First Step in a Long Road

When I first walked into the Shoreikan Dojo in San Juan I was in my 20's and I had vague idea of what karate was, mostly media fed images and also the scare stories from a the few practitioners I knew. It was, after all, 1973. We formed a group and went together, my then wife, my sister, and a friend (bravery in numbers). It was what I learned later to be a classic Okinawan training session. It was brutal. I only remember, dazed as I was, the sheer, relentless exhaustion of the exercise routines, passing out into a pool of sweat around my head after a series of 10-step push-ups. When they dragged me home, I swore I would never go again. My sister (an athlete) was beaming, my wife was philosophical about the whole thing, my friend was ecstatic...and I was bone-tired and humbled to the core. Luckily they convinced me to give it a week and I did, and now as I look back I smile for it was truly one of the best decisions I ever made. I've trained all this time in classical Okinawan Goju, although I've had the chance to share training with friends in other styles and martial arts.
So this will be a diary blog in retrospect of those more than 30 years in classical karate training: the senseis, the dojos, the friends and experiences lived in the practice of this martial art.