had longer periods of time to influence the students and to see them as pray to the predator. It was ill advised for the students to have that much one on one contact with these predators.

                 Two people I had a great deal of respect for ended up in jail for long swings for misconduct and sexual assault with a minor or in one case with wards of the state. Harry Cook is a name of someone that most of us in Karate know and used to respect a great deal. He trained with both Enoeda and Higoanna in Shotokan and Goju and put out books and videos that people purchased in the millions, he was sought after and did seminars all over the place. HE was even given his 7^th Dan by an interested Shotokan group. But in 2011 he was sentenced to 10 years for sexual assault on students that stretched back to the 80’s.  Then Steve Hyland was convicted of sexual assault and put away for 19 years. Steve had been a regular on one of the chat boards and someone that I used as a foil for my ideas. He had challenge me and was very smart about Karate…then I find out he had been a totally different person in reality. Granted I chalk it up to the fact that you do not know those that you talk with on the net as well as you would if you trained face to face with them.

                However, recently it was brought to my attention that someone I had known for long time in my youth was accused of sexual misconduct with a special needs girl. Granted she is an adult by law, but as she has the mental capacity of a 10 year old she should be treated as such. This instructor is pushing 40 if not their already!  He is married and owns a business. The story goes that he has been plying her with booze, suggesting that the parents get drugs for her and he has been taking her on dates. Now I don’t know if he has been intimate with her (Which sounds way less nasty than I had planned) but the fact that he is doing all this is not okay. The family did the right thing and went to authorities, but it makes me wonder why parents would drop off a kid who has special needs at any place and walk away.

 

                Before we sound the warning bells about martial arts instructors it’s important to note that a 10 second Google search for “Sexual assault coach” brought back nearly 6 million results. It’s an epidemic of sorts really. Coaches and teachers should be held to a higher accountability, much like priests and doctors. They need to live by the oath they repeat and be better people, be someone that represents not just an increase in skills for the athlete/student but someone that they can model themselves after. Some personal issues can be ignored when it comes to instructors. It’s not our business as athletes or even parents to know if the Coach drinks a little, as long as it’s not in front of the children/athletes. It’s not our business who they choose to share a bed or life with and it’s not our business if they choose to do other things that may not be to our liking, as long as they don’t share this and it does not affect those that are in their care. Its their job to care about and care for the students and keep them safe!

 

                I for one would like to start a new movement, one that sees instructors held accountable when they open a club. The organizations that sanction these instructors need to take the students safety to heart and not just look for a source of income. I am aware that we have a black eye due to these horrible human beings, I am also aware that it’s not all of our fault, but we do, as a community need to stand up and say that we are willing to be accountable for the actions of our peers and police them internally somehow. I don’t have all the answers, but I sure know the issues are starting to make us all look pretty bad.  And in the least we need to encourage families to stay with their kids during classes and to not leave them in the care of others, people who don’t even meet the back ground requirements of a home day care!