From John Kerker Seminar in Chicopee 2012

 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6dCz4htME9E

 

在沖与那国青年会Yonaguni Youth Association in Okinawa

 

2011/10/30 Stick dance by Yonaguni Youth Association in Okinawa at Yonaguni Goyukai Large Athletic Meet

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SvqMFVkKjwk

 

Once upon a time I had an idea

 I was living and teaching in New Hampshire.

When I was a yellow belt in Salisbury, Md, I was a member of a yellow belt team that prepared for a local demonstration at the Salisbury Civic Center and we were trained to do a group performance of kata Seiunchin to the music of the song the Hustle.

 

In fact we were so intensely trained by Lewis Sensei that for the rest of my life I always hear the Hustle playing whenever I so the kata.

 

A few years later tournament performances of kata being done to music became another event.  Some were good, some were embarrassing. I never did that but the best I ever saw was Gary Michak doing a personal kata to the music of the opening of Superman. His performance was exquisitely times and executed.

In 1983 Gary performed a  demonstration of his Superman Kata for the kids of my 2^nd youth tournament. You could of heard a pin drop as the kids watched.

When I moved to Derry New Hampshire and began my program again, I slowly started moving my program away from tournaments. The one we mose frequently attended was a local one near us.

 

One year I saw their upcoming notice they were going to have a musical kata division. That set me to thinking, for I always wanted my students to have some fun with their karate.

At that time my adult program and 4 brown belts training with me (Each of whom would later move into Dan training with me for many, many years.)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-sAsNPCro-M

So one Saturday morning after class when all of them were in the locker room, I told them of my idea.

 

I wanted them to enter the upcoming musical forms competition and perform the Hidden Stick form as Teen Age Ninja Mutant Turtles.

My idea was to have them enter the gym floor and one of when  they drew together one of them would say “Ah ha, Fellow Stickers”! Then the music would begin and they would do their form.

 

I thought they could all wear green boxes that had been painted green as well as wearing masks and headbands, and the music would come from the movie.

 

I thought it was a grand idea.

 

Unfortunately none of them was willing to do so, no matter how I entreated them.

Then I countered if they would do so they would receive instant promotions to black belt.

Of course none of them was training just to receive a black belt.  They were instead training to train and see where it would go.

 

So my dream was shattered, for I thought it could be fun.

 

Oh well,

“The best laid schemes o’ mice an’ men.

Gang aft a-gley”.

Robert Burns

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mHk0CNnUNag

 

Karate: Jyoshinmon - Throwing techniques of Hoshu Ikeda

 

Soshihan Hoshu Ikeda was born in China and lived there until he was 12 when his parents returned to their home country, Japan.

 

There, in Kagoshima he began practicing Shorin ryu and was a student of master Isamu Tamotsu (1919-2000), founder of the style Shorinji ryu and president of Renshinkan in Kagoshima.

 

Tamotsu had learned from two disciples of Chotoku Kyan: Zenryo Shimabukuro and Joyen Nagazato.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TvHZSD5GEJc

Considering the ideal karate tournament

 

I just selected this as a place holder for a trophy

Not intending the trophy would be for men alone.

 

The next step when I think about karate tournaments would be to consider what the ultimate tournament for black belts would be.

 

As I think about this it would be for the Senior Black belts, not for kids or new black belts.

 

It would be a black belt only event and only for those that actually know all the empty hand and kobudo kata of the system.

 

There would be no judges, the audience would decide after they watched all the competitors compete.

 

Each competitor when their name was called would advance to a drum, spin same 3 times and then select a ball with a number  on it. The numbers would be the forms of the system.

 

When they select their number they would have to immediately perform their form which they selected.

 

There would only be one chance for their form, Any incomplete performance would be scored as a 0. There would be no second chances.

 

There is only first place.

 

Of course this is very much hardball, they will really have to know their stuff.

 

It is not about being better than someone else.

 

It is all about pushing yourself in public and really knowing your system.

 

I can think of nothing better than such a tournament to push oneself to the maximum.

 

Do you have what it takes!

Reflecting on the Karate Tournament

  

From 1974 to 1984 I participated in many tournaments in the old region 10 (Maryland, Delaware, Pennsylvania as well as tournaments in Virginia and New Jersey, New York and Connecticut). Most were open tournaments, a few were Isshinryu only tournaments.

