Instructor III

It was in 1985 I started thinking seriously about what it should take to develop an instructor.

I was about 10 years into my own study and had to move from Scranton, Pa. to Derry, NH for work. The prior 6 years I had continued my own training, developed a program at the Scranton Boys Club and brought students to Sho-dan in my program. I had both competed and in turn ran a number of successful youth karate tournaments. I also trained as hard as I could with different friends in many arts.

Almost immediately moving to Derry, I restarted my program at the Derry Boys and Girls Club. Beginning anew I made some structural program changes to the program, using some of the additional experiences I had acquired from my friends, not to create a new system, but a new way to approach developing Isshinryu karate-ka.

It was at that time I started thinking about what should be required in developing an instructor. I had read of the JKA’s International Instructor school training, but there were no details and I’m sure I had a very idealized version in my head. I understood it involved more than just the study of karate and came to think of it as subsidiary training and knowledge to scope the development of karate training.

One does not sit down and develop an instructor training program, such a program should obviously be the product of many instructors and disciplines, as well as many decades of study. What I did though, was look at the library I had begun to acquire and wonder what would make sense to pull together to provide as study and work material for an instructor trainee.

My wife, Maureen, assisted and together we pulled together a wide range of material, including anatomy, physiology, history, etc. The end result was a very thick volume and with the assistance of a friend was reproduced and bound, and shared with my friends.

Everyone agreed it was a valuable effort of material useful in instructor development.

Today I cannot find my copy, I know I have one somewhere, but I have accumulated too much and no idea where it may be. I’ve contacted several of those I gave copies too, but alas, they likewise no longer posses it, or can find it.

There are important lessons there. Books alone do not make an instructor. I had no need of my copy because I had all of the source material at hand, to use when I need it.

If a training program had been developed with the book then it may have retained a purpose. But that wasn’t my intent at that time.

Of course this was before I knew of the historical antecedent of the karate instructor’s manual, the Bubishi, which is a text on medical matters, anatomy, strategy, technique, etc.

A valiant effort for 10 years training, but there were many lessons to come.

Technical note: This was written listening to the Velvet Undgerground ‘Heroin’.


I later did locate those instructor manuals I created. You can find more information here:
https://isshin-concentration.blogspot.com/2011/05/best-karate-manuals-you-cant-read.html

And a friend did put a book about karate together for me from my writing.
http://isshin-concentration.blogspot.com/2020/02/isshin-writings-on-martial-arts-and.html