Life Lessons from John Dinger's Passing

We grow old,

Shall we wear the bottoms of our trousers rolled?

Excepted from TS Eliott’s ‘The Love Song of J.Alfred Prufrock’.

This is going to be a bit long and involved, but when all of it is said I will make sense.

To begin I am an Isshinryu instructor who has worked at my art since 1974. I have trained a bit with many people in many systems from that time on. I began teaching in 1979 and continued to do so until 2016. I still practice but various disabilities required me to make many changes to my studies

Another path was I began to study Yang T’ai Chi Chaun back in 1979, and that continues to this day. All I wanted to do was study t’ai chi chaun, I was not interested in the martial potential of t’ai chi.

For the first 5 years I was only teaching youth through the Scranton Boys Club, later after moving for work in addition to the youth Isshinryu program at the Derry NH Boys and Girls club, I also began an adult Isshinryu program.

Along with many other studies, I practiced my t’ai chi on the side by myself.

A few years after I was teaching in Derry, several of my adult students and asked me to teach them t’ai chi, and began my adult t’ai chi program.

In addition to my teaching I did a lot of practicing of everything I had studies.

But never really mixed my Isshinryu classes with my t’ai chi class.

I remember jokingly remarking that my tai chi was for when I got too old for karate, of course then to young in the art to realize how complex tai chi was, or karate for that matter.

Over a long time I began to realize for me that I was finding a personal commonality between my tai chi study and my karate. I never cross taught the art in my karate program, nor including karate in my tai chi program

Sometime after I began my private instruction of tai chi to several of my students on my driveway Sunday mornings, John Dinger approached me about joining my Isshinryu program. He had just moved into the area from NJ and had been training in Isshinryu there and he was a Shodan.

To make a long story short he joined my Isshinryu program and then my t’ai chi program too. He was then training with me 3 days a week, John was a very dedicated student. He also chose to join my t’ai chi program. He attended all the clinics we hosted with Sherman Harrill and at those clinics john became the favorite uke for Sherman to demonstrate many applications against.

Then about a decade after he began training with us John stopped attending class.

I never received an explanation, just noticed he was no longer there. I respect everyone who trains with me, even more so the dan students. I understand that it often becomes necessary to make life decisions for many reasons, and they have to move a different way with their lives, and of course their doing so is right for them. As the same time it was extremely rare to have anyone explain why they chose to stop, perhaps they found it embarrassing to explain it to me.

A number of months later Dr. Harper came to class and gathered us together explaining John approached him and asked him to explain to us what was happening. Doc was not his doctor, but a friend from class and John knew he would understand what was happening.

What John told him was he had been experiencing less control over himself for quire some time/ And his own doctor after tests were run got together with a team of doctors form Boston and from the Mayo clinic who would follow John’s case. Basically they could not explain what was happening, so more tests, etc.

Essentially John could no longer do karate of tai chi with me.

I realized that for some time I saw John making mistakes but assumed it was a part of his personal aging. More proof of what Doc always told me only a fool would approach me for medical advice. Of course those were minor occurrences and not constant.

So that Sunday after tai chi class, Dennis Decker and I went over to Londonderry to see John to extend our best wishes.

When we arrived and saw John he then explained some of what he was facing. How at times when he was just standing he would fall flat on his face. Along with other new challenges he was facing.

I simply explained to John that did not mean he could not train, just that we had to work out how that training could continue.

I started by working out that he did not have to leave his tai chi practice behind, we just needed a new way for him to practice. (John really enjoyed his tai chi.)

Together we sat with him and worked out a way to perform the first 1/6 of the Yang form while seated, then we did it with him. I also showed him that he could continue with his karate, we then worked out how to do Sanchin seated.

I explained to him, that tai chi was not just the form to me, Ever a small section of tai chi practice meant you had to enter the tai chi flow to continue until you left the flow. It did not matter how much you did, just that you did it to your best, IMO. I felt the same way about Isshinryu, even one kata or a part of a kata was still doing Isshinryu.

What was important that you worked on the possible. The rest you could work on in your mind, That way you were leaving nothing behind.

After that Sunday, I made regular visits to John to assist him train.

But over time he evidenced less and less control over his body.

That team of medical specialists could not determine what John had, just explaining it appeared to be of rage genetic origin.

The time came when John entered a nursing home, for his care needs were more than his wife could provide. Then I drove each Sunday to that facility to continue to train with John. I am sure we were an unusual site doing our training in the common room.

John’s spirit never wavered.

Then when John was to me moved to a different nursing home closet to his wife, I went up to him and moved him in my car to that new facility.

Then our training continued there.

But as time continued John’s doctors determined which rare condition he was suffering from. They also told him there was no cure.

John met with is lawyer and his wife, choosing to not continue to decline in a nursing home where even if he died, they would likely keep his body breathing to continue to receive their fees… for a very long time.

John and his wife decided to continue his treatment in his own home. And with his lawyers assistance, after some home renovations were done, went back to his own home, choosing to meet his own future there.

Our training continued. I showed John even if he could not control his arms, he could still train in t'ai chi and Isshinryu. For he could do the tai chi breathing pattern and the sanchin breathing pattern. That was enough to enable one to continue the training.

A bit later he demonstrated how his current problems had become. Attempting to pick up a glass of water to take a drink, knowing every time he would spill it.

I thought about that a minute and found a solution.

I instructed John to move his arm as it was extending it with tai chi flow, past the glass. The let the arm gently flow back allowing his fingers to brush against the glass. Then slowly close those finger to grasp the glass. And still continue to flow the arm back till he could take a drink from that glass.

John did so and was able to take a drink without spillage.

That is what John continued to do.

Shortly thereafter he was again in Boston before those doctors,

He demonstrated he could not get a drink on his own. That team of doctors was astonished, not believing he could demonstrate such control. But John demonstrated that was not the case.

Over time I believe I may have hit on an answer as to what happened. I suspect the condition John was evidencing was attacking the earliest parts of the nervous control learn while very young. In fact so early learned one forgets that you had to learn it. Standing, sitting, etc. those early lessons were going from him.

However his karate and t’ai chi, learned much later in life, while many were using those early lesson, also were developed in different neural path ways, that were not yet affected. I possible explanation as to how it occurred.

Toward John’s end our practices became working on the breathing patterns. Yet again our martial studies provided more for us to do.

But time showed that the end would happen. Trough everything John faced he was still training up to his end.

John lived the life martial, we worked together to find a way to make that possible. I learned so many lessons sharing those days with John.

However the most important lesson is that martial studies mean ever so much more that self defense or sport. They add to the texture of our lives in so many ways.

In so many ways I would find value in this experience I shared with John.

Do not go into the infinite by stopping our practices.