There comes a time when you come up against a wall that you surely cannot climb no matter how many times you try, or how many times you reinvent yourself or redefine the situation. The wall is there and it defines who you are. To be fully aware of your limitations is crucial in the martial arts because it creates the space you must perforce inhabit. It is where you have to make do. For example, I can attempt to push the envelope and probably injure myself seriously or make do with what I have. I can waste my life trying to master the improbable, or perfect the possible.
This is not so for all people. There are those whose striving and dedication help them surpass all barriers of learning and skill. For those, where there is a will there’s a way. But there are those, like myself, who must face ever looming obstacles, some surmountable with effort, others that it would be sheer lunacy to even try. There are things that I used to be able to do that I just simply cannot do now. There are things that I could never do, no matter the tears and sweat expended.
And yet, there are things that I can do. So I do them, humbly.
As I grow older, I humbly assume my outer limitations, also my inner ones. By necessity, my inner space expands to fill the voids of my outer world. There, no limitations exist, things and thoughts run wild and free.
Watching this video of how to fold your Gi gave me a lot of flashbacks to a time long gone. A time of ritual, stances, bows, endless zazen. Why ritual? Where outside a dojo would you need all this stuff? Most of us live in societies where most of this oriental protocol would not only be foreign, but affected. It would ring false. I practice alone and yet I go through the dojo etiquette as if surrounded by many, the invisible many of my past and present. So I bow in respect for a time, my teachers, my style, for that space in time that I willingly carve out of the day, for the now.
There are martial lessons lurking behind these rituals. To open a door for others, to stand aside while they pass. To greet with my eyes. Body language. Soft as a ripple in a pond, pliable as grass in the wind, steadfast as the silent rock in the stream of things.
(This post owes a lot to the thoughtful collaboration and input of Sensei Gusi González, proofreading it for errors and helping in drafting the same. Most of this information can be found on his site http://chiido.org/index.php and Gusi allowed me to quote freely from it. The photos that accompany the post are also from his site.)
Quite some posts past in the blog I mentioned running into an old Goju teacher from the first Ochoa years of my training, Gusi González, whom I’ve referred to as the “soft sensei.” I knew of his whereabouts but hadn’t seen him for many years. We traded calling cards and promised to keep in touch. I later sent him a link to this blog. Soon after I received an e-mail where he voiced his concern about what I truly knew about the history and development of our school, particularly the shift from Shoreikan to Chi-I-Do. We agreed to meet and talk about this on his next trip to the Island and we did.
This post is the result of that conversation.
In essence, I pretty much got it all wrong. Myths and half truths came into sharper focus as I sat there listening to him in an Old San Juan diner.
In a nutshell, what Gusi had to say was this:
Luis Gandía Portela,Efraín Palmer Ramírez, Antonio Fornaris Rullán and Pedro J. González García (“Gusi”) were introduced to the Martial Arts in 1969. They were introduced to the Shoreikan Goju Ryu Okinawan Karate by Sensei Kimo Wall who came back to Puerto Rico that year, forming the core groupthat went on toestablish Goju Ryu on the Island. Kimo Wall had been an Isshinryu teacher in Puerto Rico when he was with the Marines, and had met Luis Gandía when he came one or two years before. Eventually he was stationed in Okinawa and started training Shoreikan Karate under GM Seikichi Toguchi's students. The first dojo was established on Eleanor Roosevelt Street, Hato Rey, in 1970.
In 1971, Sensei Kimo Wall brought Sensei Nobuharu Shinoda to Puerto Rico to help propagate the system on the island. Sensei Shinoda took over the dojo training and teaching until 1972, when Grand Master Seikichi Toguchi, Sensei Kow Loon Ong and Sensei Toshio Tamano visited Puerto Rico accompanied by the other instructors from the Island.
After training under the guidance of Grand Master Toguchi, Grand Master Matayoshi, and Sensei Kow Loon Ong, Puerto Rico instructors were invited to New York for an International Demonstration and Training in 1972.In 1973, Grand Master Seikichi Toguchi brought Grand Master Shimpo Matayoshi (an Okinawan Kobudo and Karate Master (6th generation) of the Okinawan Weapon Arts) to Puerto Rico. After training under the guidance of Toguchi, Matayoshi, and Senei Kow Loon Ong, the Puerto Rican Instructors were invited to New York for an International Demonstrayion and Training event in 1972.
