How It Is - Before Karate

 Shamelessly to borrow from Samuel Beckett's "How It Is", I begin.

 "I quote before Karate, with Karate, after Karate.
   How it is three parts
   I say it as I hear it."
 

I was unaware of the existence of karate in the 1950's when I was a boy.
 

Then the 1960's began and everything changed.

Karate was featured on an episode of the 'Untouchables',Come and Kill Me.  As I recall it was part of the show 'I Spy' then 'The Man From UNCLE". It was even shown on an episode of 'I Love Lucy'

Even increasing exposure occurred. Robin on "Batman" used it. Next Bruce Lee played Kato on the 'Green Hornet"

 

My father gave be a Bruce Tegner book the summer before I went to college. I used to get issues of Black Belt magazing so my awareness of karate grew.

Then there were more tv shows featuring Bruce Lee, eventually even American movies where he was featured. I met a graduate student in the Speech Department who trained with him at the University of Seattle. He even demonstrated a bit of his training.
 

My roommate Richard Durich became of student of Okazaki at the Temple University Shotokan program, He taught me how to punch and block to be able to practice his technique a bith with me.

I undertook an independent study of Taoism and learned a bit about T'ai Chi Chaun.

In sum by the time I left Temple University I really knew nothing. One example was it was almost another 10 years before I realized Okinawan karate and Japanese karate were not the same thing. When I studied Isshinryu it was never discussed. There were always more important things to work on.

 

Then Kung fu movies exploded. First 'The Five Finger's of Death. to be followed by so many bad kung fu movies as in an explosion of them. I was interested and watched so many kung fu movies then.

The Chinese Bruce Lee movies arrived, each better than the last.
By that time all my brothers and sister were doing their own martial training.

One brother trained under SL Martin and his Green Dragon School.
Another brother trained in TSD in the Jhoon Ree system.
Then my remaining sister and brother were training in Shotokan in York Pa.

I was working in Construction and heard about a karate barn outside of Salisbury, Md. I went to watch a class. The next night I went and met the instructor and he gave me permission to join.

 

Thus I became a white belt in Isshinryu. Nothing I had experienced me for that training. My best weapon was that I freely sweated during my training. Meaning when one kicked me they often slipped when they put their foot down.   That summed up the skill level which I began with.