HIS Karate-Do

When I was a kid growing up in Pearl City, folks used to say that PC had some of the best drinking water, straight from the tap. I don’t know if that’s true, but my usual way of slaking thirst was to go up to the faucet, cup my hand, and drink my fill of cool water, standing at the kitchen sink. Guess what? I never do that anymore. That was years before we worried about “stuff” in the tap water, decades before the advent of drinking from water bottles or having a high-tech filter affixed right onto the faucet. Nowadays, I fill my glass with chilled water straight from – my refrigerator dispenser (I change the filter cartridge every 6 months). My, how things have changed over the years, even the simple act of drinking water. Ironically, nowadays, beer drinkers would rather have their brew come straight from the “tap” versus from a bottle, haha. In a smooth segueway from slaking a parched, dry throat to quenching a thirsty karate mind, I now shift to the striking image of having a nice sip of water from…the fire hydrant! );0…I’m talking about the incredibly large body of “stuff” there is [...]

Way back in 1977, I was a brand new sales representative trainee for IBM Corp (International Business Machines), synonymous with computers and selectric typewriters. Back then, we also made a line of copiers, including our top of the line, the high-speed Series III Copier. One of the first tasks I was ever assigned as a trainee was to “babysit” a problematic Series III that we had recently installed at the local headquarters of a large international airline. My job was to sit near the machine and ensure that any problems or questions that arose were quickly addressed. In addition, it was a nice marketing technique and show of customer support to actually dedicate one of IBM’s representatives (yes, I wore a suit back then) to ensure client satisfaction. Actually, the copier worked with few jams or problems that day, but due to its speed and newness, much of the time, there would be a line of curious users who wanted to try out the new technology. For me, the most impressive event of a rather boring day was watching a tall, well dressed blond gentleman deftly and subtly work his way from the back of the line (some 7 or [...]

Just a quick note – If you access the following site: http://www.theshotokanway.com/interviewlinks.html , you’ll see a long list of interviews. The site is from a JKA style Shotokan group in England and is chockful of good karate information. Over the last few years, I’ve enjoyed reading interviews with a great many senior Shotokan instructors on the site, including many of the masters from the old JKA in Japan. Anyways, the most recent interview (2 parts) is with a very familiar instructor…Shihan Kenneth Funakoshi. I think most of you know that for many years, Shihan Funakoshi was the primary instructor for Sensei Wayne, Sensei Peter and myself. While we have trained with different sensei’s over the years, much of what we know about the art was first learned directly from him. Back in the 1970’s when we were young black belts, he led the grueling training for our special Yudanshakai group at the old Puck’s Alley dojo. We all trained directly under him throughout that decade in his special flavor of advanced and kumite conditioning. Later, in the 1980’s, we were additionally blessed to revist and strengthen our basics and intermediate techniques under his tutelage at the Mililani dojo. In fact, [...]