Standing in the Rain learning Bo

I realize each us have different stories how we learnt everything.

 

But I believe I have one that can top anyone you can have.

 

My time studying and training with Charles Murray was far too short, back in the later 1970’s. I was living in Scranton and studying the only art available to me, Tang Soo Do Moo Duk Kwan. While doing that I stayed atop all the Isshinryu I had  learned in Salisbury. 

Then on Labor Day weekend, in 1977, I received a phone call, Charles Murray called me telling me he had just moved into the area to take over a church in Providence outside of Scranton. That was but a stone’s throw from where I was living and as soon as our conversation ended, I was driving over to see him.

 

He was not there to teach karate, but I wheedled my way to convincing him to instruct me in Isshinryu. And train me he did.

It was constant kata and kumite that we worked together. He taught me kata at a furious pace, Kusanku,  Chantan Yara No Sai, Tokumine no Kon, Sunsu, Sanchin and Urashie no Bo. He even borrowed the 1966 film from Sensei and told me to learn the Tonfa form on the film then he had me teach it to him. Before I knew it I was a Shodan in Tom Lewis’s IKC.

 

After that the furious training pace continued, and a few month later he began showing me the beginning to Bo Shi Shi No Kon No Dai. I was going flat out. 

Then unexpectedly he informed me he was returning to become an Officer in the USAF. That meant in a few weeks he would be gone. Shocked it was also a reality as he began packing he had far less time to do karate with me.

 

As happy as I was that he knew what he wanted to do, I was sad our time together was ending. In those weeks he showed me a bit more of Shi Shi. Our last day together he was finishing his packing for the trip he would take,

 

I took off from work to be able to spend whatever time he could share with me. When I got to his house we went out back on the yard, rows of dark clouds were rolling across the sky.

He asked me what I wanted to do, of course I only had one thing on my mind. I told him I would like to try and get the rest of Bo Shi  Shi No Kon No Dai.

 

He said something like that is a tall order, but ok, we could try.

 

Then he reviewed what I had been shown and started teaching me the next piece of the form. We worked and worked. It was a hot sticky day while those clouds rolled overhead in lines in the sky.

 

Then disaster, it began raining.

 

Charles being intelligent went inside the house to resume packing.

 

I, on the other hand, being one of the possessed, remained outside in thunderstorm. Which consisted of rain with accompanying lightning and thunder. I just kept practicing attempting to remember what I had been shown.

 

About a ½ hour later the storm stopped, I kept practicing and Charles finally noticed I was still out there. So he came back out, telling me I was crazy to work bo in the rain, lightening and thunder, but agreeing to teach me some more.

 

Then once again another dark line of clouds passed overhead and a new thunderstorm began. Charles went back inside to resume packing. I stayed out in the rain practicing.

 

Repeat that 3 times. I was possessed because I was holding a wooden pole outside in a thunderstorm again and again.

 

But I finally got it. Charles finished the instruction. I finished practicing believing I had it.

 

Charles and I said our goodbye’s, filled with regret. I then left and of course he returned packing.

 

When I got home for the rest of the night and for days thereafter I kept reviewing the form.

 

In those days there were no books with the form. I had no movies. That was before video players, before the internet, before YouTube.

That for and all the rest of my studies were totally on my shoulders.

 

From that day on we would be lucky to see each other once a year, when he returned home to visit his wife’s family. Never again would he instruct me in Isshinryu.

 

And when I visited Sensei Lewis, we worked on many things, but he never had occasion to teach me either.

 

I was all on my shoulders, one’s that didn’t let water, rain, lightening or thunder deter me.

 

Then for the nect 5 years I made Shi Shi my main Kobudo completion kata. Just to keep me practicing so as not to forget the form.

 

I never was filmed competing with the form, for the most part I went to tournaments alone Then the way I structured my students studies, it was placed at a more mature level of dan training. I did teach the form to my senior students, but never filmed it. Later Charles came to train and I did film him doing the form for their resource.

 

This is Charles competing with Bo Shi Shi No Kon No Dai.

 

 

*  * And of course the story never ends there.  An effect of learning my instructor(s) Isshinryu system, and having spent two years in Tang Soo Do learning many of their forms, I found out that I had learnt how to learn forms (including regular practice of what I had learne). As the years progressed and I was able to study with many people from other systems, I discovered that I had also learned how to learn forms almost from one viewing/instruction. As the years passed I acquired some knowledge of over 150 different kata/kuen/forms/etc. I also had learned how to effectively stay on top of them in my practice, That allowed me time, years, to gain knowledge about them, Some of them were easier, for example 5  or 6 variations of a form such as Seisan, and other base kata types, made that easier. Then in time I was able to set many of those studies aside from regular practice. Having enough knowledge of what some others did, I retained enough not to continue the practice of those studies. My core always remained Isshinryu, and a bit more.