Monday, April 17, 2023

On Okinawa there are Typhoons then there are Typhoons

 


 

Watching the news this morning and hurricane Matthew is starting to slam Florida. I don’t wish to be insensitive, but note everything today becomes a media event for coverage. While appropriate for the affected areas, is it really as an event for the rest of us.


Perhaps some gentle humor would be appropriate.


Think when we tell the youngsters how we had to walk through blizzards and miles of snow when we went to school.


Was the Okinawan equivalent, “Why when I was young we would stand on the rooftops during Typhoons and perform Seiunchin kata, in the wind and the rain.”


One has to wonder.



 Andy Sloane Before I left Okinawa towards the end of my first tour, I trained at Uechi Sensei's dojo in a typhoon!



 

Victor Donald Smith I have lost count of the times I showed up for class in hurricanes, blizzards and storms just in case anyone showed up for class, They never did because they were too smart to do that! One night at midnight Charles called me over to his Church to train. So I went. Afterwards when I went out, there was 3foot of snow on my car. I did travel through ice storms in the Poconos to go to training, I guess we were karate-ka in those days, or just crazy.

Been a while since I have talked about this but it is worth doing.


 

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