Latest blog post is up at new site

My latest post is up - "This is my Rifle and these are my Guns" - on the new blog location. Here's the link: http://jimmatherskaratelife.blogspot.com/

Change in Blog Name and Address

Due to ongoing technical problems, I've started another blog under almost the same name and transferred my posts to it. (I've merged some of the posts.) I haven't been able to transfer the comments. But they will remain on this blog. I'm not closing it. All of my future posts will be uploaded to the new location. It's name is Jim Mather's Karate Live. Here is the link: http://jimmatherskaratelife.blogspot.com/

Thanks for your patience and continued support, Jim

Books from two of our blog supporters

Two senior martial artists, readers of this blog and Facebook friends, Paris David Blumenthal and Hoosain Narker, have books out. Both are available from both the authors themselves and from Amazon – perhaps other booksellers as well. And both have received Amazon 5-Star reviews.

I haven’t yet read Sensei Blumenthal’s book, All American Karate Champ, but it has received great reviews. The following is one from Amazon:

“All-American Karate Champ is an autobiography of Paris David Blumenthal’s odyssey of life. The title may leave many to believe it is just another sports Karate book, however it is not. This book belongs on the shelf next to books like the, “Warrior Athlete: Body, Mind & Spirit “by Dan Millman , “The Book of the Five Rings,” by Miyamoto Musashi. A scrawny little kid, oldest of four with three younger sisters, that grew up on the mean streets of New York to the ganglands of California. Mr. Blumenthal is more than a two-time National USA Karate Champion and AAU/USA All-American. His Karate sport and business ventures have taken him all over the world. He is one of the few Americans who actually was able to train with Karate Masters in Okinawa, as so his martial arts teacher was from there -- Stephen E. Hughes”

I have read Sensei Narker’s book, My Karate Odyssey. A few years ago, South African Sensei Narker literally crisscrossed the breadth and depth of North and Central America, visiting dojos, training under many instructors, passing on his Ashihara style to others, getting lost, finding wonderful people, and competing in a couple of tournaments. His book is a recounting of his travels. It also contains a very interesting chapter on the origin and meaning of “OUS” (OSS/OOS) and another on what it was like to live and train as a martial artist under Apartheid. It was a fun and informative read.

I’ve linked their titles to Amazon but the following are their personal links so you can contact them or order directly from them:

Here is Sensei Narker’s website address: http://www.karateodyssey.com/

This is Sensei Blumenthal’s: http://karatechamptv.com/index.asp

Another recommended book

Sensei Longfellow suggested another book I read and reread many years ago. It's a martial arts classic. "Zen and the art of Archery" by Eugen Herrigel. He and I both recommend it. I've supplied a link. (Plus, I'm trying to figure out how all these additional features work. It's all so fascinating for a guy who saw the first TV, cell phones, computers, etc.)

Great books

Throughout my martial arts career, I read literally every book I could find on the martial arts - many several times. Whenever I traveled, one of the first things I’d do was track down every bookstore in town and check out their martial arts sections. My constant reading helped me accrue a huge amount of information over the years, much useful, some not.

I will try from time to time to recommend books I've especially enjoyed or found especially informative. One of my all time favorites was a book I first read in the 70s, C.W. Nicol's Moving Zen. It gave me great insights into what it was like to train in the early 60s at JKA headquarters in Tokyo and taught me a lot about proper dojo etiquette. I also picked up some technical advice from it that proved very valuable when I became one of the national coaches.

I have linked the book title to the Amazon website. If you’re interested in reading Moving Zen, click on the title and it will take you to Amazon, where you can check out availability and pricing and, if you like, order a copy. I buy most of my books through Amazon. They don’t always have the cheapest prices but they have an extensive selection (including many I couldn’t find anywhere else), are easy to do business with, have quick delivery, and always make a purchase right.

You Hold the Power to Save Lives

I’m deviating away from my recollections of my early days in karate to discuss a question raised by a serious young instructor who asked how I decide who to select for membership in my dojo.

Imagine you were a doctor and traveled to a primitive land, where you discovered that thousands of children were dying daily from a deadly disease which you could cure with a shot of the antibiotics you carried in your medical bag. But most of those who had the disease didn’t realize they were sick – although you could read the subtle early symptoms clearly. And those who knew they were sick didn’t trust Western medicine, thinking only a witch doctor, herbal medicines, or blood offering to a deity could cure them.