The Shoreikan Dojo in New York, directed by Kow Loon Ong, left the organization.That same year after teaching and training in the Shoreikan Organization, Pedro and the Puerto Rico dojo left the organization for personal and political reasons.
In 1974, he and the other instructors from Puerto Rico traveled abroad and trained in Tokyo, Okinawa, Taiwan and India, in search of the roots of art and knowledge. They continued their relation with Sensei Kimo Wall, but he was having personal problems and only Sensei Kayo Ong was willing to continue to guide and instruct them on the art without any financial compensation and he then committed to teach them the full Goju Ryu syllabus, since he had learned it through Akira Kawakami. Matayoshi suggested that Gusi should follow Kow Loon Ong since hi smastery of technique and expertise was on par or even surpassed some teachers in Okinawa.
So the lineage of our school of Goju-Ryu in Puerto Rico is as follows by history and rank : (Kimo Wall and Shinoda, initial teachers) andthen, more formally: Toguchi-Matayoshi-Kawakami-Kow Loon Ong-Gandía-Fornaris-Palmer- (Gusi)Gonzalez.The second generation (1974) were René Pietri and Jorge Rodríguez. They were followed in 1975 by Angel Meléndez, Jorge Arzuaga, Jorge Gandía, Mimi Gandía, Angel Peña, and Julio Navarro. Then came Michael Rosslein, Enrique Santacana, Carlos Alvarado, Nelson Borrero, and Ramón Díaz. Afterwards came the generation of Gilberto Rodríguez, Carlos Alvarez, Carlos Alvarado, and Angel Santana, etc. All these generations became black belts under the influence, guidance, and dedication through the years on the part of Kow Loon Ong who continues to visit the Island and teach and continue the legacy of that original spirit that bean with Gandía, Palmer, Fornaris, and González back in the '70's
Most of this was going on right under my white belt nose. The climate change in the dojo was going on even in the years that I practiced there, unbeknownst to me. After all, I was just a white belt and not party to what went on behind the scenes. What most struck me as I sat there listening to Gusi was that in the early ‘70’s Puerto Rico was in fact a pioneer in the practice of Goju Ryu Karate outside Okinawa and that Puerto Rico was part of the formative stage that Okinawan Goju Ryu karate was undergoing as it was being exported worldwide.
Gusi told me that in those first years of training in the early ‘70’s the Goju curriculum given outside Okinawa stopped short of what we call the classic katas which then had to be taught by a 5th Dan. Kimo Wall had not yet learned the full kata syllabus, and thus the efforts to bring one to Puerto Rico, which led to the arrival of Shinoda. Kimo sent a letter to Toguchi about this need, which letter was“intercepted” by Shinoda, then secretary to Toguchi. Shinoda brought the letter to the attention of Toguchi, but interpreting it to mean that Kimo was asking for an English-speaking teacher from Okinawa. And guess who was chosen. So we have it that Shinoda came to the Island “under false pretenses.” Everybody here though he was a 5th Dan, including Kimo. Gusi surmises that he was not, the head instructor should know the whole Goju Ryu System from Saifa to Pichurin to be able to guide and instruct his students.Nonetheless, the caliber of training and number of students enrolled here caught Toguchi’s eye. There were at least five dojos: Ochoa, UPR, Caguas, San Lorenzo, and Mayaguez, all of them with at least 75-100 active students.
The only 5th degree black belt from Shoreikan at that time in North, Central and South America was Akira Kawakami, who came to New York due to financial and political problems in the Shoreikan /ex Goju Kai dojo of Thomas Bodie, but he finished the Goju Ryu syllabus up to Pichurin with his highest ranking students: Kow Loon Ong and Joseph Donovan. This led to his visit here the following year. Of course, it came out that Shinoda was not all he led others to believe, yet the school was one of the highest in students of the Shoreikan organization. Steps were taken to correct the matter, but not without consequences. Kimo felt slighted. It was his idea to bring Shoreikan to the Island and yet he was being shunted in favor of others. The school here backed Kimo, but he did not wanted to commit and GM Toguchi was very disappointed with him and did not wanted him in Shoreikan, the Puerto Ricans teachers learn about this when they went to Okinawa and had conversations with GM Toguchi and GM Matayoshi, who, in turn, introduced them to other high ranking teachers in the Goju Ryu and Matayoshi Kobudo organization.
