HIS Karate-Do

Wow, it’s October already (and sol hot/humid tonight!) so I suppose it’s time for another monthly note. I just read about Coach Shoji and his Wahine Volleyball team passing the 1,000 victory mark last week. It’s a testament to his coaching and recruiting abilities and his players, both current and past, praise his focus, consistency and life lessons they learned playing for him. I was also thinking that 1,000 wins is a testament to his ability to go through this process year after year, ever since he started way back in 1976 – such tenacity and longevity! There is only one other NCAA women’s volleyball coach who has reached this rare milestone; and I’m sure he shares many of the same abilities – not the least of which is, he has been coaching even longer than Coach Shoji. Folks sometimes think that longevity is a given…you do something, and voila, after so many years, you achieve longevity. Actually, depending upon the activity or task – like NCAA coaching – it can be a long haul. Longevity is so valued that they give out awards for it. I was let go from IBM Corp just six months short of making it [...]

Well it’s September, and the beginning of a new school year for kids. That and a couple of other things got me to thinking about certain themes that seem to run with the practice of Shotokan Karate-Do. One thing that seemed to distinguish the Shotokan senseis that I read about and got to practice under throughout the years was in the area of higher education. Perhaps it’s a minor thing, but the founder of our style, Master Funakoshi Gichin was not only a master of karate-do, he was also a….schoolmaster. Yes, he spent most of his days as a school teacher, practicing and teaching his beloved karate at night. In fact, one of the stories I’ve heard is that he gave up an opportunity to become a school principal to travel over to Japan proper at age 54, to answer a calling to spread the art to others. Whether that’s true or not, he certainly was the pebble that has created great ripples across the ocean. Today, there are millions of Shotokan practitioners around the globe today. His successor in spreading the art world-wide and guiding the JKA during its first thirty years was Master Nakayama Masatoshi. Interestingly, Master Nakayama [...]

Where does the time go? It’s July already, and the 4th of July or Independence Day here in the United States of America. On this day, the average person is thinking about hot dogs, barbecues, beer, fireworks, holiday sales, picnics, the beach, and so on. The purpose of the day, as we all know, is to celebrate the birth of our nation, from its humble beginnings some 233 years ago, when we declared our independence as a collection of 13 colonial states on the eastern portion of North America from what was then, the most powerful nation on the earth, Great Britain. Each of us starts our life, totally dependent upon others, primarily our parents. Unlike so many other species, we’re rather weak and helpless when we enter this world. I used to watch my pet fish (guppies) giving birth, and no sooner had the little curled up ball of a fry (baby fish) dropped from its mother like an aircraft dropping bomb, when it would suddenly uncurl into a tiny version of its mother and immediately swim away. It did this so quickly, that the “fry-ball” hadn’t even had time to touch the bottom of the tank. Similarly, colts [...]