If you knew thousands and thousands of children would surely die early deaths unless you could find a way to get them to agree to the shot, would you have a duty to find a way to get them to take it? Or would it be enough to simply tell yourself they didn’t want it so what more could you do? (Or, worse yet, feel that since they were so ignorant, they deserved what they got.)

I believe we’re in a very similar land. Tens of thousands, perhaps hundreds of thousands, die each year from illnesses that could be cured with something you alone within your local community have the ability to give them.

How many do you imagine die each year from heart disease, lung and colon cancer, cirrhosis of the liver, high blood pressure, obesity, high cholesterol, stroke, diabetes, and other diseases? The last statistics show that almost 2.5 million die each year. And a significant percentage of them die from preventable causes.

These latter die from illnesses that arise due to a lack of the self discipline and self control necessary to make the right choices in life.

People who fail to follow healthy lifestyles don’t do so because they don’t know what’s best for them. How many today don’t know that smoking is unhealthy… yet continue to smoke? How many today aren’t aware that they need to regulate the quantity and types of food they eat… yet continue to eat in an unhealthy manner? How many today don’t know they should get regular exercise… yet don’t get off their couches? How many today don’t know drugs or excess alcohol consumption will surely lead to early deaths… yet never slow down?

Everyone knows all of this, yet do it anyway.

People don’t fail to make healthy choices in their lives because they’re stupid. They merely lack the self discipline and self control necessary to make the right choices in life.

In the old days, most children gained self discipline and self control in three places - home, school, and church. But no more. In fact, laws have been enacted in this country to prevent parents from disciplining their children as they think most effective and schools from disciplining children or even teaching moral or ethical values. And church attendance in many parts of this country has unfortunately dropped significantly over the last 50 years.

The only places remaining within most American communities today are us.

As such, I believe we have a duty to reach out to as many people as possible within our local communities, a crusade of sorts, and do whatever is necessary to get them to “take the shot”, to get involved in your school. Then, you must work equally hard to keep them there long enough to instill in them critically needed self discipline and self control.

This is not in any way to downplay the value of instruction in self defense skills. In fact, we must make our young students proficient in defending themselves. Without that ability, they are still vulnerable to potentially destructive peer pressure. But when a teenager is able to defend him or herself, they don’t need the security of the group. They possess the self confidence necessary to not only achieve greatness in many areas of life but to also say and live “NO”.

Realistically self confident kids (those with real skill) don’t need to pacify their peers, to do what their peers want them to do in order to fit in or gain the approval or security of the group, who may lead them to drink, smoke, use drugs, join gangs, etc. Their peer group should need to gain their approval, not vice versa. My teenage students have become the leaders within their peer groups, not one of the compliant followers. And, since they possess the inner strength (from their self defense skill and their self discipline and self control) to make the right choices in life, they become positive role models for their peers to follow.

What would your local community look like, how would it change for the better, if a large percentage of your local residents were involved in your school? What would happen to teen drug and alcohol problems? Gangs? Childhood obesity? And so on?

It would change significantly for the better!

They’d run the drug dealers and gangs out of town.

You have within your hands a life-saving gift. Do you keep it to yourself and only share it with a handful? Or do you seek out and share it with everyone within your community who could use it?

I think you should do the latter.

Thanks for reading the ramblings of an old karateka.

Kick someone or no promotion

This will be the last installment of my remembrances of my time in the late 50s, early 60s with Sensei (now Sijo) Sam Brown.

At one point in my early days with him, I was passed over for promotion and had no idea why. As he’d become angry if anyone asked about belts or promotions (training was for the sole acquisition of knowledge, not belts), the results from a test were expected to speak for themselves.

A new student once made the mistake of asking how long it would take to earn a black belt. Sensei Brown jerked off his black belt, threw it in the guy’s face, and told him, “There’s a black belt. Take it and get out!” The guy left, without a black belt - earned or otherwise.

Sensei Brown eventually told me the reason for being passed over. He thought I was “too nice a guy”, going too easy with my partners. “If you don’t start kicking people, you’ll never be promoted,” he told me.

Hitting people had been a problem for me. I had an older brother and knew too well what that felt like be on the receiving end and got no pleasure out of making others feel as I had.

My view too was that hitting was easy. I wanted to hold myself up to what I felt was a higher standard.

One of the questions I’ve gotten over the years is “What’s the difference between a martial artist and a fighter?” To me, one difference was the level of control each possessed over their techniques.