The Ochoa Dojo proved too important in Toguchi’s eyes to leave it at the hands of either Kimo or Shinoda. After some give and take it was decided to strengthen the training of the highest ranking local students to form a cadre of instructors. The local school was so crucial in Toguchi’s plans that he was thinking of coming to stay on the Island himself. Imagine that! Shoreikan decided then to have the local senior students train in Okinawa and Japan to bring them up to par.
Needless to say, I was flabbergasted. It upset the cart of all I thought I knew about the Dojo, and about Kimo. But what I learned just changed the cast of characters and how the plot evolved, not the essence of what we practiced and continue practicing on the Island. Yet it did put things in a new light. But regardless of the ruptures and new beginnings, schools and sensei, Goju Ryu in Puerto Rico is basically traditional Okinawan in focus in training and outlook, with the differences residing on the emphasis of the particular sensei, whether Shoreikan (too many modern katas were added and the classics were not that important), Kodokan (changed many forms, added more forms and changed Matayoshi’s Kobudo system and katas), or Chi-I-Do (Emphasized classical katas, kept Matayoshi katas intact, preserving the essence of teaching Martial Arts). I practiced under all three.
Do kata until it disintegrates and you are left with nothing. Inhabit the house until the walls crumble.
At my age when they ask me what I derive from karate they have already taken stock of my paunch, drooping jowls, sallow skin, flaccid arms, sunken eyes, gray hair. What will this old bugger dare to say?
I just live in the kata of the everyday.
Fear, a barking dog in the dark, sitting stone still in a doctor’s office awaiting judgment. A prayer repeated over and over again in an empty church.
Peace, sitting in my sister’s living room watching the swaying famboyán tree.
Every human endeavor has its protocol, a vocabulary that is handed down, an alphabet from A to Z that must be committed to memory. Ideally, we grow from “baby talk” to full, articulated sentences. Any skip in the process leaves its gap. The wider and more numerous the gaps, the looser and weaker the structure. Nobody is born doing karate, one must be “reborn” into it. Anyone who has witnessed a birth can attest that it is a messy sight, a tearing away into the new, feet first, covered in bloody mucous, snipped away from the womb, spanked into one’s first scream. Can less be expected from a rebirth. My father introduced me to boxing when I was ten. He had learned as a Golden Glove Boxer in the 1930’s in New York. This was in the Canal Zone in Panama in the late 50’s, while my father was stationed in Ft. Clayton. Three times a week, in the late afternoons, he would put me through the paces: skip rope, speed bag, shadow boxing, the run around the block. He taught me the ropes: basic stances, the jab, the hook, the feint, chin in, the basic combinations. He was my father and he was my first sensei. A lot of what I am I owe to him, the good and the bad. For better and for worse, I am my father’s son. I competed into my 12th year. After that, I boxed and trained alone in a dinky little room. Dressed in my old and smelly boxing trunks. I trained, I read, and I wrote poetry. This pretty much summed up my teens in that dinky little room. Boxing served me well when I finally left the dinky room in my late teens to experience and learn the “ways of the world.” It kept me alive to see another day. It was as my father’s son that I first walked into a dojo halfway through my twenties. A new vocabulary, a rebirth, of sorts. My father asked to join me in karate, I declined, believing I’d be embarrassed. A decision I’ve regretted ever since. Regret play a major part in my curriculum vitae, it occupies much space on the page. So even today I shadow box in the dark seeking to be reborn again. Nobody said it was going to be easy, least of all him.
