Conversations with Gusi

(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 group that went on to establish 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) and then, 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.

Inhabit the Invisible House

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.

Joy, running into a friend from long ago.

Resignation, the perfect kata never attained.

Shadowboxing in the Dark

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.

The Core of a Dojo Pt. 2 : The Basics

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.

The Core of a Dojo Pt. 1

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.

A Dojo in the mind

For ZenHG and Shinzen Nelson

A Dojo is not a church, monastery or mosque in the sense that all who go there share a common belief that may or may not transcend their differences. Yet a Dojo may appear to have all the trappings, codes, protocols of conduct, and rituals that invite comparisons.

(Right off the bat I must clarify that I believe that in the best and broadest sense of the word, a Dojo is where a sensei, or school of martial arts, has decided to practice its art, and to impart the learning of that art to others.)

The fact that for the most part the martial arts had their origins in societies with philosophies closely linked to Zen Buddhist, Confucian or like systems of social and moral comportment meant that Dojos would reflect these in their organization, codes, and methods of teaching.

The practice of an art could seem to be like the practice of a religion, and there was a time when this divide did not exist: art was in the service of a faith. Art and religion use similar strategies still, the break was not as incisive as the one that came between religion and science where the boundaries are clearly and boldly drawn, where everything beyond the theoretical explanations of science becomes the proverbial “leap of faith.”

Ask any practitioner to speak of his or her art and the answer may seem like the words of a “religious zealot.” That close is Art and Religion in their effects on the practitioner. And herein lies the rub. It just sounds religious. When I talk of karate and poetry I “sound” religious because the transfigurative effects of their practice partake of similar vocabulary, symbolic and evocative. In other words, practice or do anything long enough and it is going to become a religion, an act of faith, a view of the world.

Of course, REALITY is the eternal party pooper. No dojo fits the ideal of the Dojo in the mind. No zen is as fluid and perfect as ZEN. And, of course, some will say that even this is Zen.

I practice karate, Okinawa Goju-Ryu, as seen through the eyes of Seikichi Toguchi, interpreted by Kimo Wall and Kow Loon Ong, and taught to me by their students: Gusi González, Jaime Acosta, Dionisio Pérez, etc. The specificity is important. Teachers, styles, time play a part. Influence and context.

The Las Cumbres Dojo (my last) was a dojo in the real world and yet ethereal in its evocations to what was lived before and after me. It was religious and earthly, noble and venal, honest and hypocritical. It was experience.

And experience, lived intensely, can seem religious too. But is it? No.

Despite the inevitable trappings of any art, religious and aesthetical, it must be learned and practiced in the rough and tumble system of trial and error. It is a “zigzaggedness” whose pattern can only be discerned, at best, as a belated afterthought.

And I say this fervently, almost religiously.

The sound of one hand clapping

I now train alone. Solo. I slowly diagrammed the available space in my very small living room and traced the trajectory of every kata in my Goju syllabus accordingly. It wasn’t easy and it took me some time before I was able to memorize my surroundings to the point where I could forget about them safely and not end up tripping over a rocking chair and flying headlong into my bookcase. But it wasn’t always so.
There was a time towards the end of my dojo experience when I had to allow an hour and a half to make the trek that involved taking a bus to the end of the line and then walking to a plaza to board a “pisicorre” (which is a local mode of transportation to the outer barrios), whose name literally means “step and run.” This was in late afternoons on weekdays and mornings on Saturday. I was able to do this because I was then working freelance. The problem always was hitching a ride back after 9pm when there was no viable public transportation. It was a necessary madness. All this stage transpired in my early 50’s. Life, if anything, was getting harder by the year. Serious injuries distanced me from practice (Terrazzo Tile Dojo) and eventually I had to leave freelancing and take my old “day job” back.
That was the end of those late afternoon treks, there was just no way I could make it back to dojo training even if I wanted to. In the intervening years I tried mixing practice in other small Goju dojos nearer my home but the experience proved to be not worth the effort. It was then I tried to practice at home in an outside terrace. I would do the full class, imagining I was in a dojo, the whole enchilada. I knew of the dangers of solo training and, sure enough, trying to simulate the energy of a full dojo alone in a darkened terrace brought problems of energy control. I didn’t have the protection of my fellow karateca’s energy fields around me. My energy flew around loose in the air and sometimes came down on me like a wallop from a 10th Dan hanshi.
I realized I could not go back to formal dojo training. The thought of giving up the practice of karate (once again) was not an option. I didn’t come so far and through so much shit to now let it all go to hell like so much else in my life. I had made too big an investment. Karate was as intrinsically threaded to my sense of self as writing is and has been. Surfing through the net and seeing others in similar predicaments and others who complemented their dojo practice with their own small home dojo setups, I slowly began considering practicing alone, if just to keep my hand warm, stay in the game so to speak.
And like I said, it wasn’t easy. In time all karatecas see that their practice slowly curves inward as a natural evolution from their young “outward” experience. Then an old sensei said, “Jorge, you’ve been in this a long time, this is just the next step.” This blog, my YouTube videos, it all came from this solo experience. I don’t miss the dojo much, although I appreciate the years and friendships, fully aware that without this foundation what I do now would not be remotely possible. I know now that I cannot go back to the old dojo because my dojo is right here, in this same space where I write this.
So now it all boils down to me. Alone I must do honor to my style of karate, to my teachers, and all whom I have practiced with. I must generate this commitment within myself. All the years and sweat, faces, and memories whir around me as I do kata in my living room dojo.
Rooted to the floor, it dances in my fingertips.