A martial artist differed in that he possessed the ability to always control his techniques to a very fine degree, even when both he and his opponent are moving at full speed. A boxer, for example, is trained to always make contact. There is no reason for him to learn anything but how to hit someone as hard as he possibly can. But for a martial artist, there are occasions when control is the appropriate (and legally best) course of action. At times, we want to stop our punches or kicks just short of contact as a warning. At others, a quick jab to the nose is enough to change an attacker’s mind about the probable outcome of fighting you. At the other end of the scale, however, are those situations in which we must be capable of delivering deadly, board breaking, brick crushing, perhaps life-taking force.

As I said, hitting is easy. Having the skill to always determine the amount of damage you do, from none to terminal force, takes mastery. And that was my goal.

I later learned an old saying, “Karate is where you go to learn how to say ous.” For those not familiar with the word, ous (also spelled oos and oss) is an acknowledgement by a student or person of lower rank or position to do what is asked of them and do it to the best of their ability. (I won’t get into the disagreement relative to the use, origin, and/or meaning of the term here.) I always had an Ous Mentality, even before I had ever heard the word.

Although I didn’t want to hurt anyone, I always did as asked by my instructors. (And none ever asked me to do anything that was immoral or unethical. I would have left them had any ever asked something inappropriate of me.)

So I began targeting my techniques for light contact.

I’m not sure of Sensei Brown’s reasons, whether to make me tougher or to help me discover the following, but things changed after I started targeting my techniques differently – besides getting promoted. I found that when a sparring partner knew I would never make contact, he was free to completely ignore my techniques and hit (literally) me at will. It also allowed them to stay closer, meaning their attacks and counterattacks had less distance to travel, meaning they landed much quicker. That changed as soon as I started making contact.

And throughout the remainder of my karate life, I always used (and taught) what Sensei Brown had helped me learn.

When I began competing, I always tried to leave a great deal of doubt in my opponents’ minds about whether or not I’d control my techniques. I only actually hit an opponent and was penalized for it one time, at Professor Ralph Castro’s California Karate Championships in San Francisco, but they didn’t know that.

This approach became even more important when I became a national coach (under the United States Olympic Committee). I told my athletes the same thing – make your opponents think you’re not just going to hit them but hit them hard. This forced their opponents to respect their techniques, yielding more ground to make sure they were out of range, and making them counter in a more careful manner, slowing down their attacks or counterattacks. With greater contact generally allowed at the time, if our national athletes didn’t make their opponents fear their techniques, they’d be hit extremely hard, often with no penalty to the hitter. (I saw a foreign competitor get hit so hard in an international match, it took four surgeries to repair his face.)

I trained with Sensei Brown until I went into the army in 1962.

While in the military, I studied with several other people, all in different styles. (I’ll relay some of it later.) I came back with a black belt and opened a dojo on the opposite side of town, where I lived.

I don't even remember being aware Sensei Brown was still teaching. Someone had told me he had gone back to Hawaii. But he hadn’t.

He showed up at my dojo one day with some of his students. I wasn't there but Bob, my older brother was. Sensei Brown asked him what I would do if someone tried to bomb my dojo. I don’t remember what Bob told him, but he wasn’t one to be intimidated by anyone. (He took after my father’s side of the family, who were very large Scottish men. Bob later moved to Alaska so he could hunt grizzly bears.)

Sensei Brown also told my brother that he had instructed his students to be prepared for me seeking retribution. I didn't take the bomb comment too seriously, knowing his nature and the tough conditions under which he had been raised. But I was careful for a while just the same, as he and the military had taught me to be. But I didn't expect any explosions. I also didn't understand why he thought I'd try to seek retribution or what I could possibly have to seek retribution for. I still had a great deal of respect for him, as I do to this day. But my rank was in a different style and my last instructor had asked me to open a dojo, which I did.

We operated in the same town for many years and never had another meeting or incident. And I’m glad we didn’t because I learned a lot from him.

He taught me many things, both directly and indirectly, in addition to the technical things we’ve discussed.

Some (or maybe a lot) of Sensei Brown’s perpetual defensive awareness rubbed off on me. Never let anyone know when you’re ill or injured. Check out anyone who enters your dojo. And training while injured or not feeling your best toughens you for having to continue fighting after being injured in a real fight, as is inevitable.

I leave him… and you for reading my ramblings… with my deepest thanks.