When we talk of “basics” in karate, what do we mean? When I read what other consider “basics” I find that they involve principles that have taken me years to develop. There are escalating levels of what one may deem basic in one’s training. What is “basic” for me as a black belt differs greatly from what was basic for me many moons ago as a white belt. There are tangents surely in what they intrinsically imply, but the mechanics are distinct. When I “return to the basics” in my training, what am I actually returning to? If I stand before a newly arrived student with my 30+ years in karate what “basics” do I teach: the basics I have learned through the years, or the ones he or she must learn that first day? Teaching is always a sobering experience. Where do I begin? Where I just left off, or where that person is standing? I must go back, put myself in their shoes. Those are the basics of which I speak. I must retreat back down that spiral to that first day. Closed fist, open hand. Breathing, walking. Dojo etiquette. Mechanics. Monkey see, monkey do. First things first. The “I know nothing” approach, the “humble” sensei, sounds nice and politically correct. But my “know nothing” is nothing compared to a new student’s “nothing.” He or she truly does not know anything. And the risk lies in falsely teaching them that their “nothing” is actually their first step in a spiritual quest. Dispense with the koans, teach the mechanics. Learning the ABC’s is not a philosophical discourse. The basic Goju stance for a white belt is a clumsy looking thing. All the clumsier in a white belt. I teach them how to close their fist, how to stand, how to breathe and walk, where to look and where not to look. But not as an invitation to dialogue. It is a “no questions asked” stage. Monkey see, monkey do. To teach anything beyond this is showing off, showboating under the guise of sharing. Only when a person truly accepts that they know nothing are they willing to learn. That white belt doing Gekisai ichi with barely two months of training may feign he or she knows, may ably fake it. But if I am able to stick my finger in his fist and undo it, he or she knows and has learned nothing. That is the “basics” I am talking about. So I walk slightly in front, close my fist and say “do as I do.” They must follow, I must lead. This is heavy shit. There precisely lies the humbleness: to assume the lead, set the example. Freaky shit.
Although now I am a “dojo of one,” I began and am a product of a dojo of many. In that sense, I was privileged to begin in a Dojo that was fully formed when I got there. By this I mean, a good sampling of ranks from white to black, with hierarchy, and linked to an established organization, which in my case was the Shoreikan Goju Ruy Karate of Seikichi Toguchi while he was still alive and kicking. It was a good size school of more than 30 to 40 students, plus instructors. Of course, the Dojo wasn’t always so. There was a beginning, and the beginning was a teacher and white belts. Dojos don’t come out of the blue; they begin with one sensei who must create a school out of nothing. Unless a sensei migrates with a core of instructors or is an offshoot of an organization close by, he or she must first create what will be this core. No easy task. This core will be the foundation of the Dojo. This first crop must be sowed well for therein lies the seeds of the future. Ideally, these first seeds will be heterogeneous, come in all sizes and temperament, their only common element being their zeal. It takes 6 months or more to “season” a white belt. A staggered entry of “whites” with no organization to absorb them results in a lot of “unseasoned” whites.
This brings me to the point of this post. If a sensei wants to create a school he or she must hibernate the idea of school and concentrate on creating the core. If he or she just wants disciples, 5 or 6 will do. Is a sensei with his or her close knit coterie of the chosen few a Dojo? No. Out of this group can come the Dojo, eventually. There is a difference in saying I study or am a student of Sensei so and so and saying I belong to a Dojo. I had the experience (as a black belt) of belonging to an ever-aborted Dojo. I was invited to practice with a sensei who ran a very small school where I hoped to learn from him and hone a few “classic” Goju katas. The price was belonging to the Dojo and helping out. Since he had no instructors and constantly admitted new students there was never enough sensei to go around. He gave everybody the same class. I ended up doing basic katas with one day students, six month students, and the occasional 10 or 15 year lapsed karatecas. And since he also wanted to go over the advanced katas with me, they all joined in too. Sounds democratic. But in reality it was anarchy and chaos. People got frustrated and left constantly. Funny thing was the sensei is a great karateca with a lot to teach. His philosophy of teaching undermined his school, constantly aborting all his best efforts. He should first have dedicated a year to creating a core group of students, say 6. Work this group to assume within a year his future core. Get them well started and seasoned. Invite guest instructors, recruit old lapsed green, browns, and blacks and bring them up to speed. In other words, invest, seed, harvest…and then open a dojo that can absorb new students weekly or monthly without holding back those in progress and not frustrating newcomers. The core. From which all else spirals and come forth.
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