 

They had many varied divisions at different times those divisions were:

 

          Kata

          Kobudo

          Kumite (Light Sparring, Semi-Contact and Full Contact)

          Self Defense

          Demonstration

          Breaking

          And a few others

 

Not every tournament had every division, the three K’s were the standard.

 

At that time I moved from white belt to 3^rd dan black belt.

 

The competition was some of the best in the country. That included several National Champions. And many of those regional champions could have become National Champions if they had traveled.

 

Note in those days I traveled to compete or judge, and did not travel with a camera. I have but a few photos from those days.

 

Some of those champions (as an example)

 

Among these competitors are Cindy Rothrock, Dale Kirby Sr., Cezar Borkowski, eorge Michak, Dennis Brown. Bill Pickells and Jun Chung along with others. At Victor Moore’s tournament in Northern Carolina.

 

 

At  times when requested I also judged.

 

Those tournaments had a very wide range of styles. They ranged from the sublime to those that were quite different.

 

There were  tournaments run by:

 

Francisco Conde  (who threw 14 tournaments a year, 2 Large ones and 12 local ones.

George Dillman (2 large tournaments a year)

Hidy Ochiai (1 tournament a year)

And many times many single tournaments run by local instructors from many styles. Such as those of George Iberl and Al Smith.

Much of the judging was done by early American regional karate seniors at most of those tournaments. It took time for the most part for them to really see what a new competitor had. They pretty much controlled the tournaments.

 

There were also many other things going on at the tournaments.

 

For one thing the tournament director often and their own rules for the day.  Of course as the tournament went on those rules would flow to what the judge running the ring thought they should be. There was no one constant set of rules.

 

The Senior tournament judge  often favored their students.  Which is why often the high and low score were thrown out and the remaining scores would be totaled to be the score for the participant.

 

That was not always a constant, I remember at least two tournaments for black belt kata and kobudo divisions, That had 25 judges for those divisions and the total of all 25 judges became the score for the participant.

 

I remember one time two senior judges tried to convince a very good kata competitor not to compete in kobudo,  saying as his system did not have weapons, they did not want him to embarrass himself. They did not know what he had, and he then went on to win the kobudo division.

 

Another time those same two judges tried to give him advice how to throw his side kick, having no idea how he was trained, Of course they could not do what he could do. Then he competed with him doing his side kick as his father had trained him.

 

Often there were other things that happened on the tournament floor that others could not see.  Psych War existed trying to weaken another competitor. Such in a kumite division attempting to tell another competitor how dangerous his opponent was to psych him out.  Even senior competitors would try to play head games with their competitors in kata and kobudo divisions.

 

I experienced all of this happening at one time or another.

 

People go to tournaments for themselves, for their schools, some just showed up at the beginning for black belt kata and/or kobudo. Some showed up at the end of the tournament just for black belt kumite. There was no one reason at times all of them occurred.

 

Strictly for myself I was just competing to push myself to become better, I had no instructor coaching me in Isshihnryu during that time. Lewis Sensei was too distant for regular class and Charles had returned to the USAF for his career. Though I trained with many fine people, none of them cared about my art.

 

So I chose competition to force myself to grow.

 

It was not my concern to win, just to keep pushing myself to become more skilled.` And constantly going up against the best around helped me by doing that.

 

I was teaching youth through the Scranton Boys Club for free. I did not take most of my students to tournaments. Just a few of them at nearby tournaments at times.

 

I saw repeatedly that their parents and families took their kids to tournaments and how those young competitors were lost in the crowd of adults towering over them. It came to me that a tournament just for Youth made sense.

 

So I proceeded to throw three of them (1982, 1983 and 1984). They were without charge, the winners would receive small trophies and all would receive a certificate of participation (so everyone had something to go home with signifying they were there -  an idea I borrowed from Hidy Ochiai.

 

They grew year after year. The first two were held at the Boy’s Club gym , the third at the local Armory. No group or system won everything, all the winners came from many different places

 

It felt very good to do something for the kids.

 

And I attended more sad more tournaments to support other schools, often being placed in youth judging. Obtaining a wider picture of what others were doing.

 

The 1983 tournament at the Scranton Boys Club.

 

One of the real lessons I learned was that most tournaments were a money raising mechanism for the host instructor. I speculate for many of them they were a serious revenue for their program.

 

Then time passed, I had to move on to New Hampshire for work.

Karate was still very important to me, but I had less time for tournaments. I slowly began to move my program in a different direction, one away from tournaments.

 

 

Along the way I learned many lessons. One of the instructors I  spent much time training with on many incredible lessons. He was also an extremely skilled competitor in the region.

