Those Old Tattered Patches

 

My seniors wearing the same patches.

Sitting here in Buckeye just going through some of the memorabilia I saved during the move. I just found some old patches.

 

When I was a brown belt, I bought a black gi at the old Asian World location on N. Broad St. in Phila. Knowing if I made black belt I no longer had to wear a white gi. So of course it was black.

 

That gi no longer exists, but I have two patches I saved from it. At that time the main patch was called the Mizugami, and it still is sewn on the black cloth of the gi.  At that day there was no internet, on any discussion there might be another name for the patch, It was what it was. The other patch from my uniform sleeve was my Tom Lewis Isshinryu Karate Club school patch.

 

I wore that uniform when I established my progam for kids at the Scranton Boys Club. At many tournaments competing against Cindy Rothrock, Gary and George Michak, Tristan Sutrisno, Ersest Rothrock’s students, Ron Martin’s students, Vince Wards students, Pat Burns students, Carl Long, students of many others. So many exceptional kata and kobudo competitors in those days. I cannot name them all, but many National Champions between them.

 

All of them made me work harder and harder.

 

Just a hunk of cloth in the end, patches of an earlier time.

Lewis Sensei in his office in Salisbury