 

Among the lessons, when he competed in kumite he went through everyone he faced like a buzz saw. But never in class did I once see his students spar. His abilities did not come for him or his students from sparring. Instead it was the accumulation of many different practices that brought those abilities together.

 

Likewise those who observed his Kumite, Kata and Kobudo at tournaments had no idea of what he was actually about. Following that line of logic, what you see at tournaments tells you nothing about how and what individuals really train in.

 

The tournament performance is but a shadow of the actual arts they practice

The Ice Break

   

There is an art to ice breaks. Of course they are not for training but stunts done for public performances.

 

They can take technique and power or they can be faked and you can’t tell from watching. Here is what I learned from a fried who trained with Pai.

When he was a green belt (sash) used to help set up the ice breaks for Daniel Pai when he did them at tournaments or demo’s.

 

The ice break involves a stack of large ice cakes with spacers between each cake of ice. The ‘secret’ is that each of the large cakes of ice must be scored with a nail on the bottom of the cake. That is necessary because the ice to break requires a fracture line to break on. Ice un-scored will not break.

 

Of course this can be faked. If the ice blocks are cut in two and the ends are salted and then placed together to refreeze the ice cakes are then weaker taking less force  to make the break work. And by simply looking you cannot see the difference.

 

In either case (Just as for a stack of boards to break) The first block being broken with enough force, allows the weight of the broken falling first ice cake to add to the force of the blow and the next block and the next block etc. add to the dramatic effect of the break.

 

Daniel Pai gained much notoriety from ice breaks. 

 

 Here is a photos of Daniel Pai breaking ice.

 

The story of Daniel Pai’s last ice break is on this blog post.

I assure you it is an interesting story.

 

https://isshin-concentration.blogspot.com/2015/08/ice-on-not.html

 

Maureen Smith, Wife and Karate-ka

One of the most important people in my Isshinryu life is my wife Maureen.

 

When I began my studies in Salisbury Md, at that time she was playing in a woman’s volleyball league (as a Phys Ed major she played in college),

Then about 6 months later the league play finished, so she decided to join Mr. Lewis’ Isshinryu program.

 

I was a yellow belt at that time when she began. Everyone was quite amazed that she made her own yellow belt in one month. But I was not as she was skilled physically.

 

I paid for my classes by cleaning the dojo on Sundays, and of course was able to train there then. One Sunday she joined me and I attemped to teach her how to spar using a backfist attack. So I showed her what I was doing and asked her to get ready. I did not attack very fast, had fair control of my backfist, but she leaned in as I threw it and received a black eye.

 

A few classes later she had the chance to spar with the greenbelts (all of whom were superior fighters) and I could hear them saying we have to take it easy on Victor’s wift.  Then kumite began and they were on the receiving end of Maureen’s quick viscous attacks.

(Women’s volleyball is not for the faint of heart, taking repeated dives too the floor for the ball). They did not expect her ferocity sd she tore into them. Mr. Lewis’ eyes lit up at her attack.

 

(Just to be fair Maureen had two older brothers, and never was one to hold anything back.)

 

As time went on and training continued, she would travel with me to train at many other Eastern Shore dojo to get more training time.

 

One weekend there was to be a George Iberl tournament in York Pa.,quite close to my families home. We went up to the tournament and competed there. Maureen won a 3^rd place in White Belt sparring, receiving a trophy long before I won one much later.

 We stayed over for the next day because there was a clinic with Bill Wallace. That too was a special day.

She trained until I had to leave Salisbury for work. At that time she was a blue belt. Moving to Scranton I worked at a Bank, and she was employed by the YMCA as a swimming coact and to help with the gymnastics team.

She had team practice at 5am in the mornings and team practices in the evenings working there until close.  We did not see each other a great deal. I joined a Tang Soo Do program that trained evenings. And would travel to the YMCA to work out more after class. Then Saturdays I would go to tournaments or to train with other instructors and she would take the team to swim meets many places.

 

When in 1989 I began my Isshinryu program at the Scranton Boys Club, too soon I discovered I did not know how to teach youth.  I had just made black belt and while I knew my Isshinryu, I was teaching at the pace I was prepared at brown belt when in preparation for my own Isshinryu black belt examination.

 

It was Maureen who patiently explained how I needed to understand what the kids were showing me and how to gear their insturction to what they needed. She also shared her college texts on teaching swimming, anatomy and physiology and so much more.

 

Her patient instruction made all the difference. Teaching me there was so much more to learn and use.

 

That continued to be our path for the next severak years, I used the time I had to train so many places and attend so many tournaments.

 

Then Maureen wanted to spend more time with me, so she left her job at the YMCA for a new position that left her evenings and weekends free. That  was when she joined my program at the Boys Club. She was a blue belt then.

 

Personal aside. While I was teaching at the Boys Club the kids all really liked me. Many times single mothers would try and invite me for dinner. I always turned such invitations down.  But when they saw my wife in the program, especially as a blut belt, that was the end of those invitations. Go figure.

 

Maureen was a big help with the classes.  Then two times she and I sparred after class.

 

The first time Maureen struck me with her reverse punch while sparring. She sprained he wrist, necessitating a trip to Emergency at the hospital. 

The 2^nd time she nailed me with a front kick and that twisted her ankle. Another trip to emergency, etc. 

All her friends thought I was beating her up. I never laid a glove on her. We learned from those occurrances and neve sparred again.

 

Then there was the time she joined me on one of my frequent training trips to a friends dojo. The guy (black belts all) were preparing to spar and Maureen wanted to join in. I could see them telling themselves we have to take it easy on her because she is Victor's wife. When Hajime was called for her fight they never had a chance as she tore into her opponent with a backfist and went on from there.

Maureen had progressed to green belt.

 

Then in time we had to move again, December 1984, relocating to Derry New Hampshire. As soon as our move was completed I approached the Derry Boys and Girls Club and offered my services to teach a free program. They accepted and Maureen was a big help for me with the program.

 

Roy Blackwell, my first black belt, moved up with us for advanced training for about a year. He also assisted with the program. One result I had been thinking about the lack of karate material available compared to the texts Maureen had studied in college about coaching  junior high swim teems.

 

The more I thought about I realized I wanted to prepare something for Roy to have and use if he needed it after he would leave.

 

Maureen worked on it with me, actually preparing two manuals, me one on advanced Isshinryu by me, and one on anatomy and physiology by Maureen. Then one of the parents had it typed for us then putting it together. To the best of my knowledge what we had produced was something new. Roy got a copy and copies were sent to my instructors. I still have my own somewhere.

 

As the years progressed Maureen advanced and eventually made black belt, always helping me teach.

 

When we had children even as infants they came to the dojo as we taught. Of course they eventually participated in many other activities, dance, gymnastics, little league, soccer along with karate studies and school.

 

As they both participated in the local soccer program Maureen got more and more involved with it. As my son grew into little league I attended every practice, my reason I knew what reputation little league had to draw out passions. I do not recall any other parent which attended all of the practices. I was not a baseball person just wanted to keep an eye on things.

 

My daughter because of an injury from gymnastic training eventually discontinued karate, but my son kept plugging away at all of his activities.

 

Then Maureen stepped up and began to coach soccer for the kids team, eventually finding it fit her interests going back to her earlier  training. As that occurred the gradually moved away from karate.

(aside) she eventually became the NH state secretary for the NH State Soccer League).

 

At that time she was a 3^rd dan in Isshinryu. This covered the time from 1975 through 1999 or so.

 

However she always supported what I was doing in Isshinryu.

 

 

Yonamine Chiru, an Okinawan martial artist and wife of the legendary Matsumura Sōkon.

 

Today on International Women's Day, we look back on Yonamine Chiru, an Okinawan martial artist and wife of the legendary Matsumura Sōkon.

Nicknamed Tsuru-San (“crane”) or Yonamine no Bushi Tsuru (“Yonamine the crane warrior”), she was well-regraded as an Okinawan sumo wrestler and considered a “tomboy” for her love of fighting. In addition to her studies of sumo wrestling and tegumi, she was known for her skills with weightlifting.

She was the daughter of a wealthy business owner and she came from a prominent martial arts family, but she could not find a spouse because of her love of fighting. Her parents increasingly raised the dowry to marry her, but found few takers until Matsumura learned about her. He was greatly impressed by her skills and their common interest in martial arts.

While some legends describe a wrestling match between the two, Shōshin Nagamine writes that Matsumura took the more traditional route of asking her parents’ permission. They may have been married in 1818.

Another story goes like this; After their marriage, Matsumura was worried about her habit of walking home alone at night, so he pretended to be a thief to scare her; however, she managed to best him in combat and tie him to a tree before realizing it was her husband!

In the photos: Traditional clothes of the Ryukyu Kingdom